Named “Edge Secure Network”, Microsoft is currently testing the VPN service supported by Cloudflare and says it will make it available to the public as part of a security upgrade. When enabled, Edge Secure Network should encrypt users’ web traffic so that ISPs can not collect browsing information that you would rather keep private, such as health-related searches or just weird questions. The new feature will also allow users to hide their location, allowing them to browse the web using a virtual IP address. It also means that users could access content that has been blocked in their home countries, such as Netflix or Hulu. However, this free service has a downside. Data usage is limited to 1 GB per month and users will need to be logged in to a Microsoft account so that the company can, ironically, monitor their usage. Microsoft adds that while Cloudflare will collect support and diagnostic information from the service, the company will permanently get rid of this data every 25 hours. While the feature is still under development and not yet available for early testing, Microsoft has explained how users could try a preview. This suggests that it could soon be released on one of the Microsoft Edge Insider channels first, which users can download and subscribe to here. Once done, you can try the preview version by opening Edge, going to Settings and more, and clicking Secure Network. Click “Secure Network” to activate the VPN service. Image: Microsoft At this point, users will be prompted to sign in or create a Microsoft account. Once this is done, a fixed shield icon will appear in the browser, indicating that Microsoft Edge Secure Network is now enabled. It will be disabled after the user closes the browser. Microsoft is one of the many browsers that offer some kind of VPN service. Opera also comes with a free but more popular browser like Mozilla offering only one paid VPN service, like Google Chrome, thus potentially helping to improve the Edge value proposition.
