The tech giant Microsoft has planned to introduce a built-in VPN feature with its Edge browser. Reportedly, this new VPN will be powered by Cloudflare and will offer limited free data to the users.
Microsoft Edge Built-In VPN
Reportedly, XDA-developers recently discovered a new Microsoft venture to arrive for the users shortly. As elaborated in their post, Microsoft plans to roll out a built-in VPN with its Microsoft Edge browser. (Just for comparison, Mozilla Firefox and Opera browsers already offer built-in VPN features.)
Sharing more about it in a dedicated post, Microsoft officials named this feature as “Edge Secure Network”.
As described, this new feature will serve as a dedicated browser VPN. Its security functionalities include encrypting browser traffic even when visiting HTTP websites and changing IP addresses and online locations. In this way, the feature shall prevent traffic interception and spying by third parties like the ISPs.
It’s important to understand that Edge Secure Network will serve as a typical browser VPN only, like third-party extensions. This feature won’t mask the device’s entire internet traffic. Rather it will only work with the Edge browser. But it will be a quick way for users to change their IP addresses, or for short browsing sessions with privacy.
Nonetheless, this feature won’t come entirely free. Instead, Microsoft claims to offer 1GB of free data every month to the user.
And, to monitor this usage, Microsoft asks users to sign in to their Edge browsers to use Secure Network. In turn, it also compels the tech giant to retain users’ data for a certain period. As stated in its post,
A Microsoft account is required to access Microsoft Edge Secure Network and is retained to keep track of the amount of Microsoft Edge Secure Network data that is used each month. This data retention is necessary to provide 1GB of free Microsoft Edge Secure Network service and to indicate when the data limit has been reached.
Feature Available As “Preview”
Microsoft explains that this new feature arrives in partnership with Cloudflare.
Currently, the feature is available as “Preview” to limited users for feedback and improvements.
Users can find this feature in their Edge browsers via Settings > Turn on Microsoft Edge Secure Network. Enabling it would require the user to sign in (which will also activate “sync”). Then, it will automatically deactivate upon closing the browser and would require manual input to reactivate with the next Edge session.
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