The Edge browser will get a security improvement in the form of a built-in VPN powered by Cloudflare, according to a Microsoft support website.
The new VPN feature is dubbed "Microsoft Edge Secure Network" and is intended to perform similarly to Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 service, according to XDA Developers. When turned on, it encrypts all data and uses a virtual IP address to hide your location. Cloudflare will only gather diagnostic and support data from the service, which will be erased after 25 hours.
Secure Network is a free service, according to the support page, although data usage is restricted to 1GB per month. It's unclear whether Microsoft will offer a subscription-based mechanism to extend the data limit. Perhaps it will be included as a bonus with a current OneDrive or Microsoft 365 subscription?
Nobody, not even those who have joined up for the Microsoft Insider program, can try out the VPN yet, thus this help page appears to have arrived sooner than Microsoft planned.
Free VPN services aren't new, but the fact that Microsoft is included one by default in the browser that comes with every copy of Windows may worry competing VPN providers. Why would customers want to download another free VPN when they already have one on their computer? Because Microsoft Edge isn't exactly a popular browser and the built-in VPN's feature set is restricted, the impact on other services should be modest.