Firefox is getting a built-in VPN, and Mozilla wants you to test it

Mozilla Firefox recently grabbed a lot of attention when it earned itself a special mention in TIME's Best Inventions of 2025 for building the "shake to summarize" feature. The browser received another update today too, bringing several long-requested features. Now, Mozilla is testing yet another capability that will likely please many customers.

As spotted by The Register, Mozilla is soliciting beta testers for a built-in VPN in Firefox. Although it is still in early stages of development, the functionality is expected to be placed next to the search bar. This will be a separate product from the existing Mozilla VPN, with the key differentiator being that the built-in VPN service will be free.

If you're thinking that the built-in VPN kills the purpose of the existing standalone VPN, that's not the case because the former will be tied to the browser, while the latter can be used on up to five devices.

Mozilla's development approach is incremental, where it wants to start with a basic version of the VPN and then slowly add new features to it while gauging feedback. It is expected to land on desktop, followed by a mobile counterpart.

The interesting part about this is that your VPN will default to the server that has the best performance, which means that you might not be able to use it for regional masking in some cases, at least in the initial state.

Mozilla will show pop-ups to random Firefox users, inviting them to beta test the software, but customers will have the option to dismiss the invite or even remove the VPN from the toolbar after accepting the invite.

Of course, given that this is a beta test, Mozilla will be collecting some logs to monitor the performance of the VPN. However, it has assured users that it will only collect necessary data, aggregate it to anonymize users, and delete it after three months.

Source

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Posted Wednesday 15 October 2025 at 4:45 am AEST (my time).

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