Microsoft Defender’s VPN feature will be killed off at the end of February

Microsoft is getting rid of the VPN offered through Microsoft Defender. As spotted by Windows Latest, the company updated its support pages for privacy protection, its built-in VPN, to notify users that the service will end on February 28. The VPN was bundled with Microsoft Defender, which is available to anyone with a personal or family Microsoft 365 subscription, and it offered private browsing by “routing your internet traffic through Microsoft servers,” up to the monthly data limit of 50GB.

In a statement about the decision posted on the support page, Microsoft said, “Our goal is to ensure you, and your family remain safer online. We routinely evaluate the usage and effectiveness of our features. As such, we are removing the privacy protection feature and will invest in new areas that will better align to customer needs.” Android users might still see the Microsoft Defender VPN profile in their settings after the expiration date, which they’ll need to remove manually if they want it gone. “Action is not required by Windows, iOS, and macOS users,” Microsoft notes.

The company also says this is the only feature getting killed off for now. According to Microsoft, “device protection and identity theft and credit monitoring (US) features will continue.”