Microsoft Defender VPN on Mac and iPhone will stop working on Feb 28

If you’re using the Microsoft Defender VPN on Mac or iPhone as part of your Microsoft 365 subscription, there’s bad news. The company has revealed in a support document that the privacy feature will cease to work at the end of this month …

While the company doesn’t offer an explicit explanation, it seems to clearly hint that not enough people were using it.

The privacy protection (VPN) feature within Defender is going away February 28, 2025 […]

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.

The move was spotted by Windows Latest.

For those unaware, Microsoft Defender VPN is one of the lesser-known features because it was exclusive to Microsoft 365 subscribers in the United Kingdom, United States and US territories. It never rolled out across the world.

While it did offer privacy protection, it was never any use for those aiming to circumvent geo-blocks on things like streaming video services. That’s because, unlike services like NordVPN, you didn’t get to choose which server it used – it just picked one close to you.

Image: 9to5Mac collage of images from Microsoft and Sincerely Media on Unsplash