# How to Password Protect PDF for Free Online? Best Methods
In today’s tech world, securing document data is becoming a new challenge for professionals and businesses. Whether you’ve confidential or ordinary PDFs such as financial records, business proposals, audit reports, legal contracts, or policies, these documents need protection to prevent direct unauthorized access. To do so, many of you search for how to password protect PDF for free online. Unlike the costly paid solutions like Adobe Acrobat, there are various free websites for securing PDFs with protection for free. Now, let’s find them below.

# What is the Need to Protect PDF With Password?

PDFs are among the most versatile and handy document formats. It is popular as a business document file which is mostly preferred by professionals to share, store, and archive vast information. Unfortunately, PDFs are simpler to access and view, providing opportunities for malicious actors to open or damage the information.

To protect the document, there are two major protections applied to the PDF i.e. user and owner restrictions. Using the user's or open password, you can secure the entire document with a custom password, preventing unauthorized viewers from accessing the data in the absence of a password. To control the action, owner protection is used which stops users from editing, printing, and copying the content. Here are the benefits of protecting the PDFs with a passkey:

* **Ensure Data Confidentiality:** Protecting valuable documents with passwords ensures that only legitimate users can open, view, and access the PDF file. It is mainly used on legal contracts, financial statements, etc, to maintain confidentiality.

* **Safeguard Document Against Editing:** Sharing PDFs passwordless can unlock the chances of data modification, tampering, editing, content copying, and more. Therefore, it is essential to use the protection for document security.

* **Compliance With Data Protection Act:** Many industries need to follow data protection laws and regulations. Here, password protect PDF for free allows you to restrict the document while meeting the privacy standards.

Overall, these are the common reasons to protect PDFs from digital threats and harm. Now, let’s dive to protect PDF for free using online services.

# 4 Best Ways to Password Protect PDF for Free

If you’re wondering how to secure PDF for free, here comes the need for online PDF protecting tools. These solutions are free for use, allowing users to safeguard the document from unauthorized actions, making it a tamper-proof file. Additionally, these services are handly, ensuring data protection without hassle. Now, take a look over how password protect PDF online free:

**1. iLovePDF - Quick and Free Solution to Protect PDFs**
**2. Smallpdf - Reliable Platform for Securing the Documents in Batch Mode
3. PDF2 Go - Password Protect PDF Document for Free
4. PDF24 Tools - Secure the PDFs With Strong Passwords**

Now, let’s learn about these tools in a detailed manner.

# iLovePDF to Password Protect PDF for Free & Quickly

To secure PDF for free, iLovePDF is one of the ultimate choices, especially used for online PDF management. It provides a range of basic to advanced features for converting, protecting, merging, and unlocking. To use this handy or portable tool, you won’t need to install any offline or third-party applications as these are available on the web browser. Moreover, you can access this free tool on any desktop or mobile device for protecting your document for free.

Here are the steps to password protect PDF online free using iLovePDF:

1. Visit iLovePDF on your computer.
1. Choose the “**Select PDF File**” feature to upload a file.
1. After this, enter the desired passkey and press Lock.
1. Lastly, download the protected document for free.

Overall, this software works efficiently to secure PDFs with passwords. To run this free software, you don’t need to sign up on the website. So, try this go-to website for protecting valuable documents. Despite these benefits, there are some flaws that you need to keep in mind:

* Online tools like iLovePDF raise security concerns like data privacy. Moreover, this tool can extract information from your sensitive document.

* The free version of this tool offers limited features. Additionally, you need to look for the upgraded plan for the batch process.

# Smallpdf to Password Protect PDF Online & Free

Like iLovePDF, Smallpdf is yet another cloud-based website, allowing users to manage their PDFs like a pro. This professional tool helps in conversion, editing, protecting, and merging the document. Moreover, if you want to password protect PDF for free, you can choose Smallpdf. This tool offers a user-friendly interface and easy-to-navigate feature for protecting the document errorlessly. Here is the stepwise guide to secure the PDF online using Smallpdf:

1. Open Smallpdf on your PC.
1. “**Choose Files**” to browse and add the document.
1. Now, pick the protection type and add the password.
1. Lastly, download the protected PDF file.

Smallpdf is one of the popular options used by professionals, businesses, and even students for securing sensitive documents. This is a simple software that reduces dependency on third-party apps. On the other hand, online services contain high risk to your confidential document, take a look below:

* It offers basic features for PDF protection. Unfortunately, this security can be violated by online tools.

* This tool doesn’t adhere to the data protection law or security standards. Therefore, there are high chances of data tampering and exposure.

* If you have confidential data, we won’t recommend you choose this tool for securing the PDFs.

# PDF2Go to Password Protect PDF for Free and Easily

PDF2Go is a free online tool for securing PDFs. Additionally, this tool allows you to convert, edit, merge, compress, and lock the file. This web-based platform is a quick and simple tool for protecting PDFs for free. To access this tool, you don’t need to sign up or install any application. Additionally, it allows you to impose owner and user protection at once. Here are the steps to secure PDF for free using PDF2Go:

1. Go to PDF2Go website.
1. “**Drag & Drop**” the desired file.
1. After this, set the password security > **Start**.

In just 3 steps, you can secure your valuable PDFs using PDF2Go tool. Moreover, it supports cross-platform accessibility and batch processing to ensure seamless document protection. However, there are a few limitations, you need to know before using this tool:

* If you’re handling confidential data, this free online tool can lead to data loss and compromise instead use the offline and secure software.

* The free edition of this tool offers several restrictions like file size and display ads. Hence, you need to upgrade the plan to access the tool without these issues.

# PDF24 Tools to Password Protect PDF Online

PDF24 Tools is a free web-based solution that is available for desktops as well. This pro tool offers feature-rich options for editing, protecting, compressing, merging, etc, the PDF document. To use this tool, you just need to upload your document and enable the security feature. In this way, you can prevent the chances of data modification and tampering for free. Here are the simple steps to follow for protecting PDFs online using PDF24 Tools:

1. Open PDF24 Tools on your system.
1. “**Choose Files**” to add the desired files.
1. Now, enable the security and lock the document.

Of course, PDF24 Tools is the go-to choice for securing the document for free and online. On the other hand, it can raise security concerns, especially when uploading sensitive documents like financial records, legal documents, and more. Now, read the drawbacks mentioned below:

* There is no advanced encryption security for protecting the PDF document.

* This online tool is capable of extracting and misusing confidential information.

* It is free with limited features.

# Best Way to Password Protect PDF for Free

Previously, we have provided the 4 best online free tools for protecting PDFs. Since these tools can cause data loss and modification, look for reliable solutions like **SysTools [PDF Lock](https://www.systoolsgroup.com/pdf/lock/)**, one of the advanced software for protecting sensitive content with robust security. Moreover, this tool supports both user and owner protection, ensuring seamless data protection. So, use the demo version of this software to explore the wide range of features.

# Concluding Words

In this guide, we have shared 4 online tools to password protect PDF for free. These solutions aren’t safe when protecting confidential data. Here, choose the SysTools PDF locking solution, one of the highly trusted and advanced ways to password protect the document in batch mode without any modification or tampering.