Free was the third ISP in France to offer Internet access without a subscription or a surcharged phone number, on 26 April 1999.

[10] Unlike its predecessors in the niche of access without subscription (World Online on 1999-04-01 and Freesurf [fr] on 1999-04-19), Free's offer was not restricted in time or number of subscribers.

The offer was able to launch as soon as the incumbent was forced to stop abuse of dominant position and to apply fair wholesale prices.

[37] On 26 June 2008, Maxime Lombardini [fr] and the mayor inaugurated Free's FTTH network in a district of Montpellier.

[33] In March 2008, Iliad made the commitment to cover Paris at 75% by the second half of 2009, and reiterated its goal to connect 4 million French homes to its own FTTH network by 2012.

[40][41] The Voiceband Dial-up internet access offer counts for a very small number of subscribers currently, as 98% of French homes were eligible for ADSL in 2006.

[42] Free began its activities with the famous free-of-charge Internet access, although data phone calls fees are not included.

According to a study published by Google at the RIPE meeting in October 2008, Free is probably the largest native IPv6 ISP in the World.

1 (Metropolitan France, un-bundled subscribers only) 1 (Metropolitan France, all subscribers since then) 15 (Austria, Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom, United States) 26 (Taiwan, Norway, Canary Islands, Jersey, Greece...) 49 (Turkey, Poland, Luxembourg, Russia, Japan...) 70 (Peru, Venezuela, South Korea, New Zealand...) 100 (India, South Africa, Laos, Colombia, Indonesia...) 103 (Morocco, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago) In 2003, Free introduced unlimited phone calls at no additional price, while other phone operators or ISPs charged per-minute fees for telephone calls.

[7] Access rights of television channels are applied securely without requiring any smartcard, thanks to the ARDP[60] protocol created by Free and submitted to the community through the IETF.

The latest revision is actually composed of two parts: Since August 2008, the parent company Iliad (including Free and Alice brands) is the second-largest ISP in France.

[63] Free was the second-largest French ISP until end June 2007, when competitor Neuf Cegetel acquired Club Internet [fr] (T-Online France).

[67] Free claims to be the first profitable ISP in France[4] and to have the lowest subscriber acquisition cost amongst French operators.

[39][73] In 2007, Free had the greatest EBITDA margin of the sector in Europe, was the only actor to gain market share in France and had a debt ratio 10 times lower than the industry average.

[75] On 3 January 2013 at 4pm in France, Free released a new firmware for its latest modem named "Revolution" which contained an advertisement blocker.

Since Free is one of the biggest ISP in France, worries started to raise of French hosting forums concerning the people's interest into Ad blockers in general.