Proton VPN Review

Proton VPN offers a kill switch in its apps. Kill switches are critical because they prevent your data from leaking when your VPN disconnects unexpectedly. Aside from a regular kill switch, Proton VPN also has a permanent kill switch. When activated, this feature stops your device from connecting to the internet altogether unless you’re connected to a VPN server. 

Proton VPN offers secure core servers, which route your internet through two servers — what many VPNs call double-hop servers. However, a secure core VPN connection always routes your traffic through one of three countries with strong privacy laws: Iceland, Switzerland and Sweden. 

Proton VPN has ensured that the secure core servers are in locations with high physical security. For example, the Swedish server is in an underground data center, while the one in Iceland is housed on a former military base. 

Proton VPN adds extra security by committing to perfect forward secrecy. This feature changes your encryption keys each time you connect to a server. On the off chance that a hacker decrypts your VPN traffic, they’ll be able to access information only for a particular session. You can learn more about this tool in our perfect forward secrecy article.

You’ll find Proton VPN’s split tunnelling feature useful if you need a VPN only for specific apps. It lets you route some apps or IPs through the VPN tunnel while excluding others. 

Proton VPN’s split tunnelling comes in two modes: normal and inverse. With normal mode, all apps use the VPN except the ones you select. With inverse mode, only chosen apps use the VPN.

Port forwarding lets users open ports that external devices or servers can access to direct incoming traffic. This tool makes P2P torrenting faster and is useful for hosting online games. Port forwarding is currently available only for paid users of Proton VPN’s Windows and Linux apps. 

Here’s an easy-to-follow guide to downloading and installing Proton VPN on your device. 

1. Download the Proton VPN App for Your Device

   Visit your device’s app store and search for “Proton VPN.” Alternatively, visit Proton VPN’s website, head to the “download” page and click on the app for your device.

   

2. Install the VPN on Your Computer

   Find and click on the downloaded Proton VPN disk image. Follow the installation prompts to finish the setup process.

   

3. Connect to a Server

   Open the Proton VPN app and connect to a server. You can use the “quick connect” button to connect to the fastest server. You can also scroll through the server list on the left-hand side of the home screen or explore the server map on the right-hand side.

   

Proton VPN’s Windows and macOS apps are identical. At first glance, the app might seem cluttered, but it’s actually well organized. Most features, such as the kill switch, NetShield and port forwarding, are on the home screen. You don’t have to sift through different menus to find the various options.

Finding and connecting to a Proton VPN server is straightforward. The most obvious option is the “quick connect” button. If you want a specific server, you can scroll through the server list on the left-hand side of the screen. The other option is the server map, which is reminiscent of NordVPN’s. Hover over the server locations until you find the one you want.

Another impressive Proton VPN feature is that it displays information about each server connection. Users get to see the server load, which indicates whether a server is overcrowded. The display information also includes upload and download speeds, so you can see how fast any server is. 

Proton VPN’s mobile apps look just like its desktop apps but differ in the way they’re organized. Rather than the features being displayed on the left-hand side of the home screen, they are arranged at the bottom. Still, they’re easy to navigate and explore.

Proton VPN works on phones, computers and tablets. It’s compatible with Windows, Android, iOS, macOS and Linux devices. You can also connect Proton VPN to your Chrome browser to protect your online traffic, and it has apps for Android TV and Apple TV.

Proton VPN offers 10 simultaneous connections. This feature makes Proton VPN ideal if you use multiple devices or want to share a VPN with friends and family. That said, some VPNs like Surfshark do much better by offering unlimited simultaneous connections. 

Proton VPN has monthly, yearly and two-year plans for two different VPN tier options: VPN Plus and Unlimited. 

The VPN Plus $9.99 monthly plan is cheaper than NordVPN’s and Surfshark’s monthly plans. However, those VPNs offer steeper discounts when you commit to a long-term subscription. For example, Surfshark’s two-year Starter plan costs $2.19 per month, whereas its monthly plan costs $15.45.

Proton VPN Unlimited bundles the VPN with other premium Proton services, including Proton Mail, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, Proton Pass and Proton Wallet. The monthly, annual and two-year Unlimited plans cost $12.99, $9.99 and $7.99, respectively, which offers excellent value for money. Read our Proton Drive review and our Proton Mail review for more details. 

Proton VPN’s free plan is dependable and safe, unlike some of the worst free VPNs. However, there are limitations to the plan to encourage users to subscribe to the premium plans. The free plan offers one device free, unlimited access to servers in five countries: the Netherlands, Japan, Romania, Poland and the United States. 

Proton VPN’s free plan doesn’t allow you to select your server, instead randomly selecting the server for you. You’ll have to click the “change server” button to switch to a different server. It will also prioritize servers closer to your location. So if you live in Europe but want a U.S. IP address, you might have to try changing servers several times before you connect to a U.S. location.

There’s also a cooldown period of 90 seconds between each server change, during which time you can’t change servers. We noticed that the cooldown period increases the more you attempt to change servers during the day. 

Proton VPN isn’t part of our automated VPN tests, so we ran manual tests from Accra, Ghana. We used Ookla’s speedtest.net to measure latency, download speeds and upload speeds. First, we checked our speeds without a VPN to get benchmark values. Then, we connected to Proton VPN servers on different continents and checked our speeds again. 

The results show that Proton VPN is a good choice for streaming, downloading large files and any other download-related activity. It retained 90% of our initial speeds in close locations and an average of 76% of our initial speeds across the board. 

Proton VPN fared OK regarding upload speeds. It maintained at least 60% of our upload speeds in most locations. The South African server was an outlier, preserving barely 16% of our upload speeds. However, a lot of VPNs struggle with that location. 

Overall, Proton VPN seems like a decent choice for uploads, but it won’t be as fast as the likes of NordVPN. You can see our NordVPN review to learn just how well it performs.

Latency is another area where Proton VPN offers a decent showing. Our latency rose by an average of 422%. If you look at our VPN speed comparison, you’ll notice many of them have four-digit latency percentage increases. Proton VPN’s latency makes it a fair pick as a VPN for gaming. 

Proton VPN has removed OpenVPN and IKEv2 support from its macOS and iOS apps. It claims to have done this because of security concerns about Apple’s native IKEv2 implementations. 

We used Wireshark to check whether Proton VPN encrypts user traffic. As you can observe in the screenshot above, the text on the right-hand side of the image is unintelligible. This indicates that Proton VPN’s encryption works as expected. 

We connected to Proton VPN’s New Jersey server and conducted a DNS leak test using IPLeak.net. As you can see in the image above, only the Proton VPN IP address and DNS servers were on display. This shows that Proton VPN hides users’ original IP and DNS requests. 

Our WebRTC leak test shows that Proton VPN doesn’t suffer from WebRTC leaks. Such leaks occur when a browser exposes your IP address while setting up video or audio communication. 

Proton VPN doesn’t log information that can be traced back to individual users. It doesn’t use RAM-only servers, like many of the best VPNs for privacy, but it argues that its full-disk encryption serves the same purpose — even if a hacker or authorities gain access to Proton VPN’s servers, they won’t find enough information to identify any users. 

We combed through Proton VPN’s privacy policy, and we can confirm that it doesn’t log information that can be traced back to users. This includes your IP address, session length, location and internet activity. The only information Proton VPN asks for is your email address and technical data for support. 

In 2022, Proton VPN commissioned annual audits of its no-logs policy. In July 2024, Securitum, a security audit company, reviewed Proton VPN’s infrastructure and security-side operations. The audit report confirmed that the VPN doesn’t collect or store sensitive user data or internet activity data. 

Another impressive feature of Proton VPN is that its code is open source. This allows volunteer researchers to examine the code and point out if any logging is taking place. So far none has been found. 

Proton VPN has a warrant canary that provides updates on the number of user information requests it has received and how many it has denied. So far, it has denied all requests. 

One notable incident occurred when a Swiss court allowed a foreign country to subpoena Proton VPN’s data logs. The VPN could not comply because it didn’t have any information to share — a testament to its no-logs policy. 

Proton VPN can unblock Netflix. We connected to its Texas server and attempted to open Netflix U.S. from Ghana. Proton VPN bypassed the geoblock and opened Netflix’s U.S. library on the first try. We did the same for Netflix’s Japanese library and accessed it without hassle. This is not a surprise, as Proton VPN is one of the best VPNs for Netflix.

Proton VPN’s free servers can also unblock Netflix. However, because the free plan randomly selects servers, you might have to sift through multiple servers to get the right one for your specific Netflix library. 

Proton VPN can unblock many of the major streaming platforms, including Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Disney Plus and HBO Max. We didn’t need to sift through multiple servers to access them. Thanks to Proton VPN’s fast download speeds, we were able to stream movies and series from the major streaming platforms without lag. 

Proton VPN has a decent server footprint on every continent. Most of Proton VPN’s servers are in Europe, covering nearly all the countries on that continent. That said, it’s good to see that Proton VPN also has numerous servers in the Middle East and Africa — locations that VPNs typically overlook. 

Proton VPN offers email support, but you’ll have to fill out a form with many fields, including your OS version, platform, Proton VPN version and username. If you want to get personalized support without filling out the form, email [email protected]. We sent a message via email and received a response within two days.

Only paid users can access Proton VPN’s live chat. You’ll have to log in to your Proton VPN account to access the live chat widget. Unfortunately, the live chat agents took a while to respond. We had to wait about five minutes to get a response to our question, despite being first in line.

We sent another message and the live agent took about three minutes to respond. However, the answer was helpful and insightful.