Proton has really improved its skills, too, becoming a reliable provider for getting around geo-restrictions when you’re abroad. In short, you don’t have to worry about waiting to be connected if you’re in a hurry to turn on ProtonVPN, and then afterwards you can just leave it working in the background knowing it won’t slow down your internet connection. But even if it hadn’t, our speed testing witnessed some of the most eye-catching OpenVPN speeds around. That bodes well for Proton’s future proofing. The most significant of those in recent times was WireGuard, which has now been fully rolled out. Its server network has shot from a few hundred to nearly 2,000 (still less than most, but heading in the right direction) and it has made notable improvements to its clients and apps, adding new features and support. Over the last months and years, Proton has been a VPN provider on a mission. Of all the VPNs we reviewed in our latest tests, ProtonVPN is the one that improved most noticeably and is deserving of its place within our five top VPN services.
This business model is ideal for a free VPN, since it does not invade your privacy.The biggest climber in our VPN review charts Instead, the VPN generates revenue from its paid VPN, with these paying customers offsetting the costs of running the free service. Unlike many free VPNs, ProtonVPN Free does not make money by collecting and selling user data. The company is active in the privacy community, making donations to protect digital freedom in Hong Kong, and even influencing Swiss surveillance law. The VPN is provided by the same team as the highly-respected encrypted email service, ProtonMail. ProtonVPN is a very trustworthy and reputable VPN service. This, along with ProtonVPN’s private minimal-logs policy, means that nothing you do while connected to ProtonVPN Free can be linked back to you. This allows you to benefit from some of the world’s strongest privacy laws, which are outside of EU data laws and the 14 Eyes surveillance alliance. ProtonVPN also operates under the jurisdiction of Switzerland.
The connection data that is collected is used to protect user accounts from password brute force attacks, and also to determine that nobody else is using your account. The logging policy is as close to no-logs as you can get without sacrificing VPN server performance. The privacy policy for the paid version of ProtonVPN also applies to ProtonVPN Free. Read our review of ProtonVPN’s premium version But, it can’t compete with the paid version in terms of torrenting and streaming. Overall, ProtonVPN Free secures public WiFi connections and anonymizes your web traffic cost-free. Moreover, the free VPN can’t bypass Netflix and other streaming geo-blocks, and it blocks torrenting traffic. There are only three free server locations available, and the VPN only allows one simultaneous connection per account, too. However, we can’t ignore ProtonVPN Free’s several limitations. The free app doesn’t require any payment details on signup, and it doesn’t feature any ads. Out of hundreds of free VPNs we’ve tested, ProtonVPN Free is the only safe free VPN with an unlimited data allowance.Ĭombined with a privacy-friendly logging policy and AES-256 encryption, ProtonVPN is one of the best free VPNs available. We tested every aspect of this free VPN to create the most comprehensive ProtonVPN Free review.
ProtonVPN was founded in 2017 and is operated by the company behind the encrypted email service ProtonMail.įrom the images of its underground Swiss data centers, to its regularly updated transparency report, ProtonVPN wants users to feel safe using its free product.īut are ProtonVPN’s claims of “transparency,” “honesty,” and “security” true? Do free customers get the same level of online security and privacy as its paid subscribers?