Last Updated on November 18, 2023 by VPNPioneer
Pro
- 55 Countries
- 1300+ Server
- 10 Gbps Capable Servers
Contra
- Above Average Price
VPN is a product used for hiding your identity through a public network. Why do you need VPN? Because there are various malicious contents and hackers in the network you are using. So, along with enjoying any restricted content in any country you can also stay hidden from all these dangerous components. Numerous numbers of VPN services are available across the globe right now. Among which Proton VPN is one.
The story of Proton VPN began in CERN in 2014. Several scientists, engineers and developers are behind this VPN product. Now there are 1318 servers in 55 countries around the world. What facilities you will get using this VPN will get to you by reading through this review. So hold on tight.
Comparison
ProtonVPN | PrivateVPN | HolaVPN |
Visit |  |  Visit |
| 1318 VPN servers | 200+ VPN servers | 1,000+ VPN servers |
| Highest Speed (up to10 Gbps) | Super Fast Speed | Super Fast Speed |
| 10 Devices | 6 Devices | 10 Devices |
| 55 Countries | 63+ Countries | 190+ Countries |
| Windows, iOS, Android, MacOS, Linux More+ | Chrome, Firefox, Windows, iOS, Android, MacOS, Kodi, More+ | Chrome, Firefox, Windows, iOS, Android, MacOS |
| Tested with Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu & HBO (for Plus and Visionary plans) | Tested with Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu & HBO | Tested with Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu & HBO |
| Follow this Link for Free Plan | Follow the Link to save 66% | Follow the Link for Basic Plan |
| Dedicated VPN Available | Dedicated VPN Available | Dedicated VPN for Premium Plan |
| Highest Strength Encryption | Secure Encryption | Best Encryption |
| 8.00$ | 2.50$ | 2.99$ |
| 30 Days Money Back | 30 Days Money Back | 30 Days Money Back |
| Read Full Review Here | Read Full Review Here | Read Full Review Here |
Review Video
Streaming Test
As a Plus user, I have used this VPN service and found really smooth streaming. The shows on HBOmax were significantly seamless. I would highly recommend you this VPN as this not only gives you the strongest encryption and safety but also superb experience in streaming.
Features and Encryption
Secure Core Servers
There are 55 countries with 1318 servers of Proton VPN around the world. Among which 89 are secure core servers. This is available to Plus Plan users of the Proton VPN. For extra safety, these secure servers are fully owned and operated by them.
There are 1222 Plus servers in 55 countries which are available to Plus users. This server has streaming support, adblocker(netshield), support for file sharing protocols, blocking ads, routing through Tor network support. And also, the speed is 10 Gbps maximum.
Proton VPN has 396 Basic servers across 40+ countries. This is available to Basic and Plus Plan users. It has adblocking and p2p file sharing protocol support.
Apart from all these there are Free servers. There are 23 free servers in 3 countries available to the Free users who cannot afford purchasing a plan. This plan has medium speed.
This is how they respond when asked about the functionality of Secure Core Servers:
“Secure Core allows us to defend against this threat to VPN privacy by passing user traffic through multiple servers. When you connect to a server in a high-risk jurisdiction like the US, your traffic will first go through our Secure Core servers. Therefore, even if an attacker monitors our servers in the US, they would only be able to follow the traffic back to the edge of our Secure Core network, thus making it far more difficult to discover the true IP address and location of ProtonVPN users.”
Strict No Logs Policy
According to Swiss Privacy Law, no data of users should be kept to be seized by the government later. This is exactly what followed by the Proton VPN also. No user data is logged. So, safety and privacy ensured.
High Speed connection
This Proton VPN has high speed connection of up to 10 Gbps. This speed of Proton VPN connectivity is expanding day by day as scientists and engineers are working out behind it. Moreover, Proton VPN also uses tactics to get over cpu limitations like, single threading and cpu overloading. For this, Proton VPN uses multithreading and redistribution of processes across multiple threads.
Proton VPN also uses shorter paths algorithm to get the shortest routing path for connection of the Proton VPN network across distant countries. This tactic is known as VPN Accelerator since this tactic increases the speed ravishingly.
Packet forwarding is another thing done by the Proton VPN for increasing its connection speed. Forwarding packets through normal packet processing paths, as known traffic, they simultaneously increase connection speed with lower latency.
Open Source and Audited Apps
Proton VPN has their apps on open source and audited. You can find their code in Github and their audit data also gets releases from SEC consult. Anyone can criticize and view and examine their code. So, this VPN can be called one of the most transparent VPN Service.
Adblocker (netshield)
Netshield is an adblocker available to users using Proton VPN which works by blocking malicious contents, spams etc. from accessing your devices. Once you get connected to ProtonVPN, your DNS requests are encrypted to prevent DNS leaks in order to not to expose your browsing history.
Netshield offers 3 levels of protection:
- Don’t Block
- Block Malware only
- Block malware, ads and trackers
By default, ‘Block Malware’ is selected. You can change this selection later on any platform. Clicking on the shield icon lets you control the shield protection. Your connection will be reestablished if you are already connected to a VPN server and change your NetShield settings. During this time, ProtonVPN will enable Kill Switch automatically to prevent DNS leaks. Proton VPN will ask for your permission to make reconnection or disconnection if you adjust netshield while you are connected. Proton VPN Adblocker Netshield connection can also be controlled by the Linux CLI users via CLI Interface on Linux computers.
Strong Encryption
Proton VPN uses only the highest strength encryption to protect your Internet connection. This means all your network traffic is encrypted with AES-256, key exchange is done with 4096-bit RSA, and HMAC with SHA384 is used for message authentication.
Forward Secrecy
The encryption done maintaining such a procedure that the encrypted data cannot be decrypted later. This way privacy of your connection remains stable. They have selected their cypher suites very carefully. With each session, a new encryption key is generated by Proton VPN, so decryption of your encrypted data is almost impossible.
Strong VPN Protocols
Using Proton VPN, you can be sure that your VPN connection will not ever be compromised since the connection is maintained by strong protocols arranged by this VPN – IKEv2/IPSec and OpenVPN.
Physical Security of the Servers
The secure core servers are stored safely underground and the other at a high security datacenter outside of Zurich requiring biometric access. Indeed, Proton VPN is way ahead in thinking of the safety and security of their consumers by providing not only secure connection but also protecting their secure core servers.
Full Disk Encryption
All Proton VPN servers are protected by full disk encryption. This encryption system not only protects the software in it but also configuration settings and data. Even if encryption key is compromised, attackers will not be able to access the data on it crossing this encryption system.
Trusted
This Proton VPN is one of the most trustworthy VPN service until today. When you browse internet and do sensitive stuffs like office emails or sharing credentials, it’s a matter that you have a trustworthy network connection which no one can attack or intrude. No interruption is allowed in the middle of office presentations, right?
Proton VPN works the best in there being the most trustworthy VPN of yours. Such a safe and secure and hardcore stable connection provider is definitely hard to find.
DNS Leak Prevention
Proton VPN protects your privacy by sending DNS routing through an encrypted tunnel and also not depending on any third party DNS providers.
Kill Switch and Always-on VPN
Kill Switch and Always-on feature is something which not only secures your connection but also protects your identity from revealing by securing your IP addresses. Kill Switch disconnects the connection in an interrupted event and Always-one reestablishes the connection automatically saving your private data.
Tor over VPN
Proton VPN comes with Tor support built-in. Through Proton VPN servers that support Tor, you can surf your ways through the Tor anonymity network and access dark web sites. This provides a convenient way to enter such Onion sites with just one click.
Open Anonymous Account
Proton VPN respects your privacy so they don’t force you to provide identical real information of you into their Account opening form to open account on Proton VPN.
Easy to use interface
Proton VPN thinks about their customers and that’s the reason they design their product interface in such a way that even any newbie feels comfortable using it.
Unlimited bandwidth
This Proton VPN provides unlimited bandwidth where you will be able to use Proton VPN anywhere any time for any duration. There is no requirement of any extra charges.
Installation and Usability
Proton VPN can be connected to up to 10 devices at a time. It has multi-platform support for any operating system in between Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android and IOS. This VPN can be connected to computers mobile phones and any smart devices with these operating systems. Also, user friendliness of this Proton VPN will make you use it with comfort and ease.
Just signup for your account, buy a plan and download and install the service. For apps, you can download the suitable app for your needed platform and then sign up and you are good to go!
Pricing and Payments
There are basically 4 plans that Proton VPN offers:
- Free Plan- 0 USD in medium speed with 23 servers in 3 countries and 1 VPN connection. This also has accessing blocked content and strict no-log policy.
- Basic – $48 yearly with monthly payment benefit saving $12 with 350+ servers in 40+ countries. 2 VPN connections with high speed and strict no-log policy. Access blocked content and P2P/BitTorrent support with Adblocker (NetShield).
- Plus = $96 yearly with monthly payment benefit saving $24. 1200+ servers in 55 countries.10 VPN connections with Highest speed (up to 10 Gbps) and Strict no-logs policy. Access blocked content support and P2P/BitTorrent support with Adblocker (NetShield). Streaming service support and Secure Core VPN with TOR over VPN.
- Visionary – $288 yearly with monthly payment facility saving your $72. All Plus Plan features with Protonmail Visionary account.
- Also, there is a two year plan offer of saving 33% and an Annual saving offer of up to 20%
Support
There is this Support Center on the website of Proton VPN. You need to search through them for your required content. Mostly all the common issues have been described there. These have been divided into 7 categories.
Still if you could not find your required answer, you can surely contact their support team. The required email addresses are there in their website. They are also active in various platforms of social media.
Speedtest
For optimal performance Proton VPN uses only high-speed servers. All ProtonVPN servers have at minimum 1 Gbps bandwidth, and many of the servers also utilize 10 Gbps connections. This means that even though Proton VPN uses only the strongest encryption, they also provide intensely fast speeds.
Also, Proton VPN uses High Quality Network and VPN Accelerator for raising the VPN connection speed. With the functionalities like, Overcoming CPU limitations, latency and TCP congestion and improving forwarding efficiency this stands across all other VPNs at the top in regards of speed. This has been said that, under normal usage, VPN Accelerator increases speed by 400% or more, when particularly connected to distant servers.
Proton VPN gives 26-30Mbps as an average upload speed and 270+Mbps as an average download speed based on your selected server location. Just try and check yourself.
Regarding their fastest speed available, Proton VPN answered few questions in FAQ,
“Does VPN Accelerator really improve download speeds?
“Yes, although the greatest gains are made when you access a service that is located far from your real location. If you connect to a server that is geographically near you, you may not see significant speed improvements.”
Is the feature enabled by default?
“Yes. This is because there are no real downsides to using VPN Accelerator, but very real advantages under the right circumstances. You can, however, manually enable or disable the feature in most of our apps. See How to use VPN Accelerator for details.”
Does VPN Accelerator improve speed performance for all VPN protocols?
“Yes. VPN Accelerator will improve speed performance regardless of whether you use OpenVPN TCP, OpenVPN UDP, WireGuard, or IKEv2 VPN protocols.”
Verdict
The only downsize would be you have to buy the Plus or Visionary plan for streaming service. This should not be a matter if you want the highest security for your service and also, one of the fastest. I would highly recommend you try the free plan first and then buy the Plus or Visionary plans, whichever you want.
FAQ of ProtonVPN
ProtonVPN easy to use?
Yes, Proton VPN is very easy to use.
Does ProtonVPN sell your data?
No, Proton VPN abides by the Swiss no-log Policy. So, no stress of data logging or data selling.
Does ProtonVPN work in China?
Can say, partially. Some regions may be open and some may be blocked. You can contact the VPN service for recommended list of servers in China to avoid trials.
Is ProtonVPN owned by China?
No, Proton VPN is not owned by China. This is a Swiss company.
Is ProtonVPN legal?
Yes, ProtonVPN is legal. VPN services are not illegal. But you should not make illegal uses of any VPN service.
Is ProtonVPN free?
Yes, Proton VPN does have a free plan.
Is ProtonVPN good?
Proton VPN is one of the most secure and reliable service with great speed. Highly recommend it.
Does ProtonVPN work on smart TV?
Yes, Plus Visionary Plans of Proton VPN do have streaming service. If you signed up for the Free plan, you have to upgrade your subscription.
Does ProtonVPN have ad blocker?
Yes, Proton VPN does have a strong Adblocker feature known as Netshield.
How do I get ProtonVPN?
You can sign up for an account on Proton VPN’s website. Download the app and install.
Is ProtonVPN legitimate?
ProtonVPN is legitimate. This VPN service is really strict to its no-log policy and terms and conditions.
Do you need an upgraded all-in-one packaged VPN?
Do you need the fastest speed?
Do you want a VPN with the most structured security functionalities?
Then obviously I will suggest you to go for Proton VPN. No worries, you can either use the Free version or buy a plan. You might be thinking there are many other VPNs, those also have speed, security, privacy etc.
Then why use this? Why buy a plan when others offering free service cheaper than this?
I would like to answer to it that, any product with the best service is definitely going to cost you something. It is your choice. Have fun in browsing!
User Reviews
Does ProtonVPN work with Netflix?
Yes, ProtonVPN is a great service that works with Netflix. We have found this is one of very few that will actually allow 24/7 access to Netflix.
ProtonVPN has really fast speeds when it comes to working with Netflix. With other VPNs, you may find that there are network-wide blocks, but with ExpressVPN, this has never happened to us. And if you are traveling around the world, you can also have this VPN work with Netflix.
Overall Proton VPN Rating
What Users Say About Proton VPN
There are no reviews yet. Be the first one to write one.