Just tried it using ProtonVPN and it is not working for me either. They've apparently got a way to detect and stop it from working if you use a VPN. source

From their website:

We believe privacy and security are fundamental human rights, so we also provide a free version of ProtonVPN to the public. Unlike other free VPNs, there are no catches. We don't serve ads or secretly sell your browsing history. ProtonVPN Free is subsidized by ProtonVPN paid users. If you would like to support online privacy, please consider upgrading to a paid plan for faster speeds and more features.

;utm_campaign=1302&bestdeal

For the 1000th time:

Protonmail has to comply with the Swiss law when they are asked to keep IP records. Before that, they did not keep any IP logs.

Even then, the Proton Company fights every claim they get (as shown clearly on their yearly Transparency Report, and in this instance they couldn't say no.

Proton is not gonna put their head out for some random user that happens to have done something illegal.

For this reason, Proton actively encourages people to use TOR/ProtonVPN when connecting to ProtonMail: on ProtonVPN they will give only the VPNs IP, not the end-user's one. As for TOR, well, they only have a Tor-exit-node IP to give, as IP records previous to that were not registered.

Don't let sensationalism and click-bait headlines deceive you. Always do your own research.

Since you mention ProtonVPN, by default ProtonVPN would redirect all DNS requests.

16, just slap that motherfucker in a dvd player and extract the files. Then download and set up YouTube-dl and ffmpeg so you never have to burn a CD again. As long as you have a good ad blocker (I recommend Ublock Origin) and a VPN if you're paranoid (I use ProtonVPN), and have choice selection, and has cracked versions of most popular steam games. Of course, piracy is WRONG and ILLEGAL and A CRIME and you should totally NOT do it to be NOT cool. This went off track from burning cds, but alas

They claim

> ProtonVPN for Android is the world’s only Android VPN app that is completely free and doesn’t have bandwidth limits. Unlike other “free” Android VPNs, ProtonVPN has no ads and does not secretly sell your browsing data.

Read the article dude,

>Free services these days are rightfully regarded with a bit of suspicion. After all, Google and Facebook, which are “free,” are actually charging you by compromising your privacy to advertisers. But ProtonVPN is different. We are the only free VPN with no bandwidth limits, data caps, or privacy invading ads. We do not install malware on your device or sell your data to third parties (we have a strict no-logs policy). Instead our free VPN service is supported by paid plans, which come with advanced security features and higher speeds.

Furthermore, it got audited by Mozilla, and they are the same devs behind ProtonMail — they’re more than reliable.

I used to trust ProtonVPN, but they actually broke their own policy of not logging user data and handed the email of a climate activist to the Swiss government.

Edit: They seem to be under legal obligations, and they can only be forced to give info for ProtonMail and not ProtonVPN. So, yeah, they're good.

Protonail was legally obligated to give ip addresses of a specific user because of Swiss law surrounding email. the laws are different for vpns, they cannot be compelled to hand over data for ProtonVPN.

edit: they did not have ip addresses on hand, they were forced to start logging for one specific user and then forced to hand those over.

TLDR: as long as its not email, and you are not a Swiss criminal, you are safe with proton

• Relay Pro for reddit

• Spotify / SoundCloud / Phonograph for music

• Evernote for note-taking

• Snapseed + VSCO for photo editing

• Action Launcher for Launcher

• SwiftKey for Keyboard

• Firefox + Addons for Internet

• Youtube Vanced for PiP Youtube

• ProtonVPN for VPN use.

Some will likely don't like that this essentially is Mozilla advertising an external service.

But to me, at least, that is outweighed by the fact that for Mozilla this is an additional revenue stream which means they are less reliant on their deal with Google.

And for users this means that a VPN service, in a sea of questionable options, has now been scrutinized and recommended by Mozilla. Which means that ProtonVPN gains an even greater level of trust as well as the promotion Mozilla provides.

So a good VPN will grow while being closely monitored by Mozilla for any possible, albeit unlikely, future shenanigans.

So users can be fairly confident that it's a good, and safe, choice if one wants to use a VPN service.

Partnership with ProtonVPN. Good company, fast speeds. I use it at hotels when I travel to prevent snooping on open WiFi.

EDIT: Don’t buy through Firefox though, they charge $10 for the same thing that Proton sells for $8.

Andy here, I literally just had a call with Jason Donenfeld this afternoon about this. Yes, it is planned, most likely sometime next year. ProtonVPN's infra and user base has grown a lot in the past 12 months, we just released the iOS app, and we're working on preparing to make all the apps open source (as that's one of our firm goals we have outlined for 2019), so we've got a lot of plates spinning at the same time on the VPN side (and this is without getting into all the projects happening on the Mail side). We need a couple months to stabilize things and then we will start working in this direction.

Hi, ProtonMail team here. We have responded previously to this, it's a smear campaign being run against us by Private Internet Access since ProtonVPN is competing with them.

You can find our response here: _and_tesonet/

I used a throwaway Pi image and connected through ProtonVPN. I then asked for the english version of the page and proceeded to click on pre-sale. First of all, the page switched back to spanish as it is the only option. Then it asked for my name, e-mail and verification for which I selected Passport. I entered a made up name, one of my my fake spam addresses and some random numbers for passport. It accepted all of it! No picture of my passport was requested, just a field to type in. It then proceeded to throw up all over itself.

I've seen some sketchy shit in my day and this one stinks to high heaven.

EDIT: Oh. MY. God. It worked on the second try. It says it is sending a verification e-mail. I USED GIBBERISH AS VERIFICATION!! For the love of all that is holy, do not give these people your banking information or any information.

No such thing.

You need to assume any public WiFi like that is insecure (because they are).

Instead you’ll want to use a vpn service. I recommend ProtonVPN, but this is something you want to spend some time researching because all VPN services are not equal.

I doubt your friends ISP will notice unless hes downloading hundreds of GB to TB of stuff. My friend got a letter from his after getting tons of movies, but it was just a cease and desist letter first. I wouldn’t worry about it. Fuck how expensive text books are.

But if he wantsa good free VPN, just download ProtonVPN. It’s free and it’ll probably give him some peace of mind.

Later versions of ProtonVPN have resolved this issue and an update was rolled out to all users starting about a month ago. It is important to note that an attacker needs to already have access to your computer for this exploit to work, and it only impacts Windows users.

ProtonVPN is free. Also, if they're blocking by IP it's not hard to get another without VPN. Use wifi at different places, new IPs everywhere you go. Turn your phone off for maybe 10 min. There is a chance your IP will be released to another subscriber and you'll grab a new one.

If you're at home, you could turn off your cable modem or whatever you have. Though I've found that most ISPs will preserve your IP for quite a while.

ProtonVPN. Based in Switzerland and no logging. They have a free version with reduced speeds and no torrenting that’s subsidized by the paid users, not paid for with your personal data because they’re not a data company. Their email client is end to end encrypted by default.

Also the vpn client is open source and has passed security audits.

I of course recommend checking out ProtonVPN :)

But more importantly, I recommend understanding what a VPN can or can't defend you against. As with any tool, understanding the threat model is the most important part:

It is. The privacy was the whole draw for me and now they’re no better than any other mail service. I was looking to switch to their VPN when my service expired but I definitely don’t trust their no logs policy. “We at ProtonVPN value our customers’ privacy and keep zero logs… until we are court ordered to provide them.”

I’ll put in a plug for ProtonVPN and ProtonMail.

If you don’t have a ProtonMail account, get one. Stop allowing your ISP, Yahoo, Google, or Microsoft to read your mail. ProtonMail is based in Switzerland and must follow Swiss privacy laws. Their entry level accounts are free.

Protonmail it's becoming the trendy and secure alternative to Gmail, at the moment they have a super secure e-mail services compatible with PGP and a great VPN service called ProtonVPN, however they are also creating a whole world of services like calendar, agenda, and so on... Soon they will completely replace Google services.

I'm using it and I'm happy with.

Comparing a Swiss email provider to a VPN is a bit unfair, since different laws are applicable. Unlike an email provider, a VPN like ProtonVPN cannot, under Swiss law, be forced to log IPs, so they're basically on the exact same level of trustworthiness as PIA used to be in the good ol' days.

You can use ProtonVPN, its pretty good even with the free tier, and has recently announced a GUI client for Linux as well. Also, as its made by the people behind ProtonMail, so it can be trusted as well as the same ProtonMail account can be used

Andy, how are you able to operate protonmail within mainland China without blocking from censors? Every single encrypted email service like tutanota is blocked in China but Protonmail works! Even ProtonVPN is blocked, but works like a charm. (Hopefully not a CCP sponsored charm.)

Do you have mainland Chinese servers that handle protonmail email and do you cooperate with Chinese authorities in any way?

ProtonVPN does not. It is owned by Proton Technologies AG, who also make ProtonMail, and E2E Encrypted Email with a 3FA. In addition, there are many paid options for ProtonVPN. The free version of ProtonVPN is more or less an endless trial that you have until you wish to upgrade.

The sheer number of affiliated Nord VPN links on each and every VPN review has always made me very cautious about NordVPN. Can't say I'm surprised.

Edit : just noticed ProtonVPN is in the picture too. That was spoken on the hacker news a few weeks ago. I have to say, this one surprised me quite a bit. The one who accused them were competitors (PIA).

EDIT : Protonmail has responded but their response is being downvoted. Which is strange. Here it is in full :

"Hi, ProtonMail team here. We have responded previously to this, it's a smear campaign being run against us by Private Internet Access since ProtonVPN is competing with them.

You can find our response here: "

I don't believe for one second that any of these apps' no-log policy is true. I read that no VPN with a single lifetime purchase should be trusted, and that makes sense to me (unless it's something like ProtonVPN which has been extensively reviewed, I guess).

I am subscribed to ProtonMail Plus and ProtonVPN Plus. I am really disappointed by what I pay for and what I get. Having lots of problems with the clients, ProtonVPN Speed often is horrible and/or doesn’t work so I have to use Windscribe. The development of ProtonMail is extremely slow considering the amount they charge for it. It does not even have a real iPad App with Columns!

If everything would work at least... but for now I just wish I could get my money back :(

Pretty accurate tbh. I use ProtonMail and ProtonVPN (when I'm at school just for bypassing site blocking) and it works fantastic. I've read through their privacy policies and it's very straight forward.

Mozilla recently announced they're partnering with ProtonVPN

I'm guessing these other VPNs are pushing their services now before ProtonVPN corners the market with a boost from Mozilla.

They are all actually in the country we claim that they are in, and you can actually verify that by checking the ping times and running traceroutes.

For example, our servers in Iceland actually are in Iceland, they are physical servers we own, on a network we control, running our own IP addresses, and our own dedicated connection to the underwater fiber operators.

This is part of the reason why ProtonVPN tends to be more expensive than other VPN services. We have significantly higher fixed costs from the way that we run our infrastructure (in top of the costs of supporting free users).

I use ProtonVPN and I'm pretty satisfied. They do have an app for android but you can also download OpenVPN configs and use them. It's also free if you can't/don't want to pay for their service. Check out /r/ProtonVPN for more information.

Yet ProtonMail has an eerily close relationship (formerly shared offices; formerly shared staff) with a major data mining organization (Tesonet). They even used Tesonet signing keys for one of their android apps.

To be fair - the ProtonMail and Tesonet people responded to such claims on reddit, and their recruiting pages emphasize machine learning.

But in any case, you probably want some privacy protecting anonymization layer (tor, and cash payments) between you and Proton*.

So how's this going to compare to ProtonVPN? I've seen people say that Proton is trustworthy despite being free because their free tier is supported by the paid tier and other paid products they have.

Is this similar?

why not just use a 3rd party like PIA or ProtonVPN? What reason would it need to be bundled with your browser. Unless you want a free VPN. You dont get a free VPN and privacy, you have to pick one. VPN servers are expensive so you cant expect them to provide it out of the kindness of their own heart. The only way 'free' VPN's make money is by using your data for profit. ProtonVPN has free servers but those dont allow torrents/tor and are essentially a trial, although they dont limit your time.

I like how transparent ProtonVPN is. Proton took a step forward and explained the situation, not to mention that they always communicate a lot with their users - they did not ignore the claims, they took them head on. I suggest checking out what Proton themselves have to say about the whole situation before pointing fingers and making more false claims -

Hi, I’m someone who is deep in the privacy topic and I can recommend NordVPN or ProtonVPN to you. You SHOULD NOT use ExpressVPN, because it is based in the 14 Eyes.

The 14 Eyes are a Alliance of Countries that share data and if your VPN Provider is based there, it’s not safe to use and there need to keep logs, protocols, and all the stuff you initially didn’t want someone to have!

So, even if you have to pay for the service, please use one of these two or an Open Source Alternative NOT based in the 14 Eyes.

If you are not careful this can be a double edged sword. VPN providers can see your traffic just as easily as the patrons sitting next to you while using the cafe wireless. You need to trust your VPN provider - do your research before going for something cheap and easy just because it came up first in your search results.

For any who ask, I use ProtonVPN. I've also heard good things about Nord VPN. And there is always Tor for the perpetually paranoid.

^^ This is the best advice ^^. Don't waste the resources you have with unnecessary bloat... unless you want to!

Ok, now disregarding everything I just said, here is my list: 1password

2Do

Affinity Photo

App Cleaner

Be Focused Pro (college student)

DaisyDisk

Day One

Fantastical 2 (just release calendars 5 already!)

Firefox nightly

galaxy client

keka

lighting (for LifX Bulbs)

MS Office (nothing beats it, shit)

OmniOutliner

Onyx

PDF Expert

Plex

Relisten (connects to )

Spark (replaced mail but totally didn't need to)

Steam

Taurine

Transmission

Tunnelblick (for use with ProtonVPN)

Ulysses (redundant, i know, but i love it!)

Vox (because fuck itunes)

xACT (because .flac files)

Xld (because .flac files)

None are necessary, most are redundant, but all do a better and worse job than the stock apps. Its all about finding whatever works for you.

edit Haazah!

ProtonVPN is a free VPN, just connect to netherlands and you can go ahead and spin away! I'm from poland too. It's odd how I, 25, can't spin for free for a guaranteed, well, something in a cide game, but I can go to any major city and go to a literal gambling house.

As a person living in India under an oppressive government, both Protonmail and ProtonVPN are useful but regrettably extremely expensive services for us. I would love to pay for a lower tier with enhanced services than their free versions, but it's quite impossible at their current rates, thereby excluding an entire continent of customers.

ProtonVPN stood out to me for their in-depth Reddit posts. This comment in particular made me feel like they were a good choice.

Cloudflare's app does not protect all of your traffic - it only intercepts DNS queries and then sends them (encrypted) to their own DNS servers (i.e.: 1.1.1.1). This would be like comparing apples to oranges. ProtonVPN encrypts all traffic (protecting it from wireless snoopers, ISP, mobile network provider), while Cloudflare only encrypts DNS queries and sends everything else (HTTP, SNI requests, etc.) in the clear.

This is one of the dumbest things I’ve read in awhile, although there seems to have been an influx of shit posts here recently.

Of course ProtonVPN has a rough idea of how much load their servers are under and no, that has no privacy implications whatsoever.

edit: Looks like OP ninja-edited this post to phrase it more like an honest question instead of a false accusation, however I’m confused by the clickbait FUD title if this was just an honest misunderstanding.

ProtonVPN has a shady history in that they used to work together / share infrastructure with TesoNet, a Lithuanian data mining company. TesoNet even had the signing keys to ProtonVPNs Android app for a while. And the guy who runs TesoNet also runs NordVPN. Shady as fuck. I recommend sticking to either Mulvad, TorGuard or Private Internet Access and avoiding anything connected to TesoNet/NordVPN.

> For ProtonVPN while only launching a new version (mainly cosmetic) of the ProtonMail web version & calendar & drive “betas” and only for the web & Android (calendar only)! It’s been months since they’ve been “testing” a calendar iOS app. The calendar beta in particular has felt just like it’s taking an eternity.

I think you should inform yourself a bit further before posting such claims.

v4 is not only mainly cosmetic, it has been completely rebuild from the ground, includes single sign on for proton services, persistent logins, subfolders, calendar integration.

Additionally since then they released the attachement reminder and started to release the encrypted search.

This is all very far from mainly cosmetics.

This article is a bunch of fake news, misinformation and guess without any clues that only lead people to believe about a situation that is not at all as they described.

Fake news include Nord/Tesonet being the true owner of ProtonVPN (which has been denied by Proton and clarified one the how and why there is a link between Proton and Tesonet, which has nothing to do with the later owning the former but only a pure service-contract between both companies).

Another is the idea that Mozilla might buy Proton, which is a pure assumption based on no facts and which goes totally against the communication and values of Proton Technologies as well as the real situation of both entities (there is only a partnership between both companies as they both defends privacy).

I did not read everything but I am sure there are more fake news in this article.

It seems quite probable that you work for PIA (Private Internet Access) who is responsible for this smear campaign. All your posts are attacking ProtonVPN and only about this issue. These shady business practices really say a lot more about PIA than it does about Proton.

To be absolutely clear, ProtonVPN does not use any servers from Tesonet, and has never used any servers from Tesonet. It may have been previously offered or considered, but it never happened. There is no contradiction in what we have stated.

You can in fact confirm this yourself, as this is publicly verifiable. Just go through the list of ProtonVPN servers and check who the providers are.

We don't view Tesonet as really different from any other vendor such as Radix or LeaseWeb, in the sense that it is not possible to achieve full trust. That's precisely why we have Secure Core VPN:

Hhahahaha nice joke, great root backdoor, great security.

L77

How do we know you or github doesn't change the script that you install as root without even checking a hash of the file?

No.

Get a dedicated VPN. VPN "addons" are pretty much always super shady.

Mozilla is partnering with ProtonVPN (which also have a free option with limited server selection but no other restrictions, possibly the only non-shady free VPN offering) so if you are looking for something it might be a good starting point.

Disclaimer: I am personally a ProtonVPN customer, my mention of it is not supposed to be a recommendation based on their actual service but rather due to their partnership with Mozilla. I am not being paid or otherwise rewarded by ProtonVPN for mentioning them here, always do your own research before trusting your traffic to any internet service provider.

Both of those companies have dubious track records and unknown, purposefully obscured parents. You’re better off with ProtonVPN, Mullvad, or just building your own VPN through PiHole, in that order, worst to best.

No one can tell you that. I recommend researching a few options on

Personally, I use NordVPN, ProtonVPN and a self-hosted one. I've tried a few providers and stuck with that setup.

We do these sales in order to accumulate the resources to build new services. For example, something like ProtonVPN requires a lot of capital investment (e.g. losses) for many months, before we can start to generate revenue from it and fill in the hole it created in our balance sheet.

When more people pre-pay for services (whether it's 2-year plans, or Lifetime plans), this gives us a cash surplus to absorb many bruising months of losses in the runup to a new product launch, in the period before the new product can pay for itself. In this case, we are using the proceeds from this promotion to partially cover the "hole" ProtonDrive will create in our balance sheet.

We believe it's good for the community too. Long time users can benefit from discounts/savings, while simultaneously enabling us to make the product they have invested in better.

>Offering paid services

this has nothing to do with FF market share, besides, people already have their own favorite privacy VPN like ProtonVPN while Mozilla VPN is only available in 8 countries with the same if not better price.

Basically don't be a tard. As long as you don't visit .tor sites that are normally hidden that you would never casually just stumble across, you won't encounter viruses any more than normal browsing.

Download TOR, download a good VPN (you will have to pay, but remember, if it's free, you lay with your data. I recommend ProtonMail as well as ProtonVPN but do your research), and go from there. There are more steps you can do to ensure your privacy but I'm not gonna do that here.

If you wanna visit sketchy parts of the internet, look up how to, plenty of youtube videos in how to do it and be safe.

Also, lie when you post shit online people. You aren't hurting anyone and it's a pretty easy step to take. I'm probably 3 different races, 5 sexualities, have 20 different animals and live in 6 locations. The one time you should lie is online to keep yourself safe.

I think it would be great if someone compiled a list of Free and Paid VPNs for people here. I know of only Nord and ProtonVPN, is it okay to take the free plan or would you guys recommend the paid plan?

NordVPN uses Tesonet for payment services in the US. This all came out over a month ago. Similar claims were made about ProtonVPN. The Proton folks were pretty open in discussing their relationship with Tesonet.

Lelki szemeim elott latom a holland szolgaltato fejet, amikor megkeresi a NERes szolga, hogy torolje mar a gazdat kompromittalo tartalmat... A ProtonVPN-nek egyebkent pont egy amsterdami serveren is van ingyenes szolgaltatasa, de en se akarok otleteket adni.

Why do you seem reluctant to just use ProtonMail? I’ve been using ProtonMail for two years and am not going back! It’s a great service.

I pay $9.60/month for ProtonMail Professional with 10 addresses and ProtonVPN. They give you 1 extra GB and 1 extra VPN connection for every year you have been a paid subscriber and occasionally they gift extra storage.

I often hear the phrase “that’s steep just for e-mail”... well, your e-mail contains very personal details lf your life. Your purchase receipts, services you use, contacts, etc. I can tell a lot about who you are as a person if I had access to your inbox.

ProtonMail did that, ProtonVPN is registered as a separate Company and unlike ProtonMail, they cant be forced to give out user data by law because jurisdictions for VPNs is not the same as for mail providers.

Worth noting is that this happened before they were bought by the Israeli company so their no log claims need to be tested again for this to be valid.

It seems like VPN service [ie. ProtonVPN] under Swiss law can't be forced to collect information.

Basically I'm following the thread "Cutting Google out of your life (2019)" So til now: - Firefox with duckduckgo + privacy modules - Protonmail and tutanota (still keeping the gmail one for my current work unfortunately) - Using ProtonVPN - On my android phone:using Netguard, Blokada, Duckduckgo - Deleted my main Instagram account. Still have another one for my photography business.. Not sure how to proceed with that And I'm actively looking for an alternative to google maps, I use it quite a lot :(

I'm currently on an internship abroad but when I'm back in my country, I'll switch to Linux and try to find something else for my phone

One dude in a dolphin onesie? Rest assured, there’s a whole team of us. u/atomlib_com
_demand_protonvpn_team_or_at_least_one_member_of/

George Duke-Cohan wasn't arrested because he used ProtonVPN. He was arrested because he was a criminal and because he left clues that were easily uncovered by infosec professionals. Even if we had it (we don't), IP data wouldn't have been necessary to find him.

If anything, the fact that he felt comfortable using ProtonVPN while DDoS'ing ProtonMail probably attests to our reputation of always sticking with our principles. We could have logged his IP, but we didn't. If the US decides to indict him, the indictment will contain information about how he was discovered, and it would show conclusively that it wasn't because of ProtonVPN logging his IP. If we did log his IP, it would have taken a day instead of a month to find him.

Proton team here. If you saw the other thread, you have probably also seen our previous comments about this topic:

_is_protonvpn_on_the_vpn_comparison_chart_of/djdqvrp/

The choice presented to us by TOPG comes down to the following.

1. Lie - this is what most VPN providers on there have chosen to do
2. Look bad in comparison

It's not a good choice. But given this choice, we prefer to be transparent and honest, so we picked the second option.

Just recently was recommended a few VPNs myself and tried ProtonVPN and NordVPN. While both are good, NordVPN works well with Netflix. Just a little trick their customer support taught me - connect to the most recent servers

>Has loyal customer base.

​

>Creates promo and makes loyal customer base ineligible.

​

>Posts promo in subreddit where ineligible loyal customer base will see it.

​

ProtonVPN (probably): That aughta fix that.

The ProtonVPN privacy policy:

Each time a user connects to the Service, we only monitor the timestamp of the last successful login attempt. This gets overwritten each time you successfully log in. This timestamp does not contain any identifying information, such as your IP address or your location; it only contains the time and date of the login.

We retain this limited information to protect user accounts from password brute force attacks. This is necessary to identify password guessing attempts targeting specific user accounts and to take action to protect those accounts.

Edit: I should add that I do not use ProtonVPN, I use a different provider and I also have my own tunneling setup. ProtonVPN does have some good features and hopefully isn't just another honeypot by the government. Vet these things on your own, please.

Your IP address will be hidden, but that's all. But if that's all you're exposing, your safe. So it depends on what you do.

ie: if you enable ProtonVPN, then login to your gmail, well, google knows who you are but your ISP may not know you went to gmail. Unless of course, you are using your ISP's DNS server- then they know you went to gmail too.

So in short, VPN is one part of a security package. It's like locking the door and asking if my house is secure. Well.. the door is....

I think it’s just local network filters like Little Snitch.

According to this post from ProtonVPN, they are NOT impacted.

> Given the potential impact this could have on our users’ privacy, we immediately examined the ProtonVPN app’s performance on macOS. We found that ProtonVPN’s network control is not impacted by Big Sur. Our macOS app works on a system level and prevents these Apple apps from bypassing our VPN’s firewall. However, we advise everyone using our macOS app to enable Kill Switch to maintain optimal security.

My assumption (and this is solely based on my opinion) would be that a couple factors might have been involved:

• They at one recent point added several trackers to their website. Once called out about it, they chimed in saying they were just to track the success of a social media promotion of their services. Basically, it was a "sorry we got caught" type situation.

• PIA went on a very public smear campaign against ProtonVPN, NordVPN, and possibly others in order to promote themselves.

• They're based in the US

> None of the competitors have ever reached out to us to seek an explanation and none have made a single official comment on the way we operate. That is neither activism nor social responsibility – this is the desperation of someone failing to compete with a company that is a relative newcomer to the market.

This is probably due to the fact that they're busy ignoring all these stupid allegations themselves.

According to the insane amount of similar posts on /r/ProtonVPN I can confidently say that these allegations come from PIA. Even their CEO have done posts in the past, which Proton have felt the need to respond to. (Sorry, can't link to any of them as I'm on my cell and it would take too long)

Not always the case, if there is upgradable tier, with very limited free service, it can pay of for the cases where users actually upgrade to premium tier. (Like in ProtonVPN case mentioned by someone else)

>It turns out that due to the natural growth of ProtonVPN's userbase, the number of requests from the ProtonVPN authentication servers hitting our core network, has begun to look remarkably similar to a constant DDoS attack.

That's kind of amazing!

I’ve literally never posted on Reddit before so I am sorry.

I was successful in buying XRD on Bitfinex as an American.

Install VPN on your computer, I used free ProtonVPN.

Create unverified account on bitfinex. As long as you don’t cash out or buy things in USD you don’t need to verify.

Buy Bitcoin on whatever exchange you use. I used Coinbase.

I sent the Bitcoin to my bitfinex account and exchanged it directly for XRD (BTC -> XRD)

There are some fees in this process but it’s way less than dealing with ethereum network fees.

Sorry for shit quality post, good luck filling your bag.

ProtonVPN!! Good price, 10gbit download speed, very safe and reliable. Been using it now for a few months.

If you dont want to spent more than 5 bucks: Mullvad or IVPN. Been using them too but switched to proton.

We confirm that there was a brief 5-minute interruption to our services where users may have experienced difficulties accessing ProtonMail and ProtonVPN. All services are back online. We apologize for the disruption.

Later versions of ProtonVPN have resolved this issue and an update was rolled out to all users starting about a month ago. It is important to note that an attacker needs to already have access to your computer for this exploit to work, and it only impacts Windows users.

Direct link to blogpost

In summary: > At ProtonVPN we’re big fans of Linux operating system, and most of our team uses Linux- or Unix-based systems on a daily basis.

> Because we are strong supporters of open source software (and we intend to eventually open source all ProtonVPN clients), our Linux VPN command-line tool is open source and can be found at the following Github repository:

Mullvad is good from what I know. ctrl + f the next line to get to the point of this article

> Mullvad is a secure VPN

If you need a free one, I think ProtonVPN is good but it's speeds are probably slow and you only get a few servers.

To those who say that OP must have configured ProtonVPN wrong, Proton themselves say that all the set-up that's required is to get your account, install the app, and run it. Other than OP disabling the VPN while downloading, wouldn't it be possible that the kill switch malfunctions again? It wouldn't be the first time ProtonVPN on Mac showed that problem, after all.

The only thing VPNs do is stop your ISP from reporting you for uploading torrents. You might want to get a antivirus if you want protection. Furthermore, if you still want a VPN you can use ProtonVPN its open-source and free.

I've been a paid user of Proton since it was a crowdfunded project, and I think the ProtonMail Plus package is a fantastic value for security-conscious users. If you consider that you'll have unlimited usage of ProtonVPN and all its servers for multiple devices, and the extended features of ProtonMail, including more storage, higher daily message limits, private domain access, and access to ProtonCalendar and ProtonDrive, the $8/month price is a no-brainer.

>even the Hola browser extension

Don't use Hola.

If you need a VPN, get ProtonVPN. You get the premium for 1 week on new accounts without any payment details.

>I've seen success but haven't verified that it works myself.

JD2 works just fine.

It's probably using some scripting which the Tor browser blocks. have you considered a VPN? You could try ProtonVPN. It has some limits for free accounts but that's mostly for P2P traffic and a lot less endpoints to choose from.
You could also setup Tor as a proxy I think but that may be making things needlessly difficult.
Anyway, good luck with what you're going through and don't do anything stupid. And there are also some subreddits you could go to to get something off your chest. Reddit works fine with the Tor browser. You probably won't find psychologists in training there but a kind word and someone that listens (well, reads) may help..
Using a throwaway account and the Tor browser will ensure your privacy there.

PIA is based in the U.S.

It doesn't matter if it is proven in the court. NSA or other government agency could go right now to PIA and force them to start logging without customers knowing about it!

Also PIA used fake Twitter accounts and other social media accounts to spread claims about ProtonVPN and NordVPN. That wasn't great move.

Also PIA has some very odd ideas of what security means. PIA finds itself incapable of writing an app that comports with best practices.

Avoid free VPNs, they are usually very limited in server numbers or data. I have tried a few, did not like it, also, the logging policies are very shady as well :/ Get a VPN that is no logs, for example, FSecure, NordVPN or ProtonVPN, these are unlimited if I remember correctly. Better get a paid VPN because having a free is like not having one at all

Detecting is not complicated rocket science. A whois lookup of an IP address will reveal the domain name is .

People providing online services who have vested interests with avoiding legal issues and demonstrating "due diligence" are going to invest sweat equity to know the IP addresses of VPNs. Not surprising would be if the Netflix folks have ProtonVPN accounts and regularly test all possible server nodes to discover IP addresses and registered domain names.

Spoofing the time zone at the operating system level or VPN configuration will not fool anybody with respect to the geographical location of the VPN server.

None of this explains what might be causing the interruptions.

From a technical and legal perspective, if using a VPN with a valid Netflix account causes disruptions then the dispute is with the Netflix folks and not the VPN provider.

Good luck!

It is literally impossible to communicate directly with someone over the internet using HTTP(S) without having an IP to talk to, whether that be an intermediary, a VPN node or an actual client's home IP. They allow the use of VPNs and Tor to use Protonmail, which would have saved this person from being identified, as then the IP Protonmail uses to communicate with the person won't be linkable to the actual person. They can't just route everything through ProtonVPN by default because then ProtonVPN will just be forced then to give up the user's IP address.

ProtonMail by default does not log IP addresses, so the IP address from the user is deleted/not stored from the moment communication stops. The problem is that they can be compelled legally to log particular user's IP addresses.

This user’s entire post history, essentially, is arguing with you (specifically you) about this one misconception of what “Extended Validation” means. They’ve got a few comments from over 2 years ago that are about ProtonVPN and don’t discuss EV, but aside from that, it’s all arguing with you.

This user is either a troll, an employee at a big PKI provider who sells EV certs (but not a shill, a shill would know more about the subject), or just so intensely paranoid they refuse to be corrected by anyone. Props to you for not just banning them.

In the ProtonVPN app, look in settings->Battery Usage, it explains it there.

It isn’t actually using that. Because the network traffic from other apps is routed through ProtonVPN, the battery usage from other apps gets attributed to it.

This causes me physical pain. If you dont know what changed, it is fine. But please do not insult the developers.

Important changes:

• using SRP for login into ProtonVPN instead of openvpn credentials

• dbus support with an actual daemon, which among other things will allow for proper GUI support down the line.

• using nmcli for most things, which integrates this into network manager, allowing better reliability, especially on the killswitch end of things.

• support for automatic reconnect when connection is interrupted (such as when a laptop wakes fron sleep), which was something really annoying with the old CLI.

• netshield support

While it is lacking in features right now (it is a beta), it paves the way for a much better CLI experience than the old one. I am waiting for it to get on github so I can start contributing code again :)

I feel like with Proton's products right now you're paying ten times the real cost, and you do so for a promise of a product. Their beta email client is dope, but you shouldn't have to migrate to beta to get great UX. They are also finishing the Contacts & Calendar, and Drive is underway. I would happily pay for a stack of tools that would just work (hint-hint I hate myself for sticking with ProtonVPN), but right now... Idk I'm still paying 8 EUR per month for mail & vpn but I am this close to just going "fuck it, this is a waste of money".

One should never pay for a promise of a product, yet here I am doing exactly that. F

Please note that the ProtonVPN plans are renewed automatically unless the subscription is canceled before the renewal date, as clearly stated in our Terms and Conditions: If a user wants to stop using the paid service, the subscription needs to be canceled.

Our support team has replied to your ticket, so please check your inbox and proceed accordingly.

It's a real VPN (to allow for things like WebRTC). From their blog post it looks like you download and install the full VPN client from ProtonVPN itself.

I’m curious to hear from a ProtonVPN employee, but here’s my guess...

Pretty good chance the Australian servers will go bye bye.

The app may get region blocked in the app stores.

I doubt there will be much they can do about either of those things. Maybe increase servers near Australia. People in Australia could still connect via OpenVPN using open source clients.

Wouldn't that have just created yet another option in the VPN market, something like MozillaVPN? It's probably better that they throw their support behind an established provider to increase ProtonVPN's credibility without adding yet another choice to an already saturated market.