Proton VPN Review

Community-sourced VPN review based on real Reddit & Twitter discussions

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Community Verdict
Recommended

Proton VPN has a solid reputation as a privacy-focused VPN, and a lot of people like it because it feels trustworthy and reliable day to day. The free plan gets praised a lot as one of the better “act...

71%
positive
1,012
reviews
Best for: People who want a good free VPN that doesn’t feel sketchy Privacy-focused users who like the Proton ecosystem Folks who want optional anonymous payments Everyday users who want a reliable VPN for general browsing
71% Positive Reviews
493 recommend, 203 warn
High Data Quality
1012 reviews from 836 people
Best For
People who want a good free VPN that doesn’t feel sketchy, Privacy-focused users who like the Proton ecosystem, Folks who want optional anonymous payments
Approval Rate
71% positive
493 recommend · 203 warn
Reviews
1,012
411 Reddit · 552 Twitter
Unique Reviewers
836
Data Quality
High

What the Community Says

Community Rating 7.5/10

Proton VPN has a solid reputation as a privacy-focused VPN, and a lot of people like it because it feels trustworthy and reliable day to day. The free plan gets praised a lot as one of the better “actually usable” free options, and the paid plan is often mentioned as a good pick if you care about things like no-logs, audits, and even anonymous payment options. It also comes up often alongside other privacy tools (like Proton Mail), which makes it appealing if you want everything under one roof.

The biggest complaint is speed: some people switch over from other VPNs and find Proton noticeably slower, especially depending on the server. A few also don’t love how certain torrenting setups work, since things like port forwarding can be a bit annoying to manage if the port changes when you reconnect. And while many trust Proton more than typical “affiliate-list” VPNs, there’s still a slice of people who are skeptical or just prefer competitors like Mullvad.

Strengths

  • Strong privacy reputation
  • Best-in-class free tier
  • No-logs and audit-focused image
  • Anonymous payment options
  • Good reliability overall

Weaknesses

  • Can be slower than competitors
  • Port forwarding can be annoying for torrenting setups
  • Auto-connect behavior can be frustrating
  • Not everyone trusts it as much as top privacy rivals
Best for: People who want a good free VPN that doesn’t feel sketchy Privacy-focused users who like the Proton ecosystem Folks who want optional anonymous payments Everyday users who want a reliable VPN for general browsing
Not ideal for: People who need consistently top speeds for gaming or heavy downloads Torrent users who want a set-it-and-forget-it port forwarding setup Anyone who’s extremely picky and would rather stick with Mullvad-style simplicity

Summary generated 1 week ago from 1012 community mentions

Reviews about "Server Locations"

20 reviews

"@Murithire Tafuta proton vpn ni free connect to albania, hai allow you tube ads. Now access you tube using chrome browser. Eka desktop version. Play what you want to play, press home button or recent button. Ita pause but kwa notification panel utaona what is playing, click play"

@_MwangiC 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"@firasmodad Use Proton free VPN. Always works for me. Connect to the Netherlands or any EU for fast internet"

@mtpcrunner 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"@princess_kim_k They changed US servers, use an international location Proton VPN is free and easy to use"

@adhdwonderwoman 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"You're not wrong, they're just not telling you the whole story 😉 A VPN does hide your traffic from your ISP, but now that encrypted traffic is just visible to your VPN provider instead . So the real question becomes: who do you trust more? Based on their public posture, Proton is one of the better answers. They're Swiss-based, which has strong privacy laws outside major surveillance alliances..."

@LYRASTARCORE 2 weeks ago View on Twitter →

"@Brian_Murphy_ @Rolex24Hours There's a legit vpn called proton VPN and it's free but you are only restricted to geographic locations. Try to see if one of those three countries allows you to watch the international feed on YouTube."

@AGomezWorldTV 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"@rrenstudies I just use Proton VPN, which is free 😅 The best countries are Canada, Switzerland, Norway, and parts of the US 🙂‍↕️"

@ProfKukuiLVR 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"@Grok please translate to indonesia language how To use a VPN in Indonesia: 1. Download a free/reputable app like Proton VPN or ExpressVPN from your app store (Google Play or Apple). 2. Install, create an account (some have free trials). 3. Open the app, connect to a server in another country (e.g., Singapore or US). 4. Once connected, try accessing Grok again. VPNs are legal for personal use..."

@art_inti999 2 weeks ago View on Twitter →

"@Steorie @attbc_ @frmeong it was called proton vpn if I remember correctly, it’s free but you just have to make sure it’s not connecting you to uk/us"

@verameowww 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"@opolot_ronnie Try Proton VPN. That mf always throws me in Rwanda, and today it has thrown me back to Uganda!!"

@pete_khk 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"@firasmodad Nope, just you/your VPN. Proton -> Netherlands, no issue."

@NathanJT 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"I use Proton Vpn. Its £8.99 pm full cover and choice of servers settings. They also have a free service which I'm using at the moment, I'll subscribe again if it comes to that. You will have to bounce around a bit and change servers until you get to America on the free service. I haven't tried any others so there may well be cheaper or better services out there."

@Unravel72 3 weeks ago View on Twitter →

"@DanielJHannan Fine. I'll just use the Proton app which centres me on a foreign VPN server. Then I'll get X if I want it. This is CENSORSHIP folks!"

@ROBJOHNSON2112 2 weeks ago View on Twitter →

"Mullvad is highly reputable, but I don't know much about it. Seems to be widely agreed on as the best, though. Proton is free, unless you want to actually choose your vpn location (albania), in which case, you can pay $1 USD/month for their basic subscription. Neither will overheat your phone, but a vpn can lower the time it takes to load web pages/apps."

@KuzunoHakoVT 3 weeks ago View on Twitter →

"Yo i actually need to watch ep4 but jjk friday… but also no i deserve it ive had a bad day Proton vpn pls give me japan first try"

@anatomised 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"@FinOcean149035 @PeterSweden7 @opera @ProtonVPN @Ofcom No one uses UK VPN servers because they sensor content."

@kasamac53 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"hackernews blocked my home IP because I happened to try to build a news aggregator that routes the feed into several apps in the making per prediction market spread arb opportunities and they allow via proton or mullvad native swiss traffic though. infra providers need to work on this that some geeks just wanna API the entire galaxy."

@goekhan 3 weeks ago View on Twitter →

"@HitDaWallAgain @WarFrontIntel Um. No. Proton VPN routes to ... whichever one of the 127 countries you select to connect to https://t.co/R2utwZAY8U"

@davidgpeterson 3 weeks ago View on Twitter →

"@ProtonMail What's up with the recent upticks with having Russian and India based servers? I thought Proton swept them under the rug years ago? Same with Nord and a few other VPN providers. I'm assuming the situation within Russia has calmed down? Same with India's govt?"

@RoBoPeener3000 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"@romain280_ @ProtonVPN @MayaMatt_ @PlayStation And all of those services are stupid for hosting servers in a surveillance state. Several of the big VPNs like ExpressVPN, CyberGhost etc are owned by Israeli companies completely."

@liminalMarch 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"Proton's products are very good, but their fear mongering media campaigns are bad. As well as that they continue doing business with russians, including hosting VPN servers there. Once it connected me to the belarusian server as "fastest country". To give me more surveillance 🤷"

@andrewf 2 weeks ago View on Twitter →