Proton VPN Review 2022: Secure VPN, but with Drawbacks

Proton VPN is a Switzerland-based VPN service that brands itself as a secure, premium VPN for users who are serious about privacy. It was officially launched in 2017 by the makers of Proton Mail, a secure email provider. In this new and updated Proton VPN review for 2022, I set out to determine if this VPN stands above others in terms of privacy, security, and performance.

The answers (and test results) may surprise you. Below are some of the questions that I will answer in this Proton VPN review:

• How fast is Proton VPN with servers throughout the network?
• What security and privacy features does Proton VPN offer, and do all features work correctly?
• Does Proton VPN have any problems with IP address leaks or DNS leaks?
• How responsive is the Proton VPN support staff?
• Does Proton VPN unblock Netflix and other streaming services?
• How does Proton VPN compare to other top-rated VPNs and is it worth it?

Overall, Proton VPN has made some good improvements, but it still lags behind other leading VPNs in a few key areas.

Proton VPN overview

Here is a brief overview of my test results and research findings for this Proton VPN review:

Additional research findings:

1. Payment options and refund policy
2. Does Proton VPN work for torrenting?
3. Is Proton VPN good for Netflix?
4. Does Proton VPN work in China?

Pros of Proton VPN

Here are the Pros that I found for this Proton VPN review.

Useful privacy features (no leaks detected)

Proton VPN has some useful privacy and security features.

First, it offers good leak protection settings with the Windows and Mac OS apps I tested. In addition to the kill switch and DNS leak protection, both the Windows and Android clients also offer a split tunneling VPN feature, just like we saw in the ExpressVPN review. This allows you to route traffic for certain applications outside of the VPN tunnel.

Below is a screenshot of Proton VPN’s “Advanced” settings:

Proton VPN also offers different settings for auto connect, selection of VPN protocols, and startup options. Regarding the kill switch and leak protection settings, everything worked well in testing for this review.

I ran the Windows and Mac OS apps through some basic VPN tests to identify potential leaks or flaws. Everything checked out — no leaks were detected:

The screenshot above is with the Proton VPN Windows client. The Mac OS client also did not have any leaks that I could find.

Proton VPN encryption and VPN protocols

The Proton VPN Windows client that I tested out for this review supports OpenVPN and WireGuard. The Mac OS and iOS apps support the IKEv2 and WireGuard protocols. The Proton VPN Android app supports the OpenVPN and WireGuard protocols. And finally, the Linux app supports the OpenVPN protocol (but not yet WireGuard).

Proton VPN has explained on reddit that they are working on getting WireGuard support for Linux, but there is currently no concrete completion date for this task. I also noted the same thing in our Surfshark VPN review, where support for WireGuard on Linux was delayed.

Secure server network (Secure Core)

Proton VPN runs its entire network on dedicated bare-metal servers. This is similar to Perfect Privacy and OVPN in Sweden.

Currently, Proton VPN has 1,674 servers in 63 different countries. This isn’t too bad for geographic diversity and is about on par with what we noted in the NordVPN review.

One unique aspect of Proton VPN is its implementation of Secure Core.

What is Secure Core?

The Secure Core feature is basically just a double-VPN server configuration routed through Proton VPN servers in Switzerland, Sweden, or Iceland. In other words, your traffic will first get routed through one of the Secure Core servers before going to the second VPN server and exiting the encrypted tunnel.

The main advantage of the Secure Core servers is that it provides an additional layer of protection. This protects against a compromised server in a third-party data center, for example. Proton VPN has gone to great lengths to ensure the security of these “core” servers:

We have also gone to extraordinary lengths to defend our Secure Core servers. First, servers are located in countries selected specifically for their strong privacy laws (Iceland, Switzerland, and Sweden). We also placed our Secure Core servers in high-security data centers to ensure strong physical security. ProtonVPN infrastructure in Switzerland and Sweden is housed in underground data centers, while our Iceland servers are on a former military base. Furthermore, Secure Core servers are wholly owned and provisioned by us(shipped on-site directly from our offices). Finally, Secure Core servers are connected to the Internet using our own dedicated network with IP addresses that are owned and operated by our own Local Internet Registry (LIR).

In addition to Proton VPN, there are also other VPN providers that offer multi-hop VPN configurations.

Restricted access to Secure Core servers

Unfortunately, Proton VPN restricts access to Secure Core servers. This is done by blocking access and forcing you to upgrade your account to either “Plus” ($8.00 per month) or “Visionary” ($24 per month).

I am not a fan of restricting access to servers or features to only the most expensive VPN plans. Unfortunately, this is a recurring problem with Proton VPN that also affects other VPN features, as we’ll examine more below.

Another issue I ran into for this review is that many Secure Core servers in Proton VPN’s network were congested and overloaded with bandwidth. You can see below how every Secure Core server in Canada was overloaded:

The Secure Core servers in the US were a bit better in terms of bandwidth loading.

Are Secure Core servers slow?

The Secure Core servers I tested for this Proton VPN review were not very fast. However, this is not surprising since traffic is getting routed and encrypted over two locations. This adds more latency and will be slower than a single-hop connection.

Here is one Secure Core server connection from Switzerland to the US using the WireGuard protocol:

Proton VPN’s secure core is slower than other servers. You can see the ping (latency) is somewhat high. This would not be the best VPN for gaming, where low ping is important. Gamers should instead use single-hop servers close to their location.

If you want the fastest VPN speeds with double-VPN servers, then I would recommend NordVPN. Below you can see I’m getting about 214 Mbps with a double-VPN server from NordVPN: USA > Canada.

You can find double-VPN servers in a few other VPNs, as we discuss in the Surfshark vs NordVPN comparison.

Good privacy jurisdiction and data protection policies

Proton VPN is based in Switzerland under the company ProtonVPN AG. Switzerland is a good privacy jurisdiction and is not part of the five eyes, nine eyes, or 14 eyes surveillance alliances. As noted on the Proton VPN website:

We are headquartered in Switzerland which has some of the world’s strongest privacy laws. Switzerland is also outside of EU and US jurisdiction and is not a member of the fourteen eyes surveillance network.

From a business standpoint, Proton VPN is a separate entity from Proton Mail. However, it still falls under the same parent organization, Proton Technologies AG, based in Geneva, Switzerland. As we’ve covered before, Switzerland is a great jurisdiction for both VPN services and secure email providers.

There are many USA VPN providers that claim jurisdiction does not matter. However, we’ve seen cases where VPNs have logged user data for various state agencies, such as the case with IPVanish.

There have also been US VPN providers caught embedding trackers in their apps, or sharing data with advertisers, such as the case with Hotspot Shield VPN. We also see this with many free Chinese VPN apps.

Proton VPN logs policy

Proton VPN describes itself as a no-logs VPN provider. The one thing they store is timestamps, as explained on their support page:

ProtonVPN respects its users’ privacy and enforces a no-logs policy. This means your VPN connections remain private and we do not store information about your connections or the websites you visit.

For the purpose of securing your account and making sure it’s you who is signing in, we store a single timestamp of your accounts most recent login. Again, we do not store any information about where you signed in from or how long you were logged in.

The Proton VPN privacy policy offers further clarification on the timestamp issue:

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.

This is definitely not concerning given that it’s a single timestamp. Proton VPN also explains in this blog post how they are fully compliant with GDPR privacy protections and do not share data with third parties.

Want to see some alternatives? Check out these verified no logs VPN providers.

User-friendly VPN apps

Proton VPN has a nice lineup of apps that are user-friendly and full of features.

The layout and design are great, and I also like the dark-mode theme. Below is the Windows VPN app that I tested for this review:

In general, connections were pretty quick to establish and there weren’t any major issues. While Proton VPN is not the best VPN for PC, the desktop clients still worked well in our tests.

Proton VPN offers dedicated clients (apps) for all major devices and operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS, Android, and iOS.

Proton VPN also offers a “VPN Accelerator” feature, which should improve speeds under some circumstances. This is an interesting name that has been used for years by Sabai Technology, which offers a “VPN Accelerator” device for routers. (We first tested out Sabai Technology’s VPN Accelerator device in 2017.)

Proton VPN also has a command line tool for Linux, but I’ve seen some complaints from Linux users (see also these best VPNs for Linux for other options). For Mac OS, you can use the native IKEv2 protocol or the Proton VPN Mac OS client. The fastest Mac OS VPN services I have tested use the WireGuard VPN protocol.

Proton VPN email support

Proton VPN offers support via email. Their website also has various FAQ articles and guides, which are useful for standard questions.

I used the contact form on their website to submit various inquiries to test out support’s response time.

Overall I was happy with the prompt replies. My inquiries were usually answered on the same day they were submitted. With previous Proton VPN reviews, I was critical of their support due to delayed response times (several days). Support with Proton VPN has definitely improved over the past few years.

Most of the large VPN services offer live chat support. If this is important, you may want to look elsewhere, but the email support was still responsive and helpful. See our ExpressVPN vs Proton VPN comparison, which discusses the support topic in more detail.

Transparent company with a good track record

It’s no secret that Proton Technologies, including Proton VPN and Proton Mail, has a good reputation in the privacy community. It is also a company that is transparent and led by reputable, public-facing people.

Proton Mail was started in 2014 by a group of academics/scientists who were working at CERN in Switzerland and also MIT. On the topic of transparency, Proton Mail published an interesting blog post about the organization and leadership.

As noted above, Proton VPN and Proton Mail both fall under the parent company Proton Technologies AG, based in Geneva, Switzerland. The Proton VPN arm of this business is officially registered as ProtonVPN AG, which shares the same core leadership as Proton Mail.

The Proton Mail IP logging case

Above we noted now ProtonVPN and Proton Mail fall under the same parent company, which operates in Switzerland. This is important to consider since Proton Mail was in the spotlight last year with an IP logging controversy. You can get all the details in our article on the Proton Mail logging case, but here’s a brief synopsis:

• The French government requested that Proton Mail engage in targeted IP address logging of a specific user in France. The request was made in a Switzerland court.
• Proton Mail complied with the court order, logged the user, and provided the IP logs to French police.
• French police then arrested the Proton Mail user.
• Proton Mail then edited “we do not keep any IP logs” from its website… after the IP logging incident.
• Based on Proton Mail transparency reports, we can see that there are thousands of data requests in 2020 alone that Proton Mail has complied with.

Proton Mail, and any other service, must comply with the laws in the jurisdiction it operates. Additionally, we can see that the number of requests for user data continues to drastically increase every year.

Interestingly, we found that Proton VPN does not keep any transparency reports, and also has a different “no logs” policy than Proton Mail. This is important to keep in mind as the two services are very different in regards to data stored by Proton Technologies.

So, can you trust Proton VPN with securing your internet traffic? Only you can decide on that answer.

Cons of Proton VPN

Now we’ll take a look at some of the cons of Proton VPN:

Inconsistent speeds

While ProtonVPN has generally improved with speeds since the last review, it’s also not the fastest VPN we have tested. To measure speeds, I tested out various Proton VPN servers around the US and Europe on a 500 Mbps from my location in the US.

We used the WireGuard VPN protocol with the “VPN Accelerator” feature activated.

For the first round of ProtonVPN speed tests in the United States, I went with west coast servers.

Here was a Proton VPN server in Los Angeles: 90 Mbps

This is not a great start to speed tests with Proton VPN. We should definitely be above 100 Mbps or more when using the WireGuard protocol with nearby servers.

Next, I tested a Proton VPN server in Seattle. The speeds were a bit faster at around 122 Mbps.

You can see we are still way below the baseline speed, but still better than with the first Proton VPN speed test.

Next up was a server in New York. This one gave us speeds around 158 Mbps. This was the best speed test I found for this ProtonVPN review.

Lastly, I tested a Proton VPN server in the UK. This was the slowest Proton VPN server I found at 17 Mbps. Notice also the server is only at 40% load, so it should theoretically be much faster.

Overall, I would rate Proton VPN’s speed as inconsistent. Some servers were OK, other servers were average to poor with performance. There are definitely some faster VPNs on the market if you have a need for speed.

Take for example NordVPN, which also supports the WireGuard protocol. With NordVPN, I was able to hit 445 Mbps when testing out the NordVPN server in Seattle:

Recall with ProtonVPN, the Seattle server with WireGuard was only 122 Mbps.

Learn more about NordVPN here >>

Note: The slow speeds are one reason that ProtonVPN did not come out on top in the ProtonVPN vs NordVPN comparison.

Proton VPN prices are high (with restrictions on cheaper plans)

With most VPNs, you can select different durations for your subscription, but you’ll still get access to all features. Proton VPN does things differently. Of course, they offer the limited “free VPN” that only gives you a few servers. But let’s take a look at paid plans below.

One thing you’ll notice with ProtonVPN is that they restrict features and servers on the lower-cost plans. In other words, to get all features and access to the entire server network, you’ll need to purchase a “Plus” or “Visionary” plan, which costs $8 to $30 per month.

To recap, if you are on the Basic plan, this means:

• You are blocked from accessing many servers in the network, including the Secure Core servers.
• You are blocked from using the Tor-over-VPN feature.
• You are blocked from accessing streaming content.

You can also see this in the pricing table below from ProtonVPN’s website:

This makes ProtonVPN an expensive VPN if you want access to all servers and features. It is certainly not a cheap VPN by our standards.

For those wanting maximum security and privacy, I’d recommend the Plus subscription because it provides access to the Secure Core server network. The Visionary plan is ridiculously expensive, but perhaps you want to combine an expensive VPN and an expensive secure email service all in one subscription.

Does ProtonVPN ever offer any discounts, deals, or VPN coupons? The answer is yes. We have seen them offer specials around Black Friday and Cyber Monday every year. To get the details we have a guide on that topic. See these Black Friday / Cyber Monday VPN Deals.

Fortunately, you can test drive ProtonVPN with the free VPN. This basically acts as a free trial VPN, allowing you to upgrade if you like the service.

Additional research findings

Below are additional findings from my research of Proton VPN for this review.

Proton VPN payment options and refunds

To get started with ProtonVPN, you can create a free or paid account. If you opt for a paid account, you’ll have the option to pay with PayPal or a credit card. However, if you are upgrading your account, you’ll have the option to pay with:

• Credit cards
• PayPal
• Bitcoin
• Cash

Bitcoin and cash can offer more privacy, but you can also pay with a virtual credit card (such as from privacy.com) using an anonymous name and address.

ProtonVPN refund policy

ProtonVPN offers a pretty good refund policy. As they explain on their Terms and Conditions page,

You may cancel your account with a refund for any unused portion of the service period within 30 days of the initial purchase. Here, any unused portion of the service period refers to the prorated remaining full days of the subscription period. Refunds or credits beyond the 30 days window will be considered, but at the sole discretion of the Service.

This is somewhat different from other VPN services in that they do not offer a full 100% refund, but rather a prorated refund of unused time. Nonetheless, it is still generous in comparison to other free VPN services, such as Windscribe and TunnelBear, which both have more restrictive refund policies.

Does Proton VPN work for torrenting?

Many people are looking for the best VPN for torrenting due to the risks associated with copyright infringement.

Generally speaking, ProtonVPN is a good VPN for torrenting, but with one catch. Torrenting is blocked on all free plans. This is understandable since they don’t want bandwidth being eaten up by torrents.

With paid plans, torrenting is allowed without restrictions.

Is ProtonVPN good for Netflix and streaming?

ProtonVPN currently works with Netflix. Right now, according to ProtonVPN’s website, it works with ten Netflix regional libraries — but there’s another catch! These streaming servers are blocked unless you have a “Plus or Pro” subscription.

If you want even more access, you could consider another VPN service that specializes in streaming. For example, both NordVPN and ExpressVPN offer access to 15+ Netflix regions.

Once again, we are running into more restrictions that force you to pay more. This is not the case with most other VPNs that work with Amazon Prime, Netflix, BBC iPlayer, and other streaming services. In other words, everyone with a paid subscription has access.

I tested US Netflix with a ProtonVPN server in New York and did not have any problems getting through. The speeds were adequate for the short tests that I ran.

To see other VPN services that unblock Netflix regions around the world, check out the best VPN for Netflix guide.

What about other streaming services?

ProtonVPN does offer support for a few other streaming services, in addition to Netflix, but it’s still pretty limited compared to our other top contenders. However, we do see that ProtonVPN is a decent VPN for Firestick, with a dedicated app in the Amazon store.

Does ProtonVPN work in China?

Unfortunately, it does not look like ProtonVPN is working in China, according to the latest support update:

As of Sept. 18, 2019, the Chinese government is blocking access to ProtonVPN as part of a larger crackdown on Internet freedom.

The Chinese government works hard to control its citizens’ access to the Internet. The Great Firewall employs a vast system of technical tools, including DNS filtering, URL filtering, and deep packet inspection, that the Chinese government uses to prevent people in China from accessing foreign websites. The government also uses these tools to detect and block VPN servers.

You can see these best VPNs for China.

Does ProtonVPN work well for gaming?

Gamers have unique needs for a VPN. Important factors include a large server network, fast speeds, and servers that do not get blocked. In these areas, we find ProtonVPN does not do well. For example:

• It has a smaller server network than other leading competitors
• Speeds with Proton VPN are mediocre even with their VPN Accelerator technology
• It still gets blocked by most streaming services

Overall, Proton VPN is probably not the best VPN for gaming. Consider some alternatives.

ProtonVPN review 2022 conclusion

While Proton VPN is not the top VPN we have tested, it has still made some nice improvements over the past year and is a worthy consideration.

However, the drawbacks of Proton VPN are also worth noting. For one, server speeds can be hit or miss, depending on your geographic area, servers selected, and other factors. The other issue is that Proton VPN remains a very expensive option, especially if you want access to all features and servers.

Nonetheless, Proton VPN remains a solid choice, with excellent security from a very reputable company. So if you think it’s up your alley, it doesn’t hurt to give it a test drive. And if you are still on the fence, then check out the alternatives to Proton VPN below.

Alternatives to Proton VPN

Click the VPN name below to read our full review – or grab the discount for the best savings. All three of these VPNs have a 30 day money-back guarantee.

1. NordVPN review  (with a 68% discount coupon)
2. Surfshark review
3. ExpressVPN review
4. Perfect Privacy review

You can also check out our best VPNs list here for other recommendations.

If you have used ProtonVPN, feel free to share your honest review (good or bad) below.

This ProtonVPN review was last updated on March 21, 2021.