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ProtonVPN Review (2021)-Tested By Security Experts

Want to access banned websites? Read this ProtonVPN Review article to know how it masks your ID to give access to banned websites.
9.4/10 (Expert Score)
Product is rated as #6 in category VPN

ProtonVPN Review

ProtonVPN review

Over the past few years, we have seen the Government have become more strict with internet usage. As a result, every month we get to know that the government is banning a handful of mobile applications, software and websites. Yes, of course, there is a solid reason behind it like a national security issue, protection of kids against dark web etc. But still, internet users need to access many of the banned sites and application. One such case is the torrent movie sites. But when we try to open those banned sites, servers just don’t let us access those sites and application.

Besides, In 2021, cybercrime like hacking is a common story. The graph of Cyberattacks and online theft is pointing upward day by day. This is where the need for VPN comes to. VPN which stand for Virtual Private Network is a technology that can encapsulate and transmit network data, typically Internet Protocol data, over another network. Such a system enables users to access network resources that may otherwise be inaccessible from the public internet.

Internet user can use VPN for multiple purposes:

  1. Safety And Security
  2. Anonymity
  3. Breaking Geo-Restrictions
  4. Subsidized Shopping and Traveling
  5. Using Public Wifi

So there are a whole lot of VPN service providers in the market right now. After deep research and thorough testing, I have handpicked some of the Best VPN. One such extremely strong VPN is ProtonVpn. Here is the complete ProtonVpn Review.

In this, ProtonVPN review the VPN is tested and its performance is compared with other free VPN providers. ProtonVPN comes both with ProtonVPN Paid mode and ProtonVPN free VPN version. In short, it’s not that bad at all. ProtonVPN comes from the same CERN Scientist and Harvard Physics PhD brains behind ProtonMail, the world’s largest encrypted email network. So they’ve already created a free-to-paid, encrypted internet privacy service in one space. Surely they can do it in the VPN space, too? That’s what we’re going to find here out. Over the past few months, we’ve been comprehensively testing their OpenVPN protocol, encryption connection standards, speed, security, pricing, and more. So, in this review, you’re sure to find out the good and bad both about this VPN server.

Introduction

What Is ProtonVPN?

ProtonVpn is a Virtual Private Network Service provider that operated by the Swiss company Proton Technologies AG, the company behind the email service ProtonMail. According to its official website, ProtonVPN and ProtonMail share the same management team, offices, and technical resources, and is operated from Proton’s headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland under the protection of Swiss privacy laws.

Proton was founded in 2014 by a team of scientists who met at CERN (the European Center for Nuclear Research) and created ProtonMail, the world’s largest encrypted email service. In total, Proton VPN protects over 20 million people with our products. Unlike other VPN services, ProtonVPN provides full transparency so you know who is running the service.

In short, ProtonVPN have:

  • Strict no-logs policy
  • All apps are open source and audited
  • High-speed connections (up to 10 Gbps)
  • Based in Switzerland
  • 30-day money-back guarantee

We will discuss all ProtonVPN Features, Pros and Cons as well as ProtonVpn Price Structure in details below.

ProtonVPN

High-speed Swiss VPN that safeguards your privacy.
$ 4/month visit site

ProtonVPN Features

Some Of The Key Features Offered By ProtonVPN

Secure Core
ProtonVPN’s Secure Core architecture provides a secure VPN service with the unique ability to defend against network-based attacks. Secure Core protects your connection by routing your traffic through multiple servers before leaving our network. This means an advanced adversary who can monitor the network traffic at the exit server will not be able to discover the true IP address of ProtonVPN users, nor match browsing activity to that IP.
Ad blocker/ Net Shield
Net Shield is a DNS filtering feature that protects you from malware, blocks ads, and prevents website trackers from following you as you surf the web. This feature is available for all paid users of ProtonVPN.
Strong Encyption
ProtonVPN uses the highest strength encryption to protect your Internet connection. 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.

These are bank-grade, state-of-the-art encryption standards. If you are going to suffer a hack, it won’t be because they broke through this encryption. Because it’s never been done. Instead, most hackers will cut their losses and go after other methods of breaking in, like guessing your password reminders.

So in terms of security, we can conclude in this ProtonVPN Review that this mentioned VPN is retaining its user’s privacy quite strongly.
Forward Secrecy
ProtonVPN carefully selected their encryption cypher suites to only include ones that have Perfect Forward Secrecy. This means that your encrypted traffic cannot be captured and decrypted later if the encryption key from a subsequent session gets compromised. With each connection, it generates a new encryption key, so a key is never used for more than one session.
Strong Protocols
ProtonVPN uses only VPN protocols that are known to be secure – IKEv2/IPSec and OpenVPN. It does not have any servers that support PPTP and L2TP/IPSec, even though they are less costly to operate. By using ProtonVPN, you can be confident that your VPN tunnel is protected by the most reliable protocol.
No Log pOLICY
Because ProtonVPN is based in Switzerland, it is protected by some of the world’s strongest privacy laws and remains outside of US and EU jurisdiction. Under Swiss law, ProtonVPN is not obligated to save any user connection logs, nor it can be forced to perform targeted logging on specific users.

This allows this VPN to ensure that your private browsing history does, in fact, stay private and cannot be turned over to a third party under any circumstances. Its No Logs Policy applies to all ProtonVPN users, including anyone using our free VPN.
Kill Switch
ProtonVPN applications offer a built-in Kill Switch feature or the Always-on VPN feature. In the event that you lose connection with the VPN server, Kill Switch blocks all network traffic, while Always-on automatically re-establishes a connection to a VPN server. These features prevent a VPN server disconnect from inadvertently compromising your privacy by revealing your true IP address.
Tor Over VPN
ProtonVPN comes with Tor support built-in. Through our VPN servers that support Tor, you can route all of your traffic through the Tor anonymity network and also access dark web sites. This provides a convenient way to access Onion sites with just a single click.
Anonymous
No personal identifying information is required to obtain a ProtonVPN account. You can sign up with an anonymous ProtonMail email account and use our anonymous VPN without disclosing your identity.
High Speed
For optimal performance, ProtonVPN uses only high-speed servers. All ProtonVPN servers have at minimum 1 Gbps bandwidth, and many of our servers also utilize 10 Gbps connections. This means that even though it utilizes only the strongest encryption, ProtonVPN also provides blazing fast speeds.

Other Additional Features Of ProtonVPN are:

  • P2P Support
  • Unlimited Bandwidth
  • Up to 10 Devices
  • Professional Support
  • Connection Profiles
  • Quick connect
  • Modern Interface
  • Multi-platform Support
  • Quick Country Selector

ProtonVpn Pricing Info

Plans And Pricing Of ProtonVPN

PLANS FEATURESPRICE
FREE✔ 1 VPN connection
✔ Servers in 3 countries
✔ Medium speed
✔ Strict no-logs policy
$ 0.00/month
BASIC✔ 2 VPN connections
✔ Servers in 55 countries
✔ High speed
✔ Strict no-logs policy
✔ P2P/BitTorrent support
✔ Adblocker (NetShield)
$ 4/month
PLUS✔ 5 VPN connections
✔ Servers in 55 countries
✔ Highest speed (10Gbps)
✔ Strict no-logs policy
✔ P2P/BitTorrent support
✔ Adblocker (NetShield)
✔ Secure Core VPN
✔ TOR over VPN
✔ Access blocked content
$ 8/month
VISIONARY✔ All Plus plan features
✔ 10 VPN connections
✔ ProtonMail Visionary account
$ 24/month

As you can see from the above table that ProtonVPN have 4 plans, namely, FREE, BASIC, PLUS and VISIONARY. If you opt for the yearly plan, you can save $ 12 from the BASIC Plan (Charging $48 yearly), $ 24 from the PLUS Plan (Charging $96 yearly) and $ 72 from VISIONARY Plan (Charging $288 yearly).

ProtonVPN also offer two-year plans in which you can save upto 30%.

ProtonVPN Price

ProtonVPN

High-speed Swiss VPN that safeguards your privacy.
$ 4/month visit site

ProtonVPN Pros And Cons

Advantages And Disadvantages Of ProtonVPN

Detailed Advantages Of ProtonVPN:

ProtonVPN was founded on the back of security experts. As we have already discussed some of the main security features of ProtonVPN, confirming that the encryption standards are top-notch. Despite being a free VPN, they also don’t disappoint in a few other key areas that need to be mentioned in this ProtonVPN Review.

1. Easy To Use

It is important for security technology to be easy to use. The developers of ProtonVPN have designed the applications to have a simple and intuitive user interface so that browsing privately and anonymously can be done with a single click. Additionally, you can create custom connection profiles that automatically protect your device whenever you connect to the internet.

ProtonVPN review

2. ProtonVPN For Netflix

ProtonVPN says on their site that Netflix will work on “certain servers“. We were able to successfully stream content on a Netherlands Netflix server. Unfortunately, I have no clue what shows licensed under the Netherlands. Two U.S. servers failed, as did one in Canada and another in the UK. So ProtonVPN for Netflix worked only on one server and failed in all the rest of them.

3. Leak Free Connection

DNS and Web-RTC leaks can accidentally expose your true IP address. These are typically caused by connection conflicts that open a teeny, tiny hole for your data to seep through. It may sound minor. But it isn’t. It allows your ISP, governments, and even two-bit hackers to spot you from a mile (or more) away.

ProtonVPN doesn’t just protect your browsing traffic, it also protects your DNS queries. By routing your DNS queries through the encrypted tunnel and not relying on third-party DNS providers, ProtonVPN ensures that your browsing activity cannot be exposed by leaks from DNS queries.

ProtonVPN Review

4. Decent Customer Support

Ticket-based support systems usually make us cringe. It’s because all have experienced several day delays between each email, which requires a week-long back-and-forth process to answer even the simplest of questions. That initial thought flashed through my head when I laid eyes on Proton’s support options. They do reply to emails but it just needs to be relatively fast and direct. But overall a pretty good experience that requires mention in this ProtonVPN.

5. Open Source

Founded by MIT and CERN scientists, ProtonVPN believes in transparency and peer review. ProtonVPN app is 100% open source, so anyone can examine their code. This transparency means that you can have confidence that the apps are doing what they are supposed to be doing, and only what they are supposed to be doing.

6. Independently Audited

Although being open source means that ProtonVPN coding can be checked by anyone, there is usually no guarantee that it has been. ProtonVPN has commissioned professional audits for all their full-release software from SEC Consult. And unlike some VPN companies, it publishes the full results of these audits online for all to see.

7. High Speed

For optimal performance, ProtonVpn uses only high-speed servers. All ProtonVPN servers have at minimum 1 Gbps bandwidth, and many of their servers also utilize 10 Gbps connections. Most of its servers have high network speed. I have tested downloading speed in torrent sites which is more than 6 Mbps. Besides Torrent downloading, I have used to download games like PUBG through a Chinese Emulator, and have got an impressive result with the speed. And yes, considering that ProtonVPN has a free version, the speed is quite good.

ProtonVPN review

Detailed Disadvantages Of ProtonVPN

ProtonVPN gets high marks in this ProtonVPN review for their attention to security detail. However, there are still a few drawbacks we uncovered. Let’s take a look at each of them in-depth.

1. ProtonVPN are located in Switzerland

Switzerland has a history of being a ‘neutral’ country. One that protects the privacy of its citizens and doesn’t like to get involved in domestic conflicts. And all of that is true. Swiss laws do protect privacy. Generally speaking. The issue, though, is that Switzerland is also a cooperating member of the extended Eyes security alliance. This is a worldwide agreement that essentially helps government agencies to spy on each other’s citizens in the name of “worldwide safety.” But, nothing is new in this as such things have already been happening for decades. So a Swiss-based location means you’re mostly good. Your privacy is mostly safe. The good news is that ProtonVPN doesn’t keep a lot of its customer data on file. But just keep in the back of their mind that their government might force them to cooperate.

2. Server Speeds are a bit slow for the price

Speed is the great equalizer. All else being similar — pricing, features, security protocols, etc. — you’re going to go with the fastest option. Because speed makes all things possible (streaming, torrent downloads, or just a dozen tabs up while you’re bouncing around between browsing sessions). Unfortunately, ProtonVPN’s combined speed score only put them at 48th out of 74 VPN companies. When their speed was tested at SpeedTest.net to get a reading before composing this ProtonVPN review. It showed a 97 Mbps download and a 53 Mbps upload at the same time.

Then it was connected to different ProtonVPN servers and random servers were selected and connected to just get an unbiased reading. Finally, the difference was calculated and a combined score was given that gets ranked against all of the other reviews we’ve previously done. So, let us check out each server test in detail now.


U.S. Servers (East & West)
Ping: 190 ms
Download: 24.6 Mbps (75% slower)
Upload: 36.4 Mbps (31% slower)

ProtonVPN’s U.S. servers started extremely slow. The download speed, especially, would make most torrenting activities slow to a crawl.

EU Servers (Switzerland)
Ping: 66ms
Download: 54.46 Mbps (44% slower)
Upload: 37.86 Mbps (29% slower)

The EU servers, on the other hand, didn’t disappoint. This probably also had something to do with our closer proximity to these servers. Even something as simple as the physical distance between you and the connected server can impact performance. But credit where credits due.

Asia Servers (Hong Kong)
Ping: 317 ms
Download: 16 Mbps (84% slower)
Upload: 6.4 Mbps (88% slower)

We thought the U.S. server speeds were bad. Until we saw the Asian ones out of Hong Kong. 85% slower across the board.

UK Servers
Ping: 46ms
Download: 52 Mbps (46% slower)
Upload: 47 Mbps (11% slower)

And last but not least, a UK server feels somewhere in the middle. Unfortunately, it wasn’t on the ‘good’ side of the middle. These results were disappointing across the board. Consistent, yes. But consistently slow is not good. Companies like ExpressVPN, PIA, and Trust. Zone all offer better speed (at only a fraction of the price).

3. ProtonVPN for China

ProtonVPN doesn’t work in China. Although the provider claims to work in China, it does not offer any servers in the country. Some users also reported troubles in bypassing geo-restrictions on foreign websites. Therefore, ProtonVPN for China doesn’t work.

How To Unblock ProtonVPN for China?

Before we could dive into the unblocking tricks of unblocking ProtonVPN for China, we must first
understand what actually is the Great Firewall of China doing to the VPN services. Basically, China
is blocking the protonvpn.com domain on a DNS level so all we need to do is exchange the domain with
the IP.

Follow these steps towards unblocking ProtonVPN for China:

STEP 1: Download a ProtonVPN OpenVPN configuration file corresponding to the server you like to use. As protonvpn.com is blocked I would suggest accessing it through the Tor network. Ensure to download the TCP configuration file which ProtonVPN has to offer.
STEP 2: Open the .ovpn file with any text editor and search for the line remote xxx.protonvpn.com 443 and copy the domain.
STEP 3: Go to lookingglass.level3.net and click on “Ping from Level 3 sites”. Then paste the domain in the “Ping to” field and click submit.
STEP 4: When it’s done loading, copy the IP address.
STEP 5: Replace the domain with the IP address in the .ovpn file.
STEP 6: Save it, then use your preferred OpenVPN client to connect with the new profile. Now the connection
should work.

9.5Expert Score
Best VPN in the market till now

My personal recommendation is ProtonVPN which has a free Tier that can be used for free for a lifetime. It doesn’t keep any log information. That’s a cool Pros of this Vpn.

Features
9
Ease Of Use
10
Security
9.5
Price
9
Customer Support
9.5
Positive
  • Easy To Use
  • ProtonVPN For Netflix
  • Open Source
  • Independently Audited
  • Strong Encryption
  • Free Version Available
Negatives
  • Network Speed a bit slow for priced version
  • Not working for china
  • Free version very limited servers

Final Verdict

Conclusion

Overall, ProtonVPN is a powerful VPN service provider with a handful of top-notch features. ProtonVPN has very strong security protocols that will surely save you from hackers. You can mask your IP from hackers, Government and can enjoy content from websites that are banned or inaccessible. You can also websites that are not accessible from a particular country. Thus with ProtonVPN, you have no limits while browsing the internet. Considering that it has a free version, ProtonVPN is one of the best free VPN in the market right now and it is highly recommendable.

NOTE: Accessing banned websites by using VPN is still illegal. You may face serious Legal problems while doing so.

I hope you have liked my ProtonVPN Review (2021)-Tested By Security Experts. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comment section below. I will be happy to respond.

Techyuga Team

Techyuga Team

Hello World, We are a team of repair experts for laptops, mobile phones, iPhones, and more. We write a lot of how-to guides, repair tips, and more on our site, and help millions across the world. Do follow us on Social media for more..

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