ProtonVPN (from Protonmail)

[go558a83nk 362]

Interesting info here.  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17258203

[DarkSpace-Harbinger 11]

 

I use Win 10 64 bit

 

No VPN will keep you secure when you're using the biggest spyware o/s on the internet ... drop back to Win7/8.1 or make the switch to Linux or osx.

 

Similar updates have been pushed to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1

 

If you want airtight security, Linux and (maybe?) OSX is the way to go.

 

The modifications and telemetry blocks i have made to my install are sufficient for my threat model.

[pj 72]

Interesting info here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17258203

It looks really shady. To make things worse the replies by Proton are even internally inconsistent. Example:

"We used Tesonet as a local partner before we had an official Lithuanian subsidiary, and rented office space from them. We don't share employees, infrastructure, etc"

 

but then they say:

"This is an unfortunate mistake made by Algirdas, our first (and amazing) Vilnius team member. Back when he first joined us several years ago, we outsourced HR to a third party as it didn't make sense to incorporate a new company for just a single employee.

As Algirdas was formally employed through Tesonet, he put Tesonet into the cert, and nobody noticed it until recently."

 

So they say that they did not share Tesonet employees, and then they say that they did share a Tesonet employee, who even had full access to sign their applications, and if that was not enough, they did not even notice ("until recently") that the company they have nothing to do with, a company that is specialized in data mining and also controls NordVPN, signed their own application certificate? What else they do not know about their very own applications and partners?

 

Kind regards

[corrado 100]

We are one of the only VPN companies that provide transparency so you know exactly who is running the service. Our team has a long track record in security, having previously built ProtonMail - the world's largest encrypted email service. Whether it is challenging governments, educating the public, or training journalists, we have a long history of fighting for privacy online and contributing to the open source community.

 

This is from Proton's website. The answer given in the link posted above is very disappointing and unconvincing in this regard. As contributors to the "open source community" as they proclaim I find it strange that they don't publish the source code of their own client that furthermore does not run on GNU/Linux. To me, that is a huge letdown. Had a short-term subscription with them, speed's were mostly fine but I didn't find a good reason to renew as their service is quite expensive, too. Transparency-wise Proton leaves a lot to be desired it seems - for the steep price they ask that's almost unacceptable. 

[Air4141841 24]

i have to be honest i purchased the 2nd highest plan from Proton (plus i believe it is) and was very happy with speed results obviously depending on the server.   i originally bought the VPN to use Netflix over their VPN and it DID work for 2 weeks flawlessly.    then it stopped working on the only device i wanted it to work on my LG tv.    IF i set my windows 10 laptop or macmini over the proton vpn tunnel  it WOULD play netflix.   i spent a week going back and forth with their support which did try to fix this for me but the end result i believe the tv was the issue.  especially since my computers would work.     tried several DNS settings,  but they really did not dig in deep to the pfsense part, i don't blame them at all...  

 

the proton plus secure servers on that plan.   were significantly slower than their standard servers,  but as it states you go through 2 tunnels for security. 

 

   for my pfsense box i set up 2 tunnels,  one for the TV (the more secure server plus)  and a standard server for surfing and it ran GREAT)    

 

i had the service about a month and then i asked for a refund and they have my 90 dollars back out of the 96  i paid.      i have no complaints about it.  i don't believe it was their fault and they still refunded my money.

 

i wanted to tinker and i did.   i wasted hours on trying to get it to work... oh well.       I am still using Airvpn and bought another year when they had a discount a few weeks back.   i will stick with Air since i can send the TV over the WAN gateway and it works....

[nah 2]

It looks really shady. To make things worse the replies by Proton are even internally inconsistent. Example:

"We used Tesonet as a local partner before we had an official Lithuanian subsidiary, and rented office space from them. We don't share employees, infrastructure, etc"

 

but then they say:

"This is an unfortunate mistake made by Algirdas, our first (and amazing) Vilnius team member. Back when he first joined us several years ago, we outsourced HR to a third party as it didn't make sense to incorporate a new company for just a single employee.

As Algirdas was formally employed through Tesonet, he put Tesonet into the cert, and nobody noticed it until recently."

 

So they say that they did not share Tesonet employees, and then they say that they did share a Tesonet employee, who even had full access to sign their applications, and if that was not enough, they did not even notice ("until recently") that the company they have nothing to do with, a company that is specialized in data mining and also controls NordVPN, signed their own application certificate? What else they do not know about their very own applications and partners?

 

Kind regards

 

the HN thread on this is so interesting.  at best, ProtonVPN seems put together by a technically incompetent company, and at worst, they are providing full access to Tesonet.  the CEO seems to contradict himself in his statements, and the whole thing suggests that given the technical ineptitude, perhaps all of the acclaim for/trust in ProtonMail should be tempered a bit.  

[Ricnvolved1956 51]

Does anyone have an update on Proton VPN? I’ve been using the paid version of Speedify the past year as a backup to AirVPN and am very interested in trying Proton’s VPN Plus service. I would love to get input from the most tech savvy here as to whether the cautionary anecdotes in this thread are still applicable. Thanks in advance for any and all assistance.

[RaineyPass 12]

Does anyone have an update on Proton VPN? I’ve been using the paid version of Speedify the past year as a backup to AirVPN and am very interested in trying Proton’s VPN Plus service. I would love to get input from the most tech savvy here as to whether the cautionary anecdotes in this thread are still applicable. Thanks in advance for any and all assistance.

 

I've been using the paid version of Proton for about a year and have no real issues with it.  Connects quickly, fast, very few glitches, no leaks, dirt simple interface.  It's fairly equivalent to Air from a user standpoint except Proton has more servers with lower loads close to me.  Wouldn't disrecommend it in any way.

 

Also currently use Air and Windscribe.  Air definitely has the most sophisticated capabilities of any VPN I've used.  Gave up on Mulvad, it was too slow for my location.  Windscribe is OK; I don't appreciate the sarcastic comments in the set up app, nor the silly notifications.  The base product works well for the most part but there are times it just plain won't stream video, get some weird js error with a giant X on the screen, some manifest overflow message.  They're junking it up with blockers and their browser add on is kludgy, not to mention a foolhardy place for a VPN to reside.

 

Bottom line, if I need a reliable connection for a few hours, it's Air or Proton, not Windscribe.

 

I'd recommend trying different VPN's, at least try different good ones, some will be fast, some won't depending on your location and other factors.  It's easy peasy to find many bad and good comments about any VPN.  There are many reasons folks use VPN's; determine your needs and decide based on them, vs. someone else's.  Unless a service is well known to sell user data, keep connection logs after disconnects, leak on disconnects (no network lock), spam your email, all the bad stuff that de facto makes it not a VPN, it's worth considering for a trial.

 

FWIW, my comments on Air's roughness earlier in the thread turned out to be (major blush) an underpowered AC adapter that was affecting everything, particularly wi fi, apparently.  Got the right one and my laptop starting working perfectly again.  First hand experience with erroneous blaming.

[RaineyPass 12]

Update on Proton VPN, 20Oct2019

I upgraded from free Proton Mail to their Plus VPN plan, which promises the highest speeds and includes the same email, no new features.  About six months ago or so, Proton began uploading user crash data with no opt out and began performing more slowly than previously, so I decided to not renew my subscription, which had a few months to go yet.  This is where the fun began.

A few weeks before subscription expiration, I tried in futility to find a way, anywhere, on their site to cancel but could not, only a mention in a forum post to send a ticket and Proton would decide if your reason for canceling was sufficient (flashback to Steam, argh!)  In other forums, I read numerous complaints about how much a PIA Proton was when attempting a cancel, so I decided to just let the service run out since the card I used expired long ago.

A week or so after the VPN subscription ran out, I found I was locked out of my email and could only gain access if I renewed the VPN.  Apparently, my free email was bundled with the VPN when I moved to Plus and their "recurring" subscription had no leeway.  There was no indication of this anywhere.  After all the underhanded nonsense from Proton, I just deleted my email account (made no sense that I could even do that if all the emails were ransomed by Proton Plus; and btw reduced to zero value after account deletion, ha ha!) and all was well again, minus some emails and tons of spam.

Proton VPN seemed to be good when I signed up but the devil's in the details; if important terms are obscure and they're using the world's worst ransomware on members, is their service really secure?  Ptoton's very expensive, far too expensive for anything but the best customer service and fastest servers. Not recommended.

[filarakia 1]

On 10/21/2019 at 12:23 AM, RaineyPass said:

I tried in futility to find a way, anywhere, on their site to cancel but could not, only a mention in a forum post to send a ticket and Proton would decide if your reason for canceling was sufficient

Hmmm, you just go into your account/subscription settings and remove the VPN from your package, then update. Surely support would have told you that (they did tell me). If they didn't, you should escalate it as it must have been a very undertrained support agent.

[RaineyPass 12]

On 11/19/2019 at 10:32 AM, filarakia said:

On 10/20/2019 at 6:23 PM, RaineyPass said:

I tried in futility to find a way, anywhere, on their site to cancel but could not, only a mention in a forum post to send a ticket and Proton would decide if your reason for canceling was sufficient

Hmmm, you just go into your account/subscription settings and remove the VPN from your package, then update. Surely support would have told you that (they did tell me). If they didn't, you should escalate it as it must have been a very undertrained support agent.

That was the first thing tried, didn't work, everything was locked, highlighted in red as overdue.  Nothing lost, mailbox was just a place for messages I didn't care about.  The kicker was Proton was holding my data hostage for payment but it was easy to come in a different way and delete the account.  VPN still worked after the subscription should have expired.  VPN services usually just stop if you don't pay.  Too many contradictions.

[Ricnvolved1956 51]

Does anyone have any advice/input/opinions about Proton VPN now? I've been a subscriber for several years and I'm very happy with both their email and VPN service. The VPN now features an optional Stealth feature and I'm curious to know if others have an informed evaluation. By the way, I am still a proud AirVPN subscriber and go back forth between the two VPN services. I feel very, very strongly they are the only VPN choices worth using.

[just4life 0]

On 4/5/2023 at 11:32 PM, Ricnvolved1956 said:

Does anyone have any advice/input/opinions about Proton VPN now? I've been a subscriber for several years and I'm very happy with both their email and VPN service. The VPN now features an optional Stealth feature and I'm curious to know if others have an informed evaluation. By the way, I am still a proud AirVPN subscriber and go back forth between the two VPN services. I feel very, very strongly they are the only VPN choices worth using.

If their VPN will be blocked in your country - they will simply remove their app from the app store.  No solutions, no answers. It's all u should know. Edited ... by just4life

[Air4141841 24]

On 4/5/2023 at 4:32 PM, Ricnvolved1956 said:

Does anyone have any advice/input/opinions about Proton VPN now? I've been a subscriber for several years and I'm very happy with both their email and VPN service. The VPN now features an optional Stealth feature and I'm curious to know if others have an informed evaluation. By the way, I am still a proud AirVPN subscriber and go back forth between the two VPN services. I feel very, very strongly they are the only VPN choices worth using.

I used it strictly for Amazon Prime Video.    it rarely had issues with it detecting a vpn tunnel 
I am/ was using a router for my connection using OpenVPN..   no matter what server, I ALWAYS had dup replay attacks In the event viewer.  no matter mtu.  or settings.    so I ended up using TCP only for my connections
I ended up downgrading my account from full blown to "free". and not using it currently.   I have 8 dollars credit to figure out what to do with. 
I tinker with a few providers, but Proton probably won't see me for couple years.
I never used their Apps, all traffic was over a router 
just my opinion and experience 

[stx 6]

On 4/5/2023 at 8:32 PM, Ricnvolved1956 said:

Does anyone have any advice/input/opinions about Proton VPN now? I've been a subscriber for several years and I'm very happy with both their email and VPN service. The VPN now features an optional Stealth feature and I'm curious to know if others have an informed evaluation. By the way, I am still a proud AirVPN subscriber and go back forth between the two VPN services. I feel very, very strongly they are the only VPN choices worth using.

Proton consists of ex CERN and BlackRock employees, just take a look at their executive team, that's quite the talent pool for running a simple mail server, sure looks like a honeypot!  If you value your privacy, then get off their platforms, it's a grift!    https://proton.me/about/team