Proton VPN Reviews 912

I downloaded the fre version, however every time I go to sign in to the site it shows their other paid deals and there is always a chargeable deal ticked & if NOT UNTICKED BEFORE GOING INTO THE SITE THEN I WOULD BE SIGNING UP TO A CHARGEABLE SUBSCRIPTION THAT I DONT WANT OR NEED!
THIS IS A CLEAR MISLEADING SCAM AIMED AT THE UNAWARE TRICKING THEM INTO SIGNING UP FOR AT LEAST A YEARS CONTRACT!!!??? why be so underhand by getting business/money by tricking your customers into upscaleing them from a free application to a paid version. THIS IS CLEARLY A DISGUSTING METHOD OF STEALING FROM YOUR CUSTOMERS! I will never buy from a seller who is dishonesty obtaining money by deception. IM ANGRY AND ANNOYED. J.S.As a result I'm forced to delete my account in case I get tricked from my free settings as this is all I need & want. The application is perfect & is excellent in every way.

Used to be an amazing VPN provider, But something changed in the last few months.

I'm now in to my 2nd year of VPN plus with Proton and really not happy with the current service and will certainly not be renewing.

So a few months ago I was getting very high speeds on most European and US servers like 700mbps+ high with my gigabit symmetrical internet but now its like 100 - 150mbps if I'm lucky and the latency is huge, There has been no change on my ISP side and the speeds and latency are incredible without the VPN, Now obviously Proton in their replies claim its other factors causing this but the only change is their side with speeds and latency.

I have 12 months with mullvad also and when connected to them I get 700mbps - 800mbps even with DAITA enabled so I'm very happy with them.

Overall though I don't know what happened at Proton but its now terrible and there are mentions of it on their reddit page too.

I am in London. I first of all used Proton VPN free service but it suddenly stopped.
I therefor paid for it......and at first it worked well. But eventually it began to interfere with my WiFi. It eventually blocked my WiFi every time I connected to it and so I had to uninstall it. What a waste of my money.....and what a load of rubbish!
Never again!

This is one of the worst subscription experiences I have ever had. ProtonVPN is a complete disappointment and, in my case, feels like a borderline scam.

I paid 1,299 CZK (approx. 52 EUR) for a one-year subscription, but the service did not work at all. Connections were unstable or completely non-functional, and the service failed to operate as advertised.

Despite this, the app kept demanding additional payments, even though I had already paid for a full year. So apparently, you are expected to keep paying again and again for a service that does not work.

I cancelled the subscription properly via the Apple App Store, yet my money was still charged. When I contacted ProtonVPN support, their response was unacceptable: they told me to “resolve it with my bank” instead of taking responsibility.
Zero accountability. Zero customer care.

To be very clear:
• I paid for a service
• The service did not work
• ProtonVPN continued to request payments
• No refund was provided
• Support refused to help

This is not how a legitimate company behaves. Taking money for a non-functional service and then pushing the problem onto the customer’s bank is unethical and unprofessional.

I am now requesting full reimbursement and compensation for damages, and I am warning others publicly so they do not fall into the same trap.

Be very careful. If something goes wrong, ProtonVPN will take your money and disappear behind automated replies.

I strongly advise people to avoid ProtonVPN and choose a provider that actually delivers what you pay for and communicates honestly.

Misleading promotion, sold me subscription for 1£ but later I realised I get -8£ each month for a while. See this more as a scam don't use it

Been using this app a few months now.i have tried others,this is by far the best.easy to install and setup

Worst customer service I've encountered in ages.

Most servers just do not work in linux and they refuse to engage in any troubleshooting at all as I am not using their selected distribution.

One thing is to not officially support and another to just not engage in any kind of support or help.

Do not buy any services from them!

EDITED: Ticket number is 4362018, but there is no misunderstanding, you just decided not to help, and needing to go to a public forum to get things moving is not good customer service

I have had many problems with this VPN for over 6 months now. When I try to connect to a URL the VPN is stopping the connection. I have to disconnect the VPN, go to the website, then reconnect the VPN. I have contacted the compnay for help numerous times, but nothing that they suggested works. I have requested a refund, but they are ignoring me. I do not recommned this product or this company!!

I used the free version for a while to see how Proton performed. It seemed ok so I went for the paid version.
I initially had problems with email downloads on iOS so had to switch to Yahoo’s native email service which wasn’t ideal. What is worse is the speeds I’m getting across all devices. On initial connection to a server it seems fine ~ although some websites can take ages and eBay can come to a complete stop at times. However the service gradually degrades through the day and I find I have to disconnect and reconnect to get the speed back. This is particularly true first thing in the morning. This implies that there is something fundamentally wrong with the serve load sharing algorithm.
At the moment I regret my decision to go with Proton and wish I’d gone with Nord.

Nord>Surfshark>Norton>Proton So Far So Good!

It's only been a week. But as the title says, so far so good.
Decent speeds. Connections are virtually instant.
Haven't noticed any drops whatsoever thus far.
I have used a number of competitors prior. Some were ok, others were an absolute nightmare. I'll let you decide. I've already left my honest feedback and reviews for those others.
So, here we are. After a bit of research I've decided on Proton VPN.
My 4. rather than 5 starts are purely because I have not yet, (and fingers crossed never) had to contact any support, nor have I encountered any issues. I guess I will see what that's like if/when the time comes.
All I can add is: Price was very reasonable for a 2yr plan. Happy with the cost. Setup was a doddle.
The "app" itself, the menu. The map and all of it's features and information: Looks very easy to understand and to navigate.
Keep it up! (:

I downloaded proton vpn on my laptop to be able to access content not in my country. I chose proton vpn because most vpn's that change your location cost money that I don't have, so I went with the free version. Most of their servers are locked behind a paywall and their interface sucks. I decided to just abandon the vpn because it downloaded a lot of unnecessary programs and didn't work well in general. Only a couple days after download, all of the sudden my laptop won't connect to the internet and It's basically impossible to do things that require it. I tried several things, but WADDA YA KNOW when I deleted proton vpn and it's other useless downloads, suddenly everything started working again. Would not reccomend.

Addendum: Interesting how Proton responds here in hours; but i am lucky to get a response in days.
What a disembling disengenuous liar.
A pity we can't post screenshots, isn't?
You have constantly updated in detail for WEEKS,
Eg
====
06/01
Hi there
Your network performance continues to be appalling.
Constant instances of Web pages/forms not responding.
I expected so much better from Proton; but instead Proton has been by far the WORST performing VPN of the 4 or so I have tried in past couple of years.
Either fix it or refund my sub.
Regards
Dec Sites
===

08/01
Hi there Martin
Please see attached tests.
1. the problematic Perth (AU) server; ands one the Hanoi (VN) server
2. BitDefender
3. CAT5 ADSL (with no other users)
4. VNPT Premium Plan
5. No Torrents
6. I would stream movies off HBO - if it f*g worked on your Perth server‼‼
I have never had these problems with other previous VPN providers
Regards
Don Card
===

09/01
Hi there Martin
A new of tests INCL a new set with no VPN this time
So here you have three sets of tests -
- no VPN
- Proton VPN @ Hanoi (VN)
- Proton VPN @ Perth (AU)
See what you make of these this morning
Regards
Don
===

Proton VPN turned my VNPT ADSL into lousy.
And their 'Support', when you get any, jsut ignores the problem/s,and when i asked for a frefund after a month of lousy performance and complaints, some arrogant bastard just told me “too late for '30 Day Guarantee'”
Location: Vietnam, VNPT. Wired Cat5, nothing exotic.
Without Proton (baseline):
nPerf to Singapore: ~950 Mbps down, ~240 Mbps up, ~48 ms ping.
Browsing + streaming scores in the “good” range.
Cloudflare and other tests: low latency, no packet loss, everything snappy.
In short: the connection is excellent without Proton.
With Proton – Perth & Hanoi exits:
Perth server: ~730 Mbps down, but upload collapses to ~2–3 Mbps, ping jumps to ~160 ms, browsing score tanks to ~46%.
Hanoi server: 180+ ms ping, upload strangled, nPerf streaming test literally crashes with an error.
Some tests show 300+ ms and stupid spikes over 1 second.
Flip Proton OFF and it all instantly goes back to 48 ms and full upload. Same PC, same ISP, same test targets. The only difference is Proton on/off.
Real‑world result:
Pages hang when loading or logging in.
Web apps feel sticky and delayed.
Streaming start/seek is slow or fails.
The line goes from “fantastic” to “barely usable” the moment Proton connects.
Support clown show:
I sent them multiple sets of screenshots: VPN off vs VPN on, Perth vs Hanoi, speed + latency + failed streaming tests.
Replies were non-existent, or slow, and copy‑paste, completely ignoring the clear side‑by‑side evidence.
After weeks of this, their latest genius move was to point out that my 30‑day money‑back window has expired.
So yeah: this isn’t 'VPNs add a bit of overhead'. This is Proton taking a rock‑solid connection and wrecking it, then hiding behind “sorry, guarantee period is over” instead of fixing their routes or servers. Or apologising, Or refunding.
So much for their 'reputation'. Trashed. Along with my money.
Anyone else using (or previously using) Proton, seeing similar Proton performance AND lack of support?

I've had no issues with the service to date, so can't speak for the customer service standards. The VPN itself has been great. No issues connecting to it, changing servers etc. I've been able to access sites from my location that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise. No noticeable slowdown, although no VPN will be able to cut that out entirely. Been with Proton for a year now and happy to renew my subscription as soon as it's time :)

I mainly use the free plan. The speed is a bit slow, but it works consistently. The main drawback is the very limited choice of servers, with only three countries available. The ping is high, so it's not suitable for streaming or gaming. It's fine for normal browsing, but if you need something more, it's better to look for other options or pay.

No ads, boot from the first time, unlimited data, doesn't power off after x hours, no logs policy, Cross platforms.
i've tested a lot of free vpns and this one indeed the best.

(free user) 2 stars because there is the free plan; I don't have tools to judge the privacy but the speed is often absent and sometimes websites don't load at all.

Proton likes to brag about their large server network but now limits the availability of servers only allowing access to a very small group of servers for each paying customer. This is false advertising & very deceitful. They say you can search for more servers to use but after a few searches you are blocked from searching for 24 hours. Very unfair to paying customers that are led to think they would have easy access to their entire server network.

Extremely slow speed and instable connection. I asked to cancel my subscription. Wasted money.

A VPN which works fine, but not on android, and not on a WiFi network with multiple access points. And once they discover their bugs, they don't actually fix them. Their support is terrible, their debs are awful, and their testing team simply don't exist. A poor product for a paid one.
Mail app is buggy and slow too. Only good thing is password manager and drive. I'd go elsewhere. Privacy is a good principle to have, but not at the expense of basic functionality.