This page is updated whenever there is a notable new legal request. This post was last updated on May 29, 2020.
To be counted here as a legal request for information, the request must come through official channels foreign or domestic (either a court order, directly from a government entity, or from legal/security departments of corporations). The only legally binding requests are ones from the Swiss courts that we are legally obligated to comply with. Under Swiss data protection regulations, we cannot legally comply with foreign requests that are not supported by a Swiss court order.
Under Swiss law, Proton VPN is not obligated to save connection logs, and we adhere to a strict no-logs VPN policy. Therefore, we are unable to comply with requests for user connection logs, even if they are legally binding. Furthermore, under Swiss law, a Warrant Canary is not meaningful, because under Swiss law, the target of a surveillance or data request must always be eventually notified, so they have the opportunity to contest the data request.
A listing of notable legal requests is provided below:
January 2019 – A data request from a foreign country was approved by the Swiss court system. However, as we do not have any customer IP information, we could not provide the requested information and this was explained to the requesting party.
From how I understand the law, what you are saying it is true for the servers you own and which are located in Switzerland, but what happen if the request of access is directly send to your service provider such as M247 which are not under Swiss Jurisdiction and don’t host their datacenter in Switzerland.
Hi Jonathan. We operate all servers not directly under our control on the assumption that they are compromised. We have therefore designed our systems to ensure these store no information that can compromise our users privacy.
Proton why are you not being transparent about which foreign country . Was it the UK, the U.S? As loyal proton email , vpn clients we would like to know.
> This post was last updated on May 29, 2020.
Who’s reading this in 2021? 👀
Opening a sports Paige a pop up show one message saying that page as record by police, how you notified one person about a warranty canary? Thanks
Hi Jon. Sorry, can you explain the issue further?
I need to know how my ios apple phone app keeps locking me out on the vpn ( today) and the email ( last week)? I went to go on the vpn a few minutes ago it said you haven’t been on here in a long time. It wanted me to sign in. I had to come here to sign back on. What happened? Is someone trying to get my passwords? There was no reason for this to happen. The only senero that happened just before is that i got a email from Zendesk wanting to help even after I didn’t want their help. I have my reasons why. Then within one day I couldn’t get into my vpn. Last week was my email. Just very IRRITATING!
Thanx
Hi Iris. If you don’t use the app for a long time we require you to sign in again as a security measure.
“This page was last updated on May 29, 2020” in bold.
But the last real entry was in January 2019. Is proton trying to tell us something?
Merely that between January 2019 and May 29, 2020, there were no legal requests.
Hello!
I was boring and read log file and found this:
“Warning:Compression enabled.Compression has been used in the past to break encryption. Enabling decompression of received packet only. Sent packets are not compressed.”
What does it mean exactly? Is it an info warning or alert warning which means am i under inspection by third party?
Could you write to our Support team (https://protonvpn.com/support-form) and specify what app you are using? In principle, compression over OpenVPN is disabled everywhere.
Do you keep logs? In my profile, theres the option of see every log i did, that means you keep every single log we do?
Hi Jon,
No, we do not keep any user logs. We enforce a strict no-logs policy. https://protonvpn.com/support/no-logs-vpn/.
Question
I have been hit with 2 attempts money demands or my computer would be locked
Does proton prevent this?
It sounds like you’re describing a phishing or ransomware attack. ProtonMail can help prevent these types of attacks, but ProtonVPN does not offer specific protection here. The best way to avoid this is to be extremely wary of links or attachments sent to you via email or message.
Worst vpn in the world 100%
Hi there! I’m sorry you feel that way. Please feel free to reach out to our support team with any specific issues you’ve had.
Buongiorno, vorrei farvi una domanda: da qualche mese sono un vostro cliente
ho una mail con voi e utilizzo Proton VPN con un piano di 10 Euro al mese, ho letto attentamente la vostra politica di NO LOG però non mi è chiara una cosa: se le autorità svizzere vi obbligassero a consegnargli i dati di un utente cosa consegnereste? e con questi dati in loro possesso sarebbero in grado di risalire al soggetto?
Grazie.
Buon lavoro ragazzi
Ciao David, questo dependerebbe molto nel caso particulare. La nostra privacy policy indica quali dati potremmo avere: https://protonvpn.com/privacy-policy. Grazie!
Do the free servers allow torrents? If not, is there any plans to allow them in the future?
Hello Sunny,
No, torrenting is reserved for Basic plans. This helps keep traffic on our Free servers low so that people in need can access them. There are no plans to change this.
what about phishing
Just use Linux instead of the insecure Windows. Pretty sure this is the wrong platform to ask that but I don’t know
You state that the site was updated whenever something notable changes.
“This post was last updated on May 29, 2020.”
The last information you added is from January 2019 though.
What am I missing here?
Hello!
Do you recommend any antivirus solution?
“A data request from a foreign country was approved by the Swiss court system. However, as we do not have any customer IP information, we could not provide the requested information and this was explained to the requesting party.”
What would happen, if, for example, a request approved by the Swiss court system asked for a user’s username and email, would you hand over this data ? Some of us use our real names as our email addresses and thus we would be easily identifiable by a government.
I looked alot of vpn company transparency report. It’s interesting that protonvpn just got 1 for a long time. Your page wasnt updated 10-15 days ago. Now date is updated but listing is still just 1 can you inform us about it. Thanks.
Can I learn why this report didnt updated for almost 1.5 year ? It’s long time.
If a buying 10 devices plan, am I be able to share some quota with my family(up to totally included me )10 houses’ routers? Hence, will my devices like iPhone connect the router can access network with VPN-Protected ？
If you subscribe to a Visionary plan, you will be able to have 10 devices connected simultaneously. Each router you set up with ProtonVPN only counts as one device (you can read more about that here: https://protonvpn.com/blog/setup-a-vpn-router/) And all the devices connected to the WiFi network of a ProtonVPN-equipped router will have their traffic encrypted in the VPN tunnel. So yes, what you are asking is possible.
At the end of the article you report “January 2019 – A data request from a foreign country was approved by the Swiss court system. However…”
Can you say what country did make this request and for what’s reason? (I don’t think it’s secreted)
Do you have a number or the court order ID where we can review the case?
Was this the only case? Do you have a page reporting all cases?
At the end of the article you report “January 2019 – A data request from a foreign country was approved by the Swiss court system. However…”
Can you say what country did make this request and for what’s reason? (I don’t think it’s secreted)
Do you have a number or the court order ID where we can review the case?
Was this the only case? Do you have a page reporting all cases?
Hi Guys,
i have three questions, i hope you can help me:
in your Terms you write “We do store the email address (or ProtonID) you have entered when creating an account for communication and anti-abuse purposes.”
1. What do you mean by anti-abuse purposes ? Further how would the ProtonID / Email help you ?
2. For VPN Users there is no “log” – you ONLYlog timestamps, did i understand that correct ?
3. Is there a phone number which i can use to get in contact with support team ?
regards, JP
So to make it all simple.
In Protonmail, if you get a warrant to track the ip-adress that’s connecting to the e-mail you will do it and send it to the authorities. What about ProtonVPN? are you allowed to do that?
And the second question is, you get a warrant that you need all the information about the person who was connected on a certain day in a certain hour. What kind of Information can you provice? Can you provide the e-mail address and the username of the person who was using that ip-address from your servers? And will you log his ip address if asked to?
Thanks!
Hello, what if you receive a valid court order to give all the information you have of some protonvpn user and the user is registered to protonvpn using a protonmail mail account?, you need to give them all the protonmail mail account and activity?, if it’s like this, honestly sounds not good, still a user can store emails with really important personal information in protonmail account.
Hi,
you advirtising we switch over to other vpn protocol IKE or open vpn?
but how?
best
Thomas
Hi, Proton
Can i ask you , Why you Store Log in & Log out Time Stamp ?
Hi,
Do you use bare metal servers (A ‘bare-metal server’ is a computer server that is a ‘single-tenant physical server) or ram disk servers (in a RAM disk, you’d have near-instant load times because their data would already be stored in the fastest memory possible).
Kind Regards
Jon
You say that you have a “strict no logging” stance, do you own your own servers? If not, what prevents the owners of the servers from logging user data and handling that information over to the authorities if requested?
Cheers!
Hi Joseph,
We own the servers used in our Secure Core infrastructure. https://protonvpn.com/support/secure-core-vpn/
On the servers that we do not own, all traffic to and from the servers is encrypted and we utilize full disk encryption. https://protonvpn.com/blog/disk-encryption/
Hallo,
ich überlege, mein Konto zu upgraden. Wie sieht das mit einer Kündigungsfrist aus? Leider konnte ich dazu nichts finden!
Vielen Dank!
Hi, why is this VPN service free? What does Proton Technologies get out of it? I mean with Proton Mail you pay for the service, so what does Proton get out of providing a very complex technology for free – what’s the catch?
Hi Gavin! All our products have a free plan, including ProtonMail. However, you can upgrade to get more features and support our mission. Our revenue comes from these paying subscribers.
If data is requested, such as email, it may result in the user’s location! Many use email, like gmail and other email services that can provide the location of who created the email account! Breaking anonymity. I’m wrong?
We do not store users’ location data or IP addresses (unless you turn on authentication logging, which is an optional safety feature). So no, this would not be possible. You can check out our privacy policy: https://protonmail.com/privacy-policy
Kann ich den kostenlosen von auch aus Tunesien verwenden?
Hallo Evelyn,
Ja, ProtonVPN ist auch in Tunesien kostenlos erhältlich.
Danke
Hello! Is it legal to use it from the US?
Hi! Yes.
How do you handle things like terrorist communications and such if you don’t keep logs?
Can you elaborate on why you choose use Sweden as part of your “secure core” or multi hop when they are part of the five eyes?
I was wondering in the acknowledgment on the app settings it says you use third parties. What does that mean exactly?
Greetings!
First of all, thank you for a great job you have done with ProtonVPN and ProtonMail !
I do have a couple of questions, concerning you VPN service:
1. In all the places you are referring to “Swiss privacy laws” (that you are “not obligated to save connection logs” etc.). But wouldn’t that only apply if all the servers were in Switzerland? Here are some elaborations, to illustrate what I mean:
1.1 If I am using a ProtonVPN server (connecting to it directly – without Secure Core) that is located in Switzerland – then it is obvious that Swiss law is applied here. What happens if I am connecting to a ProtonVPN server (again, directly – without Secure Core) that is located in Canada wouldn’t the Canadian law be in power there (since physical location of the server is in Canada)?
1.2 In case if I am connecting to ProtonVPN server in Canada, but using Secure Core now (i.e. connecting first to ProtonVPN server in Switzerland) then even if logs from server in Canada will be exposed, everything that they will reveal is connection to Secure Core server in Switzerland (which operates under Swiss laws and thus is not obligated to save connection logs). But if this is the case, then it is quite pointless to use ProtonVPN without Secure Core.
2. Back to Mani’s question, what would be your response if you would received a valid Swiss court order to:
2.1 Reveal username and password for account with email address: some@email.org ?
2.2 Reveal email and password for account with username: some_user ?
2.3 Check and report if user with username: some_user is registered in your service?
2.4 Check and report if user with email: some@email.org is registered in your service?
Thanks in advance for the answers, and keep up great work!
Do you have plans to support ipv6 in the very near future? If not, why, if yes, do you have a time frame? I want to subscribe, but my mobile operator only uses ipv6 for their 5G service. They also stated all of their service will be ipv6 within a couple of months.
Hi, interested in your vpn and so far all looks well. Wanted to ask if your vpn comes preinstalled with Socks5 and if not if you recommend any Socks websites to compliment Protonvpn? Thanks
Hello
What happens if someone threating People using your vpn server? Do you provide ISP to the domestic authorities if required.
Hello. Do the users connect directly to the server? For instance, if someone wants to watch US netflix and connect to a US vpn server … this server is located in the US and thus is under the jurisdiction of the US government and can be compelled to host tracking/logging software. Does this server know the customer’s IP address?
Now, while trying to signup for free e-mail I get a message in Russian, saying that e-mail signup is disabled. Проверка с помощью электронной почты временно отключена
Why is that? Are you somehow a company of / affiliated to Russian entrepeneurs or something?
Has ProtonVPN handed over the private keys of the certificates in the OpenVPN configuration files to any authorities? And can ProtonVPN be forced to hand over the above private keys to any authorities?
Hiya team Pvpn !
just discovered your free VPN and after enjoying the 7 day trial, can only express delighted amazement at the speed reached by the free offering. As an independent (read, unemployed) journalist, even a few extra dollars for this or that service (phone, net, website hosting, email, antivirus etc) soon add up. And having a free, unlimited option with still reasonable speed will seem like a miracle for colleagues in developing countries, especially.
I do have a question tho sparked by this comment about Australia:
https://protonvpn.com/blog/transparency-report/#comment-2311
Q. in light of the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018, or ASS law as Australians criticis like to call it, are your Australian servers at risk of seizure or orders to log individual accounts?
I’m no international privacy expert but the Australian laws, like their UK counterparts, sound very worrying.
Human Rights Watch laid out their case against the draft law before it was in December 2018, with that background here: https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/09/20/turning-our-technology-against-us
Which court (system)? Case number(s)?
Honestly answer please. Is there any chance that agencies save the full traffic of Proton? I mean this is what N.S.Ah doing with T.O.Rh network. They save everything the full traffic. I heard they are close to decrypt the 1024 encryption. And Quantum computers. I heard Google’s quantum computer solved something under 3 minutes.It could be encryption no one knows.What is your oppinion? They save the full traffic and one day in the future they can decrypt 2048,4096 bit.
No log is good but what about when the court order asks you to deliver a list of active IP addresses.
Btw wonderful products (happy paying customer for protonmail and vpn). I use a pihole as adblocker. 1. How can I retain DNS based ad blocking while using vpn? 2. When will you add ad blocking services to vpn?
Best
Dan
Hello Proton, I would like to thank you for your excellent work regarding the privacy of your customers, paid and free. I really am a fan of your service. ALWAYS keep it that way.
However I have a question! In the vpn application of yours exists in the side menu written SHOW LOG could better explain why that option and if something is collected about my navigation ??? Using the free trial version I wanted to better understand this option in the side menu. Thanks in advance I used Google Translate, sorry for any spelling mistakes.
What would occur if you received a valid court order asking you to log activity associated with a particular website? Is this possible under swiss law?
Hello Jo,
Great question. No, such a request would be excessively broad and current legislation would not permit it, as it might accidentally log people who are not under suspicion.
Cheers.
Hi Proton!
I am not an IT man so excuse me if the questions are “noob”. I understand you can defend against MITM attack. But what if the endpoint is compromissed? An attacker monitors my file system or memory. What can he see when i start a Proton session and get my ip address from proton server.My router opens encrypted tunnel and download file. Can he see the file name in my file system or just encrypted data?
And what is the situation when the session is over and keypairs are deleted? That moment can he see the file name or just encrypted data also?
And where are the keys stored under session? Memory,register? For example can he get it from memory? Or PFS defend against this key stoling.
Thank you and good work!
Hi,
By court order can you give them the customer account username and email id if they ordered you?
Thanks
Hello Mani,
Good question. In theory yes, although we don’t expect to receive such an order because in order to request information on a user, the court would already need to know the username. Essentially, they would be requesting something they already have. And if they don’t have it, they cannot make the request. Hope this helps.
1- What do you monitor on your network? only server status (like CPU usage, …) or also user traffic? If so, under what circumstance do you monitor user traffic and do we get notified about it? In the event that you monitor activity that does not follow the Swiss law, do you just terminate the account as per your TOS or do you also open a legal inquiry
2- Are there any obfuscation techniques in place to fights things like DPI?
3- Does the Privacy Policy treat blocks of data that might contain “Personal Data” also as “Personal Data”?
4- When configuring the OpenVPN in the router, is every device connected via wifi/etheret counted as an unique device towards the limit of max. devices set by the contracted plan?
Hello,
1. We do not support any illegal activities while using our service and we reserve the right to suspend any account that violates our terms of service. We do not log or monitor any of our users’ activity while they are using the service, but if we become aware that a certain account has violated the ToS, we will suspend or terminate it without further notice.
2. ProtonVPN does employ some techniques to bypass VPN blocks. While it is possible to bypass DPI through clever means, sophisticated censorship programs can always block VPN traffic if they want to by simply blocking connections to the IPs of the VPN servers. This is what the Great Firewall of China is doing.
3. Yes
4. No, the router is counted as a single device.
Keep the great questions coming.
Your facts is extremely prominent.
I *heart* you, ProtonVPN! Please keep this up and keep feeding news on any belligerence from authoritarian regimes. Please help keep internet freedom going. Booboopeedoop boop!
I have been trying Proton VPN for several days and must say i am impressed. I am an old guy who is just tired of the info scamming that has been going on way too long. I have tried a couple other vpn’s and Proton is the classiest so far. plenty quick enough, starts automatically as i have it set up and both me and my wife on her pc have found it almost like a stealth program…you know its there but dont even think about it but know you can rest easy re: you “stuff” thanks for a nice set up and i will soon be a subscriber. Clas
hey what is going on as of recent? how are you guys protecting/cooperating with LE such as the FBI/CIA/INTERPOL? can you elaborate extensively please
Hello! ProtonVPN operates under Swiss law, and therefore we only work with Swiss law enforcement agencies, and only if a court has approved a criminal case. You can find more details on our transparency report: https://protonvpn.com/blog/transparency-report/.
Proton VPNs Still Work With Netflix?
Hello! Yes, you can watch US Netflix when connected to any ProtonVPN Plus server located in the US. Please read the following article: https://protonvpn.com/support/watch-netflix-with-vpn/. If you are experiencing any issues, please contact us here: https://protonvpn.com/support-form.
Czemu tutaj pokazuje sie wegierskie forum?
Why is the Hungarian forum shown here?
Hello! Could you please elaborate on your question? We would be happy to answer any questions you may have regarding ProtonVPN and our service.
Problem mit Javascript. Nachricht zu den Einstellungen. Hilfe!
My english is poor :).
Hello! Since we cannot troubleshoot your issues and help you here, could you please report them to our support team so that hey can further dig in? Please drop us an email to support@protonvpn.com or fill in the following form: https://protonvpn.com/support-form. Thank you!
This is seriously the best VPN Programm i’ve ever used. I only tryed the free version and now i want no other programm anymore. (Good old; xD) Now i want to get a’ upgrade but i need an easy anonym payment methode… It would be nice if someone could help me, with my problems in the worldwideweb or how this has to get written… ‘^^,
~wiederholenbiddedanke 👅
(A by Articel 13/17 triggered german -.- ) 😂
Hello! Thank you for your support. In addition to credit card and PayPal, we also accept Bitcoin payments. Learn more about anonymous VPN payments here: https://protonvpn.com/support/payment-options/.
Hi Proton!
I am thinking about your vpn service but have some questions.
1.you say “costumer”. What does it mean exactly? Person who paid to ProtonVpn services? Or “costumer” contains a person who just tried 14 days free trial?
2. If i use only free trial and it was expired and 2 months later can i use 14 days free again? If i can’ t how can you determine that i used proton service earlier? You notifie Mac Address or what?
Good work guys!
Hello! Our customers are all of our users, regardless of their subscription plan (paid or free). Also, note that after signing up to ProtonVPN, every user has an ability to try out a 7-day Plus plan and check all the extensive features provided for paid subscribers. After the 7-day trial period, the user can either decide to upgrade for a paid plan or continue using free ProtonVPN services for an unlimited period of time.
Hello. My question is the following: If you don`t have any log files, how can you determine what number of computers I am using with your VPN. This is not completely conclusive for me. You should not really know how many devices I use. Or am I making a mistake now?
Hello! We can see in real time how many connections you have. Whenever you try to make a connection, we check how many connections you have and if you are over the limit, we disallow making another connection. This process does not require logs.
Hi .. I want to retrieve my money I do not want to subscribe .. Thank you
Hello! Please submit a ticket in the following link: https://protonvpn.com/support-form and our support team will help you with the refund.
Shouldn’t you have canaries on this page in case you’re compelled by the courts to do something without being allowed to inform us? It’s as simple as “We have not served any warrents/orders ect”. This should be standard practice if you expect the trust of customers.
Hello! Warrant canaries are not necessary in Switzerland because Swiss law requires that the target of a warrant be notified.
The best secure vpn you can not find better than Protonvpn on the market.
Hi! Thank you for your support, it’s much appreciated!
All servers are under maintenance in Australia ?
Hello! We are currently solving the issue, the servers should get back in service soon – we will definitely let you know. Sorry for inconveniences!
hello. i am from poland. i uwielbiam was!
Hey, thanks for the support, we love you too!
Hello,
I currently have a different VPN provider configured on my Tomato-based router (Netgear R7000). So I am glad to see that the same setup is doable with ProtonVPN, as I am doing some VPN-provider shopping.
One problem I used to encounter occasionally was having my outgoing e-mails blocked by intended recipients. Should this be a problem using ProtonVPN?
Thank you.
Hey Pat! Since our VPN provides shared and static IP addresses, it means that the same issue could be encountered as with your previous VPN providers. This is because any other user, connected to the same VPN server and abusing email systems, like sending a bunch of junk to many recipients could cause the IP to be gray-listed. If that user does these sort of actions, that has impact on you too, who is using the same VPN server, since you got the same IP address.
Please make it known to me and on your website if ProtonVPN is open source coded or not, thank- you and cheers!
Hello! At the moment our app is not open-source – we are still doing constant code improves and add new features to it. It might become open-source sometime in the future – follow us on social media to find out all the news!
What about DNS protection? Will we be using your DNS servers, or will my ISP be able to track my DNS requests?
Hi! ProtonVPN protect your DNS queries by routing your DNS queries through the encrypted tunnel and not relying on third party DNS providers, we ensure that your browsing activity cannot be exposed by leaks from DNS queries.
For what time period span does this Transparency Report apply? Could your webpage be changed to reflect the dates?
Hey Olly! Transparency Report is updated once a quarter, and so is updated the date on this webpage.
hello all. thanks for approved.
“All servers are under maintenance.” Russia. Near from Moscow.
Hello! Sorry for inconveniences! It was a temporary server issue that has now been resolved. The issue is understood and should not happen again. No data is breached or lost.
My current VPN provider can’t be successfully connected from within Russia.
What about ProtonVPN?
Hello! In most cases ProtonVPN works without any trouble for users in Russia, but we recommend you to try our service out yourself, check for leaks, do a speed test and see if it will suit your needs!
What happens if someone downloads something illegal?
Hello! We do not support any illegal activities while using our service which are covered in our Terms of Service and we reserve a right to suspend any account that violates them. However, we do not log or monitor any of our users’ activity while using the service, but if we would receive any evidence or proof out of those means that a certain account violated the ToS, we will suspend or terminate it without further notice.
is there at least one server within the free plan that supports p2p traffic?
if yes, wich one?
P2P is not allowed on free servers in order to keep them as fast as possible for all users.
Hi,
I know you never log users or RECORD, But my question is, if the court needs users traffic what kind of information you give them.
We do not log or track any of our users’ traffic – the only thing we can provide is the login timestamp which does not contain any identifiable information like your IP address and we only keep it in order to protect accounts from brute forcing attempts as a security measure.
Et vous n’avez pas de log même si votre serveur vpn est situé à l’extérieur de la Suisse (comme en France) ?
And you don’t have a log even if your vpn server is located outside Switzerland (like in France) ?
All of our servers are configured the same way so it does not really matter to which country you are connecting to.
jAlso, on the bitcoin payments… It is a marvelous Idea, as since many VPN providers who like to tout the anonymity prowess of using their services have been alllowing for payments in crypto for some time… and give than protonmail is alreay available over onion, bitcoin payments make sense..besides, as scientists, and other architects of the future, I would imagine that cryptocurrency payment was long since a plan as it is the currency of the virtual world whether for privacy/anonymity, or simply the system security of containing as much of the entire proton technologies exprience being contained withing the cyber realm, and thus potentially more streamlined and representative of true free speech, thought, and information exchange.
However, I do feel like in the coming years, Proton should work on integrating more crypto. For example, litecoin, built to be a faster, and more everyday conveinient version of the bitcoin blcokchain, or it seems etherum is quite popular atm… or even this new mobile one, electroneum that just came out, designed to be all mobile. Should it gain footing, integrating that for payments when accessing/managing your proton products through android/ios mobile devices..as well as any other mobile technologies the proton team will develop in the future. .. and with that I am half a sleep. so I’m done commenting for the day… thanks folks.
Wow, I got a little turned around reading this thread.
Let me begin by saying that I have been user of Proton Technologies for, I’d have to guess a year and half now. Wow. It feels so much longer. i dabbled with early free accounts, but after forgetting at least one if not both of my login passwords on and small, new, largely experimental account on this obscure email provider claiming ultimate privacy for the average joe! You see, it was election season, I and am a career Operative working on the federal plane in 16 for the damned dems or at least with partners etc.I know my office was compromised specifically, and later that year, yahoo gave me the oh so prompt notification that they were once again reaching out to a new wave of clients who, yes had been compromized… 3 years prior…y’know, in the attack that we already knew about during the last election cycle 2 years prior.. Good Job Yahoo…
So needless to say, even without deep research on the laws of the jusidiction of the proton servers, the integrated encryption, user choice of logging level (for me to check for unauthorized access via potential kelyogging attack etc. I had made the move to purchase my account before the end of thethe 2016 cycle…. my chromebook was driving me insane with privacy and surveilence concerns and at least protonmail could keep my most private communications safe, at the very least of the two passwords and the virtually irreversible encryption of resing data in my own mailbox should an emergency password resent be required for acceess to the account… I myself have already permanently scrabled several important professional comms as an early, paranoid user… which is to say…
To the person who said that the U.S. and U.K will “make and example” out of Protonmail, and/or switzerland due to the overarching greed of their data lust and especially the U.S.’s tendency toward tempertantrums… but the admin has it right. While I don’t know ever letter of the law for either let alone both countries, I know enough to know, that the U.S./U.K. are not going to “make and example” of a country like switzerland, famously neutral in famously massive geopolitical confilcts, a country outside of the E.U. but geographically very central, as in potential collateral damage to the surrounding allies of the U>S in Europe, even if attacks are only fiscal and economic…. and, beyond that. Just because the U.S. MUST KNOW ALL! they cannot play above the law with switzerland without possibly escalating it to an international incident over what? The security of information, which, ironically, the political power structure of the U.S. should actually have respect to the Swiss for, considering their own failings…. it’s just… no. Make an example of switzerland over email/vpn servers…. nah. the fallback would make them look stupid. You sanction countries with human rights violations, threats of “actually” manufacturing/.possessing/testing WMD’s, ect. and to make and “example” of the Proton People, who fall underswiss jusrisdiction, would either be a failed effort at being tough and a success at looking foolish (like trump everyday) but also, should whatever “dipolmatic” means were used, if that did not (which likely would not, produce satisfactory results for them, they would be forced to either break international law, treaties, alliances, etc. to either launch convert operations to attempt to take their information by force, physically, or through illegal spying, of a foreign nation, on not just the data they probably saught, but on the remaining, lawabiding, everyday citizens of said foreign nation, whcih could in and of it self be considered, by anyone from the other side of the pond as an act of terrorism or combat, as the cyber world is a legitmate military battleground too… Thus essentially , from the U.S. media’s spin, protecting our freedom from a dangerous (maybe terrorist) state who does nothing but protect crimiinals and terrorists and enemies of “freedom” of the established world….
And the admin’s mention of the physical security of storing these valuable peices of equipment are being stored in massive bunkers (former military or ice age survival i can only imaginge) which would then mean that should the US, UK and other surveillence-hungry, megolamaniacal, trigger happy, blood-thirsty, hawkish military fan boys would need to launch and assault, overt or covert to try to get their way. Either way, an invasion of and attack on a foreign nation, not over WMD’s (which U.S. would lie freely about anyway) or even as a preemptive strive on a dangerous fundamentalist ground bend on destroying the western world,but also chose to maintain that unique, individual autonomy by not uniting, socioeconomically, with the rest of the E.U…
despite being entirely surrounded by E.U.nations. Essentially an act of war on a country famous for never declaring war on anyone… yeah… it woudl be an international incident that would backfire. You can mess with the USDOJ if, say you are the High Court of a foreign nation, like one who has maintained a strong, unwavering, and enduring, source of sovereignty even without going to war, or generally lifiting a Fist or a Gun in hostilitity or aggression despite having trainded armed forces… No no…
Even when the USDOJ, wants to go after the creative finacial practices of the swiss, they typically have to wait until the offending Swiss National is, well, not in switzerland. So really… if its logs, records and servers they want, as long as those stay in bunkers in countries where USLaw does not apply because “surprise” it’s not the US cuz the US isn’t the world!!! no matter how hard the US/K want to co-opt things at home, anything governed by the laws and jurisdiction of a nation that recognzies other countries but the U.S. exist and can think for themselves, the US has to play someonelse’s game for once, or, as I said risk a political or military itnterantional incident, an act of war or terrorism.
I’m sure you have some idea, so I won’t say “you have no idea,” but ProtonMail and now this VPN are really appreciated. I’ve used them to not only protect personal communications, but also intellectual property as well as to circumvent censorship. It’s great to connect to your VPN before remoting a work computer when in certain countries. Anyone reading this and considering buying a sub should do so if you can. It’s both compensating worthy of compensation and also a charity for those users who genuinely cannot afford it financially or afford being caught subscribing for possible legal implications.
Are your servers protected from meltdown and spectre?
Yes, we take all precautions to prevent exposure to threats such as Meltdown or Spectre. We have periodic and impromptu security checks of all our software and hardware. and we secure them as soon as patches from producers are available.
How come you guys accept Bitcoin as “anonymous” payment system when by design it is not anonymous at all. You should be using privacy based coins specifically ones that are quantum computer resistant.
You could use ShapeShift.io (open-source/anonymous to use) to convert your more privacy-oriented cryptocurrency (for example: Monero) into BTC as a method to send payment, effectively paying Proton with BTC.
Blockchain is a transparent, open-ledger which can be used to trace transactions, but it as you mentioned, it is not actually anonymous but pseudonynomous. It focuses on relying on the Bitcoin Core protocol to confirm/verify transactions by the genuinity of each transaction’s identification rather than the ultimate identification of the individuals involved as banks currently do.
So, based on one’s particular personal privacy concerns, how one chooses to allow their personal identity to be revealed in the first place, or obscured, is always up to the individual.
I’m not suggesting I think you are oblivious to any of this, your comment simply prompted me to respond with my own 2 cents, for what it may be worth, with the intent to help spread a little relevant information to those who may not have yet been introduced to knowledge of such matters.
It is recommended for those who are new to cryptocurrency to look into different conversion tools such as shapeshift.is, Changelly, Swithchoin, etc., along with reputable blockchain obfusication resources (tumblers/mixers/exchanges). And, of course, understand how blockchain works, what altcoins exist & what unique characteristics they possess, & the like.
Cheers. :)
Quick question: I’ve been stalked online and later on in real life by a group of people since I was a teen.
So I was forced to use a vpn and move city to escape these perverts, frequently. I am now using your vpn and so far I have been able to maintain my escape from these creeps, however, if I use your vpn for more than a few weeks I get recurring disconnects due to failed authentication, usually if I look at the connection log, I can see that it sometimes gets stuck on looking up dns server OR failed to authenticate. This has me worried once again.
Did they somehow inject a new certificate into my OpenVPN app? Don’t think that’s possible but…science used to be magic…so just because you haven’t seen it done doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
Also I read about a week ago this:
“I tried their Speed High plan first and was seeing about 100Mbps I upgraded to the Speed Highest plan and saw an increase in speed despite connecting to the exact same server and port. Which means they are doing traffic shaping and queuing which requires logs to function properly. Very upset about this. I had high hopes for them.”
Care to elabprdate please? This seems to be a legit aqasumption.
Also regarding the private requests to retain data, receive data etc. I would like to be informed if someone from a private “organisation” is wanting information on me. That is far more dangerous in my view than any government agency asking for my details. The government hasn’t been creeping on me since I was a teen, they haven’t been deliberately trying to cause me pain and drive me to self harm and attempted suicide.
Any chance for a service where your customer base will be alerted to this?
Thanks
Hello Jason, at first allow me to address connectivity issues – we have worked really hard on the service stability, so depending on the client, these issues should not be persistent. If they are, I would recommend to immediately contact our support team, they are always ready to help with any issues whatsoever you are having with the service.
Regarding certificate – that’s just simply not possible, certificates are checked from the server side and if they wouldn’t match, you would never get connected to the server in the first place.
Regarding speeds – we do not throttle or cap speeds for our users regardless of the plan they are using, including free users. Each of our servers are configured the same way – the only difference is server load, that’s why free users sometimes might experience slower speeds than they would with a less-loaded server from any of the paid plans.
If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to write us via support@protonvpn.com!
I recently purchased your Visionary package and want to know if my investment is solid given reviews by Restore Privacy.
1. Restore Privacy a legitimate resource for independent reviews?
2. Is Resource Privacy’s assessment of ProtoVPN written by Sven Taylor accurate as of the date of the article, September 6, 2017? He asserts while there are good features, the software performs like it’s still in beta.
3. What improvements have been made since the Restore Privacy September 6 Benchmark?
4. Will ProtonVPN offer more hands-on support to newcomers to the VPN world to maximize use of your services. After all, most individuals who secure these services have security concerns and are interested in the getting the most bang for the buck.
Hello Stan, we don’t consider this particular article very accurate since it does provide a lot of misinformation and untrue facts. However, we are in contact with them and they are willing to work with us in order to correct the parts where the article provides false or outdated information. As of now, the article is quite outdated.
Hello,
So you say that you keep no logs. But when it comes to child porn, hacking or any kind of illegal activities, which actions do you take?
We do not have any information regarding the activities of our users. If we receive a Swiss court order, we will disable the account. Details are in our Terms & Conditions: https://protonvpn.com/terms-and-conditions
This is as it should be! Child porn/exploitation should be combated, but not at the cost of privacy for everyone!!!
Any status on the OSX native client?
Thx!
It’s being tested in Beta at the moment. We hope by Q1 of 2018 to publicly launch it. If you wish to join the BETA program, please send us an email at contact@protonvpn.com and request an invite.
Quick question, but first let me say that I love ProtonMail and ProtonVPN. I really appreciate being able to test drive the ProtonVPN Plus for a week. To the question, I’m likely going to purchase the ProtonVPN Plus subscription, but I have one question regarding the protocols. I check the IP/DNS/Anonymity specs on various sites, and on a site like Whoer dot net, it doens’t even recognize OpenVPN. With other VPNs it does recognize IPSec, OpenVPN, etc. So, is ProtonVPN able to disguise the anonymizer? (fantastic!) Or is it some problem with my client/computer? Everything else seems tip top. Thanks.
We use OpenVPN, so it should detect the OpenVPN. We don’t use IPSec for security reasons.
It works just fine, Alan, but that’s a good question for those unsure how to check. The MTU and MSS values are reduced (indicating OpenVPN is working well). The normal MTU value is 1500. When using ProtonVPN it is reduced to 1360 or 1365. Exactly what you would expect. Whoer and similar sites sometimes don’t dock points for OpenVPN because it’s the best when compared to L2TP, IPsec, etc.
Hi. How does your service (the securitiy you promise) comply with the new NDG, especially Art. 43 Abs. 3, which obligates providers to remove any kind of encryption on request? Are there any backdoors in your code or how are you going to deal with such requests in the future?
You can read our analysis about the NDG Swiss law here: https://protonmail.com/blog/swiss-surveillance-law/
Many points for email are also relevant for VPN.
I love Proton mail. Thank you very much. i am also looking forward to your VPN. Thanks for all you do!
Hi,
How to pay BTC for your VPN service ?
Regards.
How often can we expect this page to be updated? I see it has been two months.
ISP providers are responsible for monitoring traffic on their network, either under US, EU or other legislation. Who provides proton with internet connectivity? A large tier 1 or 2 operator like Deutsche Telekom ? How does privacy work then ? Maybe Swisscom has agreements with larger providers, but can larger providers throttle or disconnect Proton ? How does it work ?
any outgoing traffic is encrypted, so ISP’s will only see a connection to a ProtonVPN server but not know the final destination. If you’re looking for additional protection against advanced threats (correlation attacks or similar) we can suggest looking into the Secure Core feature.
Hi guys,
Where do you stand with the MacOS VPN ?
Using Tunnel Blick is ok, but an actual App would make my day :)
Cheers,
MacOS app is in internal testing, we plan to start closed beta in the coming months, stay tuned!
Is your server park running on physically harddisks or ramdisks? thank’s for reply
We run with physical hard disks, but there is no security issue because we do not keep logs and we use disk encryption.
Bonjour étant client chez protonvpn je voudrais savoir si votre vpn protège t’il réellement des organisme comme la nsa? Merci cordialement
You can read more about the VPN threat model here: https://protonvpn.com/blog/threat-model/
Can you please try to download the latest version (Currently 1.0.5) from protonvpn.com/download and check if that works. If it doesn’t work, please submit a support request to us here:
https://protonvpn.com/support-form
Can you give us an update on status of iOS support, please?
We have started developing the app and are aiming for release before the end of this year.
Do you process your payment transactions through payment channels other than VISA & Mastercard & PayPal (all of which which US-based organizations and subject to US laws)? Remember that WikiLeaks had much of their funding model disrupted because the US demanded that organizations like these not process payments to Wikileaks.
Similarly, don’t expect that Swiss banks, or any other bank that has any business unit in the US, will help you out in that instance as they will be subject to punitive sanctions by the US should the US government decide to make an example of you for some reason.
We also accept Bitcoin as an alternative payment method.
do you also accept cash, or post-bill payments?
Yes, you can send cash directly to our offices, or issue a direct bank-wire-transfer. If you are interested in paying with these methods, please contact our support team so they can provide adequate details. Feel free to send us an email to support@protonvpn.com or open a ticket in the following link: https://protonvpn.com/support-form.
El día 5/7/2017 envié un correo electrónico con esta petición sin haber recibido respuesta , para dar una baja sin haber recibido respuesta , gracias.
I’ve been a proton mail user and VPN beta user for sometime and have just updated vpn s/w but it won’t allow me to connect to UK servers returning “upgrade required”. I am intending upgrading to 5 x user product but not until IOS, MacOs and Android are available. What is the timescale I should expect for these? Is there anyway in the meantime that I can connect to a UK server which would allow for instance BBC services
We are hoping to get the applications for all platforms ready by the end of this year. Thanks for your patience!
Is your server park running on physically harddisks or ramdisks? thank’s for reply
Does your VPS saving data physically on a hardisk or is it running on a ramdisk?
is their an interface for linux client ? i installed protonvpn yesterday, it’s works (with openvpn) but i would like to have something like the windows client.
What porta do you use?
It would be nice if you supported port 993 to by pass secure networks
[…] 100% no-logs (via les lois s’appliquant au territoire Suisse). Chose plutôt étonnante, un Transparency Report est disponible et montrera à terme, le nombre de demandes d’accès aux données utilisateurs […]
What about server Outside Swiss ?
You said no log because swiss do not obligated to store log but what about other country you hosting server ?
As a Swiss company, we can’t be forced to store logs in other countries. If it came to that, we would pull our servers out of those countries.
Okay thanks
That’s probably the most retarded comment I’ve read. So since rape is legal in muslim countries, it is legal to rape in e.g. European countries?
Tu te tire une balle dans le pied avec un tel commentaire !!!
Are you retard! Who said that raping is allowed in Muslim countries?
You can’t be serious. ProtonVPN operates OUT OF Switzerland. That means that their company abides by the laws of the country out of which they operate. Islam is not a company, nor is it restricted to one nation. Very flimsy basis for such an ignorant remark.
Not true, you oblige with the rules of the country you operate in. If you have servers in the US, those servers are subject to US laws.
Nothing retarded about the quest for information and asking questions in order to learn. The only thing retarded I can see is YOUR pompous, moronic comment. Mind your own damned business and allow others to ask questions so they can learn something, even if you don’t think you have anything to learn yourself.
Sysops: It’s ok to remove comments from idiots who are only spreading venom, like the one from Joons. Throwing out the trash is a good to do and everyone appreciates the removal of the stench.
You are my favourite company. Now pretty please make a client-side encrypted social network and kill facebook!
Is our ISP able to monitor our internet activity?
Absolutely they are, and that’s why services like ProtonVPN exist in the first place.
If you’re asking if they’re able to monitor your traffic/internet activity while using ProtonVPN, the answer is no.
What kind of system do you use, to not log the connection details?
We disable logging on all software, or pipe the logs to /dev/null
If you are so supportive of privacy, why do you not support anonymous methods of payment like bitcoin or giftcards etc.
We do: https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/paying-with-bitcoin/
You can also pay for ProtonVPN that way.
could you show me where? I will sign up then, here is where I am directed and do not see the option for the VPN https://account.protonvpn.com/signup?plan=vpnplus&billing=12¤cy=USD
You have to follow the instructions in the article linked above.
Will you latter on have a software client for Linux , thanks for the fist answer .
Eventually yes, although MacOS and Android/iOS will come first.
you should also use Monero … because this is really an anonymous coin. Is like digital cash. Will you think about it? Thank you.
Yes, monero would be a good, private option.
Yes, they definetely should do it. Also bitcoin transaction fees are too high.
Please expedite a Linux native application because Linux is certainly more popular and important than MacOS or iOS. This firm has defected to China, a country that makes no bones that they are enemies of privacyand accordingly their customers and products ought to take a back seat. Good job by the way on the Android app. What a fantastic piece of work this is, I’ve seen no other tablet app that compares to the professionalism you folks demonstrate.
No bitcoin/ crypto currency payment options! => Not truly anonymous.
https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/paying-with-bitcoin/
Also works for ProtonVPN.
Bitcoin is not really private payment… besides “no one” can figure how to pay with bitcoins, and believe it I try in the past.
Why not a payment like “paysafecard”? Paysafecard is a little more anonym if the place doesn’t have cameras and the person there as bad memory.
Paysafe doesnt support vpn provider anymore. Its not anonym. If you use vpn or proxy, your psc gets banned and u have to upload passport iban and so ^^
What about windows tricking and recoding all your data will ProtonVPN help with this problem ?
No, that’s a client side issue that VPN doesn’t protect against.
Also, you say “We do not count unofficial requests such as requests made by private individuals”, but you don’t seem to expressly say you won’t grant them.
We don’t grant them. Swiss court order always required.
What if you’re legally prohibited from disclosure of a request? How will this warranty canary address that? And what then if the “granted” categories start to fill up with positive numbers over time? At that point shall we conclude that you’re compromised? That said, looking forward to trying your service but would like to see a robust and well considered warrant canary here.
Under Swiss law, there is nothing that forbids us from publishing aggregate statistics like we do here. If we do get a request that is approved by a Swiss judge, we will comply with it, but due to our no logs policy, we are not really able to turn over anything. So our compliance would be stating that we have no information.
With the UK (and may other countries) rendering their in-country VPN’s unsafe, there will be A LOT of money to be made in secure VPNs. You have been warned! Your US or UK VPN is very vulnerable to government intrusion. Your VPN won’t be able to say “no” to the USDOJ! They could then make “an example” of you, or use you as a revenue source through fines and penalties. It only takes a few minutes to switch to a VPN in a safer country!!
ProtonVPN is hosted in Switzerland and cannot be obligated by any nation other than Switzerland to do anything. With US and UK servers, the hosting companies themselves may be compromised which is why enabling Secure Core will put a ProtonVPN run server either in Switzerland, Iceland or Sweden (That’s in a kickass bunker by the way or old military base) in between you and any potentially compromised server. These Secure Core servers, at least in Switzerland are not only protected by the strong laws of their nation, but also reside 1,000 meters underground and under high security.
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Hello World!