Proton VPN users in the UAE can now browse the Internet with an Emirati IP address while encrypting their online activity. The UAE is the 46th country to have Proton VPN servers. These servers will reduce latency for Proton VPN users in the Gulf region. Regardless of whether you are using public WiFi or accessing sensitive data, like your bank account, Proton VPN will keep your data secure and private.
We installed eight new VPN servers in a data center in Dubai. They are available to users on one of our paid plans. Each new server we install increases our capacity for new users and improves service for our current users.
AE#1-3 are available on our Basic plan.
AE#4-8 are available on our Plus and Visionary plans.
Important note about online privacy in the UAE
The United Arab Emirates has a poor record when it comes to protecting online privacy. However, our mission is to bring security, privacy, and freedom to everyone, which means expanding our VPN network to include as many countries as possible. Our eight new servers will give Emiratis a way to reclaim their privacy from overt surveillance. To mitigate concerns about Emirati VPN servers, we have outlined our policy and precautions you should consider in our blog post on VPN servers in high-risk countries.
Our users’ security is our primary concern. That is why we have closely vetted the third-party data center we are working with. By working through third-party infrastructure in the UAE, we retain our status as a Swiss company. This means we are not subject to Emirati jurisdiction.
Technical security measures and privacy recommendations
Proton VPN follows a set of policies and guidelines for servers in higher-risk locations to make it more difficult for a foreign authority to compromise the privacy of our users. For example, we only work with reliable infrastructure partners, implement full-disk encryption on all our VPN servers, and only use bare metal servers.
However, none of these measures are foolproof. If the Emirati government is part of your threat model, we recommend you either avoid the Emirati VPN servers entirely or use our Secure Core feature when connecting to any of our servers in the UAE.
When using our Secure Core feature, your Internet traffic is routed through multiple servers, including hardened servers that are controlled and owned by Proton VPN. With Secure Core, even if the exit VPN server in the UAE is compromised, your traffic can only be traced back to the Secure Core server, keeping your true IP address private.
Still need an account?
Proton VPN is a community-supported VPN service developed by the same team that created Proton Mail, a pioneer in encrypted email. Our mission is to make a private, secure Internet available to everyone. We currently have servers available in 46 countries and counting. To join for free and start protecting your online activity, click the sign up button below. Or if you already have an account and want to support our mission with a paid plan, click upgrade.
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I really appreciate your hardworking article writing skills.
I have a Protonmail visionary account with another email address. I find that all protonvpn servers other than the local ones are subject to ISP throttling by Etisalat. Other companies offer dedicated servers or openvpn protocols to navigate around this restriction in countries where similar restrictions are in place. Do you offer any such functionality?
hi
Will these servers have a better ping for me living in Iran? (Online gaming)
Slightly off-topic, but have you considered implementing a firewall on ProtonVPN to block all (non-ProtonVPN) network traffic when the VPN is disconnected? The kill switch only works when it notices the VPN server isn’t available, so traffic gets through to your ISP unprotected in three scenarios: when you boot your system, when you switch servers, and when you disconnect from a ProtonVPN server or close the app.
That last situation probably doesn’t affect many people since that’s what they would want to happen but the other two are a potential issue, not just from a privacy/security point but it also causes issues with applications that log you out if they see you logging in from a different IP address (like ISP’s address before ProtonVPN connects to a server).
Hi George,
Our colleagues on the VPN mentioned that kill-switch is implemented via a firewall that is always activated. What is being triggered when connection drops is a pop-up to remind the user that kill-switch is active and connections are thus protected.
Hey guys, is there obfuscation? If not i do not think it ll work unfortunately..
Hi!
Unfortunately, obfuscation isn’t in place yet. Our colleagues on the VPN team recommend connecting via OpenVPN TCP, in which case port TCP 443 has a certain chance of working.
Thanks
More than a year ago, Mexico was voted the country where the majority of users wanted servers installed. Why are you avoiding to install servers in Mexico?
There are several factors related to security, performance, and implementation that sometimes delay servers coming online. Mexico is taking longer than usual, but rest assured we’re working on it.