Use an IP address from the United Arab Emirates on the Proton VPN network

Posted on March 18th, 2020 by in Service Updates.

ProtonVPN has eight new servers in the United Arab Emirates.

 

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.

Sign Up Upgrade

Protect all your devices

Download Proton VPN for your desktop and mobile device: Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, and iOS

Thank you for your support. Keep an eye out for new developments on our social media pages below.

Best regards,
The Proton VPN team

You can follow us on social media to stay up to date on the latest Proton VPN releases:

Twitter | Facebook | Reddit | Instagram

To get a free Proton Mail encrypted email account, visit: proton.me/mail

Prior to joining Proton, Richie spent several years working on tech solutions in the developing world. He joined the Proton team to advance the rights of online privacy and freedom.

9 comments

  1. Mohsin

    I really appreciate your hardworking article writing skills.

  2. Kutty

    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?

  3. hossein

    hi
    Will these servers have a better ping for me living in Iran? (Online gaming)

  4. George Twain

    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).

  5. Roxana Zega

    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.

  6. uae resident

    Hey guys, is there obfuscation? If not i do not think it ll work unfortunately..

  7. Roxana Zega

    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

  8. José Romero

    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?

  9. Ben Wolford

    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.

Comments are closed.

Secure
your internet

Get Proton VPN
Get Proton VPN

For customer support inquiries, please submit the following form for the fastest response:
Support Form

For all other inquiries:
contact@protonvpn.com


-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: OpenPGP.js v4.10.10
Comment: https://openpgpjs.org
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=ueTT
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

You can also Tweet to us:
@ProtonVPN