ProtonVPN is available as a native client for download here, however in some cases users may prefer to use a third party VPN client capable of handling OpenVPN configs.
If you prefer a manual connection and tinkering OpenVPN configuration files, the OpenVPN GUI application is one of the alternative options for using ProtonVPN on your Windows PC. There are roughly four steps to use a third party OpenVPN client to connect to ProtonVPN servers: A. Downloading and installing the OpenVPN client, B. Getting ProtonVPN *.ovpn configuration files, C. Importing the configuration files and finally D. Connecting to a ProtonVPN server. You can find a tutorial on how to set it up below.
Note: Advanced features available in the ProtonVPN client such as Connection Profiles, the Network Killswitch protection, the VPN Server Map and similar will not be available when using third party OpenVPN clients.
A. Installing and Setting up OpenVPN GUI
- First, download the OpenVPN GUI application:
- If using Windows 10, 8, 7 and Vista download here:
https://swupdate.openvpn.org/community/releases/openvpn-install-2.4.0-I602.exe - Otherwise, if using Windows XP, download here:
http://swupdate.openvpn.org/community/releases/openvpn-install-2.3.14-I002-i686.exe
- If using Windows 10, 8, 7 and Vista download here:
- Install the OpenVPN GUI application.
- Open the installer file
- Follow the setup wizard
- Open the installer file
B. Downloading the desired VPN Server configurations
Once the application is installed, you now have to download the ProtonVPN server configuration files – using these files, the OpenVPN app will know how to connect to ProtonVPN servers.
- To Download ProtonVPN configuration files:
- Log into your ProtonVPN dashboard at account.protonvpn.com/login
- Select Downloads on in the left navigation bar
- Find the OpenVPN configuration files section and chose
- Platform:
WINDOWS(THIS IS IMPORTANT, as otherwise you may be vulnerable to DNS leaks) - Protocol: UDP (recommended) / use TCP if you experience slow VPN speeds (this utilizes port 443)
- Platform:
- Click the download icons for the server you wish to download
- Note: If you selected “Download all configurations”, the requested files will be in a ZIP archive – each of the files will contain information on how to connect to one of the ProtonVPN servers.Double-click with the left mouse button to open the ZIP archive, and view all of the configuration files.
C. Importing the config files into the OpenVPN client
- Copy the configuration files which you want to use to this OpenVPN app directory:
C:/Program Files/OpenVPN/config/- Note: The OpenVPN GUI application only supports up to 50 configuration files present in the /config/ folder. Thus, you’ll have to copy only a few configuration files to that folder. Since each file represents a server, you’ll have to know beforehand which servers you’ll want to connect to. Once the installation is complete, you can easily switch between the servers you have copied over.
- Note: if you selected download all option, first unzip the files in a location of your choice and then copy them to the desired files to the same directory.
D. Connecting to ProtonVPN
Now that the configuration files have been loaded into the proper folder for the application to detect them, let’s open the OpenVPN GUI app itself.
- Double-click the shortcut on your desktop (or go to the Start menu and type
OpenVPNto find and click to start the application)
- Allow the application administrative permissions – it’s necessary for a VPN connection.
- The application will start running in the system tray. It’s the area near your clock:
It might also be in the hidden system tray area:
- Right click the application icon, hover over one of the servers, and click connect.
- Enter your OpenVPN/IKEv2 credentials, and click OK. Note: to use our NetShield DNS filtering feature, append the suffix +f1 to your username to block malware, or +f2 to block malware, ads, and trackers (for example 123456789+f2).
- After a few seconds, the application will connect and the window will disappear. The system tray icon will turn green, and indicate that you are connected when you hover over it:
And that’s it! You should be successfully connected. To disconnect, it’s the same as step D4, except you select disconnect.
Related Articles
Solutions to Authentication Failures
How to install the ProtonVPN Client on Windows
How to install ProtonVPN on Android
How to install ProtonVPN on iOS
where i can input proxy on protonvpn as my network is proxy restricted
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Hello. We do not support proxy connections as of now, sorry for the inconveniences caused.
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my protonvpn does not connect, i click on the conect button but it says not conected after that
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Hello. Please contact our customer support team as we need the connection logs for the investigation. https://protonvpn.com/support-form
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After try get error
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 OPTIONS IMPORT: –ifconfig/up options modified
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 OPTIONS IMPORT: route options modified
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 OPTIONS IMPORT: route-related options modified
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 OPTIONS IMPORT: –ip-win32 and/or –dhcp-option options
modified
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 OPTIONS IMPORT: peer-id set
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 OPTIONS IMPORT: adjusting link_mtu to 1657
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 OPTIONS IMPORT: data channel crypto options modified
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 Data Channel Encrypt: Cipher ‘AES-256-GCM’ initialized
with 256 bit key
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 Data Channel Decrypt: Cipher ‘AES-256-GCM’ initialized
with 256 bit key
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 interactive service msg_channel=0
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 ROUTE_GATEWAY 5.135.93.126/255.255.255.192 I=3 HWADDR=2
2:44:da:7a:e0:bd
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 open_tun
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 TAP-WIN32 device [Ethernet 3] opened: \\.\Global\{1088A
1B0-934B-4B3A-9682-FD80818D45D1}.tap
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 TAP-Windows Driver Version 9.21
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 Set TAP-Windows TUN subnet mode network/local/netmask =
10.8.8.0/10.8.8.42/255.255.255.0 [SUCCEEDED]
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 Notified TAP-Windows driver to set a DHCP IP/netmask of
10.8.8.42/255.255.255.0 on interface {1088A1B0-934B-4B3A-9682-FD80818D45D1} [DH
CP-serv: 10.8.8.254, lease-time: 31536000]
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 NOTE: FlushIpNetTable failed on interface [11] {1088A1B
0-934B-4B3A-9682-FD80818D45D1} (status=5) : Acceso denegado.
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 do_ifconfig, tt->did_ifconfig_ipv6_setup=0
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 Block_DNS: WFP engine opened
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 Error in add_block_dns_filters(): add_sublayer: failed
to add persistent sublayer : Acceso denegado. [status=0x5]
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 Blocking DNS failed!
Sat Jul 14 20:46:38 2018 Exiting due to fatal error
Press any key to continue…
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Hello. Please contact our support team and we will provide the solution for your situation.
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Tried to use the openGUI but it is not accepting my protonvpn username and password. Help.
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Hello There. For your information, the ProtonVPN and OpenVPN log in credentials are different. You can find them in your user control panel under “account” tab on our ProtonVPN website, there will be a different combination of username and password which you can change to whatever you like.
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