| Every product starts here — neither good nor bad | | | 50 |
| Open Source Apps All app code is publicly viewable and verified by security researchers so there are no hidden backdoors. All Proton VPN applications are 100% open source and independently audited by Securitum. | independently measured
counts 100% | +16 × 1.00 | +16.0 |
| No Logs Audit Conclusion An outside security firm from Poland (Securitum) went to Proton's offices in Zurich in August 2025, looked at the real machines that carry customer traffic, and signed its name to a statement that Proton keeps no record of what customers do online. This is the auditor's own written conclusion, not Proton's summary of it. Based on these findings, Securitum attests that the Proton VPN service, as configured at the time of the audit, fully complies with the privacy commitments outlined in its No-Logs policy. | independently measured
counts 100% | +16 × 1.00 | +16.0 |
| Swiss Jurisdiction Protected by Swiss federal privacy laws outside Fourteen Eyes intelligence sharing alliances. Protected by strict Swiss privacy laws under Federal Data Protection regulations outside the 14-Eyes alliance. | the maker's own claim
counts 70% | +20 × 0.70 | +14.0 |
| Audit Scope Exclusions The audit deliberately did not look at Proton's software itself. Nobody read through the program code of the VPN, and nobody pulled apart the finished app that runs on your phone or laptop. The audit only covered the company's own servers, so a flaw living inside the app would not have been caught by it. A formal source code review of the VPN software and its associated libraries. | independently measured
counts 100% | -10 × 1.00 | -10.0 |
| Zero Of 47 Data Requests Fulfilled 2026 In the first half of 2026, governments sent Proton 47 legal demands asking it to hand over information about VPN users. Proton says it turned down every single one, because it doesn't keep the kind of logs that would let it identify who was connected to which server. all 47 requests were denied because Proton VPN's no-logs policy meant it had no data capable of identifying the users sought by authorities | the maker's own claim
counts 70% | +13 × 0.70 | +9.1 |
| Renewal Price Jump The cheap headline price only lasts for the first stretch. A tech news site reported the two-year Proton VPN Plus deal at about $72 paid upfront for 24 months, then renewing at $83.88. So the second bill is larger than the whole first two years combined, and it buys you less time. After that, the plan renews annually at $83.88. | reported by owners and reviewers
counts 80% | -11 × 0.80 | -8.8 |
| Court Orders Outcome Proton publishes a running count of legal demands it has received. Since the service started in 2017 it says it has had 458 binding orders from Swiss courts, and that in every one it had nothing to hand over. This is the company's own count, so treat it as a claim rather than a verified figure - but a false statement here would be a serious legal problem for them. In every case, we were unable to provide the requested identifying information because Proton VPN does not keep the logs that would make such identification possible. | the maker's own claim
counts 70% | +12 × 0.70 | +8.4 |
| Owns Its Hardware Proton runs the service on physical machines it owns outright, rather than renting space from a big cloud company. That matters because a rented machine can in principle be accessed or copied by the landlord; the auditors checked and confirmed the hardware is Proton's own. It was confirmed that this infrastructure runs on bare-metal servers fully owned and controlled by Proton AG. Some servers utilize lightweight, OS-level containerization, but the underlying physical hardware remains under Proton's exclusive control. | independently measured
counts 100% | +8 × 1.00 | +8.0 |
| Audit Method Limits The same auditors wrote down, in their own report, the limits of what they did. Proton's engineers were driving during the inspection - the auditors watched systems being shown to them rather than digging through the machines unsupervised. They also only checked a sample of servers, not every server Proton runs worldwide. The findings are based on a guided review process, where Securitum auditors observed live systems as demonstrated by Proton's senior engineers. While this provides a high degree of assurance, it is distinct from an unsupervised, direct forensic investigation. The assessment was also conducted on a representative sample of production servers and did not encompass every server in Proton's global fleet. | independently measured
counts 100% | -8 × 1.00 | -8.0 |
| Measured Speed Performance One reviewer with a written test procedure measured speeds over ten repeated runs on a 100 Mbps home line. Proton came out best in the group for upload speed, losing only about 4 percent, and tied for the lowest delay. Read this cautiously: they tested only the older connection method and only servers in Australia, which is not how most people would use it. 78 milliseconds 10 out of 10 times | independently measured
counts 100% | +8 × 1.00 | +8.0 |
| Refund Process Opaque There is no self-service refund button. A human decides, based on how much you used the service and when you asked, and one reviewer found some people got more back simply because they asked for it specifically. There is no dashboard estimate or refund slider. You get a manual process that depends heavily on your usage and timing. | reported by owners and reviewers
counts 80% | -9 × 0.80 | -7.2 |
| Free Plan Availability There is a free basic plan available for users to try out. Proton Free /month Get Proton Free Close | the maker's own claim
counts 70% | +10 × 0.70 | +7.0 |
| Usability Drawbacks Two practical annoyances reported by a hands-on reviewer: some streaming services detect Proton's built-in ad-blocker and refuse to play, so you have to switch that feature off; and the service is not officially supported in China, so travellers there should not count on it. Some streaming platforms detect Proton VPN's ad-blocking feature. This means you must disable NetShield to watch those services. | reported by owners and reviewers
counts 80% | -8 × 0.80 | -6.4 |
| Free Tier Exclusions The no-cost version is heavily stripped back. It covers one device only, you cannot pick which country you appear to be in, file-sharing is switched off, and video streaming services usually will not work through it. torrenting is entirely blocked, streaming services rarely work | reported by owners and reviewers
counts 80% | -8 × 0.80 | -6.4 |
| Renewal Term Shortens Proton's own terms say your plan renews for the same length you originally bought. But an independent deal report says a 24-month purchase renews on a 12-month cycle. If that is right, you pay a higher rate AND get half the time, which is the part buyers miss. After the initial term, the subscription is renewed automatically for the duration as specified during your initial purchase and you will be charged accordingly, unless cancelled or modified by you. | the maker's own claim
counts 70% | -9 × 0.70 | -6.3 |
| Refund Window And Limits You get a genuine full refund, but only if you ask within 30 days of buying, and only once ever per account. If you paid by cash or bank transfer you get nothing back at all. You may cancel your subscription within 30 days of the initial purchase and receive a full refund for the Service. | the maker's own claim
counts 70% | +8 × 0.70 | +5.6 |
| Bundle Refund Prorated The bundle that packages the VPN with Proton's other products (Proton Unlimited) is refunded differently. You only get back the unused share, so asking on day 15 of a month returns roughly half — not the full amount the 30-day promise implies. If you sign up for Proton Unlimited, your refund is on a pro rata basis. That means that if you ask for a refund on day 15, you'll only get half your money back. | reported by owners and reviewers
counts 80% | -7 × 0.80 | -5.6 |
| Some Logs Do Exist It is not literally true that Proton's servers write nothing down. Basic housekeeping records exist - things like how busy a machine is, and administrator sign-ins. The auditors' finding is narrower than 'no logs': it is that these housekeeping records are kept apart from the VPN and do not contain anything that points to a customer. While standard OS-level logs are present as they are essential for basic server administration and troubleshooting (e.g., monitoring CPU usage, cron job execution, or SSH daemon activity), our guided review confirmed these logs are properly segregated from VPN services and do not contain any user-related IP addresses, traffic, or other privacy-sensitive data. | independently measured
counts 100% | -5 × 1.00 | -5.0 |
| Renewal Price Not Locked Signing up does not lock your price. Proton's contract says it can charge whatever the price is on the day it renews. There is no promise anywhere in the terms that your rate stays fixed. If the renewal price has changed, you will be charged the then-current price valid at the time of the renewal of your subscription. | the maker's own claim
counts 70% | -7 × 0.70 | -4.9 |
| Swiss Surveillance Law Change Risk Switzerland, where Proton VPN is legally based, is thinking about changing its surveillance law in a way that could force companies to track more user data. The reviewer notes Proton is already moving some of its computer equipment out of Switzerland so this change wouldn't affect how it protects your privacy. Switzerland is considering amending its surveillance law, which could lead to increased monitoring and data collection. | reported by owners and reviewers
counts 80% | -5 × 0.80 | -4.0 |
| No Ram Only Servers Disk Encryption Instead Most top VPNs use servers that only store data in temporary memory (RAM), which gets wiped clean every time the server restarts. Proton does it differently -- it encrypts the hard drives instead. The reviewer says this ends up just as safe, but it's a different security approach than what competitors use, which some technical buyers may want to know about. Unlike many top performing VPNs on the market, Proton opted to not use RAM-only servers. | reported by owners and reviewers
counts 80% | -5 × 0.80 | -4.0 |
| Fifth Audit Softer Wording A fifth annual check was done in late May 2026 and reported the same result. Worth noticing: the wording is more careful than the year before. Instead of stating the service fully complies, the auditors said the evidence they saw did not indicate any record-keeping - a statement about what they found, not a guarantee about what exists. The technical evidence reviewed during the engagement did not indicate that the examined Proton VPN server infrastructure logs users' browsing activity, DNS queries, destination services, network traffic contents or user-identifiable connection metadata | reported by owners and reviewers
counts 80% | +4 × 0.80 | +3.2 |
| Disputed Memory Vulnerability In January 2025 an outside security firm published a claim that Proton's Windows app left encryption keys unprotected in the computer's working memory, where an attacker could grab them and unscramble traffic. Proton publicly disputed this, saying what was actually shown were the harmless half of the key pair. The disagreement was never settled by a neutral third party. Since these keys are not protected in memory, a hacker or a bad actor can simply sniff the traffic and decrypt them. | sources disagree
counts 40% | -6 × 0.40 | -2.4 |
| Fit for “Privacy-focused” | 50 + 16.3 = 66 |
