Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
Ngl, I'm very surprised and very pleased proton has lasted. They seem to be on track to remaining sustainable and true to their stated goals.
I haven't run their paid tier VPN yet, because of the linux issues, but the free tier always worked well when I was between providers and deciding who to go with.
What Linux issues are those?
No wireguard. Unable to launch on login for some DE.
Wireguard is up. Cannot speak to the other instances.
Also slow ass GUI, no auto-connect on startup. I wrote a script for this. Luckily the offer a CLI
the proton VPN client on linux is unfortunately absolute garbage and lacks a ton of features and takes forever to connect
I don't use the Client, but the OpenVPN scripts. No problem so far.
You already got the answers I was going to give lol.
In a recent e-mail they mentioned an open Linux dev position, so hopefully the Linux client will catch up soon enough!
I just picked and set up 4 or 5 different Proton VPN profiles in my network manager so I can jump onto one with a couple of clicks. It's overall been great. Occasionally one I connect to is overloaded and I have to jump to another one. I don't stay connected to VPN, just when I want/need it.
What's the advantage of using the VPN via the browser extension instead of the VPN app (in my case, the MacOS app)?
VPN can sometimes be unreliable. I've gotten disconnected from zoom meetings when using the zoom app and a system wide VPN. Also have lagged during online gaming. The extension could be useful if you are only looking to increase web browsing privacy, while keeping a better network connection for other programs.
Isn't this what split-tunneling is for though?
Ah, yeah I guess so. I don't think that was available on the linux app which is the only one I used on a non-phone, so I didn't think of that...
It is a question of whether you really need all your traffic going through a VPN. Your app might support split tunneling. VPN browser extensions such as Proton, Mullvad, and Brave will only route that browser's traffic through VPN. Since I am running Linux, a DNS resolver and am generally off of most corp and government servers, my need for VPN is more limited. I activate ProtonVPN extension in Librewolf browser where I open news sites. I use other browsers without VPN for safe stuff such as my own and friendly fedi sites to get full bandwidth. I use split tunneling on Android to similarly exclude safe apps from VPN for a private and efficient setup.
That's nice but we are still waiting for the Proton Drive Client :(
How does Proton VPN compare to Mullvad? I've been using them for years and they really are anonymous. You don't even provide an email to create your account.
If you're satisfied with mullvad, i would stick to it. The main problem it runs into is that it doesn't support port forwarding which is an issue if you use torrents a lot. That's the main advantage that proton reserves.
Yeah Linux experience with proton vpn has been hit or miss. I’m excited to try this out!
Pretty neat. Paid plans only, though.
Their paid plans are really sweet tho. If I pick servers close to my location I get sub 40 ms ping, even tunneling through two servers, and you have basically unlimited bandwidth. Easily > 500 MBit/s.
And that's only like 7.something €/$ per month, including all their other stuff, (500 GB cloud storage, E2EE calendar, multiple mail addresses and whatever else is to come).
That does seem like a pretty good value. Once drive is usable, I may just have to get a paid plan.
I only use paid VPNs, but I generally want all traffic to go through them because it's hard to not have "random" stuff go out otherwise.
Works great for Netflix!
I don't like proton products. It feels like a false sense of security
Can you explain this? Are you vulnerable because they are too mainstream?