from the team:

Hi everyone,

As you may know, Proton VPN has repeatedly proven effective anti-censorship tools, allowing people to find trustworthy news sources and access obstructed content.

To make Proton VPN’s anti-censorship features even more accessible, we made it possible to log in to the Android app without creating an account. Now you can log in and use the Proton VPN Android app for free without entering any credentials (i.e. you can “continue as guest”):

Together with the constant expansion of our infrastructure (over 6000 servers in close to 100 countries), we believe that this will help our privacy-first VPN service reach those who need it the most more efficiently than ever.

Thank you for your support,

The Proton Team

    • DesolateMood@lemm.eeEnglish
      271·
      6 个月前

      Why wouldn’t out be? Proton has always had a free tier, this just makes it easier for free users to connect to a vpn

          • Prandom_returns@lemm.eeEnglish
            97·
            6 个月前

            Yes, but the root of the question is whether this is sustainable, or will it get shittified, when “too many” people jumps on the free tier.

            Will it get more expensive for the paid tier?
            Are they going to get rid of the free tier?
            ???

            • ResoluteCatnap@lemmy.mlEnglish
              34·
              6 个月前

              The free tier servers are finite resources and usually much more busy/ slow. Proton isn’t guaranteeing fast speeds or availability, and all of their free offerings have always been done in a sustainable way.

            • trevor@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
              2·
              6 个月前

              They’re transitioning to a non-profit organization now. While non-profits have their own problems, and it doesn’t make them exempt from enshittifying, it removes the profit incentive to do so.

              In other words: I’d give them a little more credibility when it comes to this sort of thing until they give us a reason not to. I’m hopeful that they can be a positive force in the industries that they are in.

              • Prandom_returns@lemm.eeEnglish
                22·
                6 个月前

                Same. I’m really rooting for them to stick it to the big internet usurpers. And they are doing a stellar job so far.

                I’m just really can’t get excited about companies offering free stuff, that costs money to run. Stepped on that rake one too many times.

          • LeadersAtWork@lemmy.worldEnglish
            22·
            6 个月前

            What they mean is normally when something isn’t being paid for, you are the actual product. It’s why people should never use free password managers, for instance.

            Proton may be unique in that the free tier might actually be exactly what it says it is: A product for you. Not a product OF you.

            I’m already interested. Anywhere I can get more information that is not on Proton’s website?

    • Kayn@dormi.zoneEnglish
      111·
      6 个月前

      Proton has offered free plans for all its products for the last 10 years.

      If it wasn’t sustainable, I think we’d have noticed by now.

      • Prandom_returns@lemm.eeEnglish
        4·
        6 个月前

        Well, userbases tend to grow.

        If it wasn’t sustainable, I think we’d have noticed by now.

        Exactly the opposite.

    • gencha@lemm.eeEnglish
      322·
      6 个月前

      Yes. Because they’re either making a profit from your meta/data, or it’s a promotion that ends as myriads of “free” services did before it

              • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
                1·
                6 个月前

                I mean, why do you care if it’s a sustainable business practice or whatever? Unless you’re a stake holder or something then how much money they’re missing out on shouldn’t even be your concern.

                • Prandom_returns@lemm.eeEnglish
                  11·
                  6 个月前

                  If I’m making an account and potentially moving to a whole new SaaS ecosystem, I might wanna know if what’s going on.

                  Imagine moving to a new email address, informing every single person about your new email, and then the company goes under. Or starts displaying ads. Etc., etc.

      • EddoWagt@feddit.nlEnglish
        4·
        6 个月前

        Because they’re either making a profit from your meta/data

        They recently changed to a nonprofit, so that’s not it

      • Kayn@dormi.zoneEnglish
        51·
        6 个月前

        Proton has been offering free services for 10 years now. And they don’t profit from your data, so your assertion is false.

      • BCsven@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        6 个月前

        Nah, i used free tier for a year, realized I liked it and wanted to support them so signed up to the unlimited plan. Their hope is to draw more people in that way, rather than a paywall that turns off potential users

  • Asherah@lemmy.worldEnglish
    18·
    6 个月前

    Huge fan of Proton and their services. I use the VPN and two Proton email accounts. Very helpful, easy to use, and the free versions aren’t horrible garbage.

  • HaleHirsute@infosec.pubEnglish
    4·
    6 个月前

    Does Proton VPN not work in China? I’m trying to use it for the first time on iPhone, both directly and via my already-known-good VPN (Mullvad) but I can’t get the first connection to make an account started either way.

    • viking@infosec.pubEnglish
      5·
      6 个月前

      You need to go to settings and under protocol select stealth. The other connection types are blocked in China.

      Mullvad doesn’t work here at all.

      The most widespread one is Astrill, though it’s quite pricey. Used to be the only one that works consistently; but Proton is a decent alternative.

        • viking@infosec.pubEnglish
          1·
          6 个月前

          Proton Desktop is not linked to your phone in any way, so enabling stealth there doesn’t have any impact on your device unfortunately.

          Interesting to hear about Mullvad, maybe they did change the protocol around! My backup had always been Windscribe, they give you 10 GB traffic for free, but the reliability in China went downhill over the last year.

          But my days are numbered now anyway, will be out end of July, and still got Astrill prepaid until November or so, so not going to experiment too much now.

  • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    51·
    6 个月前

    I really love all of the proton products…

    Except their VPN. I’m sorry, but their servers trip CAPTCHAs and cloud flare warnings more than 95% of the time for me no matter where I connect from. I really wish it wasn’t like that because it makes the Internet fucking awful to use

    Mullvad will just keep getting my 5/month on top of my proton sub, I guess…

  • gmtom@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1026·
    6 个月前

    Remember if a service is free then YOU are the product.

    Edit: 🤡: no you don’t understand I like this company, so there’s no way they would ever do something underhanded like literally every other company ever 🤡

    • Frank Ring@lemmy.worldEnglish
      152·
      6 个月前

      Proton recently became a non-profit organisation.

      This commitment means that they work for the people.

          • gmtom@lemmy.worldEnglish
            22·
            6 个月前

            Comparing a completely offline software to a VPN that literally routes all your internet traffic through their own servers is completely apples to oranges.

            • fossphi@lemm.eeEnglish
              2·
              6 个月前

              Fair enough. My only gripe was with that umbrella statement. You are right that with these perpetually online SaaS companies, one must carefully assess their threat models

    • Tilgare@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      6 个月前

      I’m feeling a bit cynical about this as well, despite their great reputation. Free never really means free in 2024. There’s always a catch…

    • Kayn@dormi.zoneEnglish
      52·
      6 个月前

      This is not the case with Proton. Paid subscriptions effectively subsidize free users.

      • gmtom@lemmy.worldEnglish
        36·
        6 个月前

        They also subsidise the CEOs salary. And when him, his successor or someone else high up in the company decides that’s not enough for them, that treasure trove of consumer information is going to be awfully tempting to sell if they aren’t already.

        • Kayn@dormi.zoneEnglish
          42·
          6 个月前

          And how are they supposed to sell consumer information that’s end-to-end-encrypted?

          • gmtom@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            6 个月前

            Are you aware you dont need to understand the actual data to build data on a consumer. Even when its end-to-end encrypted proton still know your IP, the IP you’re trying to access, number of packets (data size) your online times etc.

            So while they cant read your facebook messages, they know how often, and at what times you use facebook messenger, netflix, youtube etc. And they can turn that into a profile on you that they can sell.

            • Kayn@dormi.zoneEnglish
              1·
              6 个月前

              Even if Proton VPN collects logs (which hasn’t been proven once in its 7 years of operation), it becomes a matter of who you’d rather trust with your browsing habits: Your ISP or Proton.

        • Markus Sugarhill@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          1·
          6 个月前

          That is true, as it is true for payed services too. It isn’t in any way impossible that user data of paying customers is sold. You either trust them, or you don’t.

          Not even an audit is helping when evil people are evil.