Ever since we launched Proton VPN, we’ve received inquiries from businesses. While we haven’t publicized it in the past, we’ve been providing VPN services for business use since 2019. In recent years, the demand for Proton VPN from businesses has increased exponentially,  and today there are thousands of business users, ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies to major governmental and non-governmental organizations. As a result, we’re formally rolling out a Proton VPN for Business offering today. 

What is Proton VPN for Business?

A VPN has long been an essential business security tool, and today, practically all organizations, large and small, use some type of VPN. The shift to remote work and the need for compliance have increased the work of keeping business networks secure. Instead of simply protecting your office network, your team must now figure out how to provide secure access to employees worldwide and segment access to various company resources. No matter how big your organization is, Proton VPN can help give your team fast, easy access to internal resources while keeping attackers and fraudsters out.

While Proton VPN for Business leverages some of the technology in our world-renowned consumer VPN offering, it’s fundamentally a different product with additional capabilities. Proton VPN for Business is designed to support small and large organizations and has the administrative tools required to manage thousands of users and devices across complex businesses.

Protect employees out in the field

Some international organizations have team members in the field, working in countries with hostile internet conditions where resources are routinely blocked and connections actively monitored. In such situations, a VPN becomes an essential personal security tool, enabling secure connectivity to the outside world.

Segment access with private gateways

Proton VPN for Business also provides private gateway capabilities via dedicated servers and IP addresses. Each private gateway is only accessible to specifically authorized members and groups within your organization, making it easy for businesses to limit and segment access. You can limit access to resources based on the gateway, ensuring people can only access the resources they need to do their job. You can choose to have the servers and IP addresses that form your private gateway in any of the over 65 locations that Proton VPN operates in today, providing low latency access from anywhere on the globe.

Private gateways also make it easy to segment and control access to sensitive resources, allowing you to meet the requirements for security certifications such as ISO 27001, SOC2, and more.

No hardware, easy to manage

Unlike existing corporate VPN services, Proton VPN for Business requires no dedicated hardware or installation. We can instantly configure private gateways and other services, and you can rapidly scale your service up or down as needed. Proton VPN for Business is also a fully managed service, so you won’t need in-house experts to manage your corporate VPN. Instead, you benefit from Proton’s highly redundant infrastructure and our experience operating one of the world’s largest VPN services.

More than just a VPN

Proton VPN also provides capabilities that make it more than just a VPN service — it’s an all-around network security tool. For instance, our NetShield Ad-blocker feature blocks malware and helps prevent malicious internet sites from infecting your team’s devices. It can also block ads, trackers, and other categories of unwanted online activity.

Proton VPN applications have built-in protections against man-in-the-middle attacks for operations over hostile networks. Proton VPN apps will proactively warn you if such an attempt is detected and refuse connections to a malicious server.

Proton VPN offers security you can trust – and verify

The VPN you choose for your business will be the front door for your remote, hybrid, and traveling employees. This means you need a VPN whose security you can trust.

 Proton VPN offers several advantages over standard business VPNs:

Open source and publicly audited

Proton was founded by scientists who met at CERN, and we’re guided by the principles of transparency and peer review. As scientists, we don’t accept any claims we can’t verify ourselves, and we wouldn’t expect you to either. That’s why Proton VPN is open source, and our code is open to inspection. Our security claims are more than just claims — they’re facts you can verify for yourself.

We also publish audits conducted by independent security experts for all our services and no-logs policy, giving you access to an independent assessment.

A Swiss-based VPN

Switzerland is home to some of the strongest data privacy laws in the world. As our headquarters is in Geneva, this means your usage of Proton VPN is also subject to these strong legal protections. Switzerland’s foreign policy of neutrality, strong rule of law, and advanced infrastructure means we’ll always be able to provide our service to your organization.

Unparalleled track record in security

As one of the most widely used VPNs in the world, Proton VPN has a long track record of defending against hostile threats. Our high-impact work has been chronicled on the front page of The New York Times, and we also assist high-profile organizations such as Novaya Gazeta (winner of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize). The UN has also recommended Proton services as a secure way to deliver sensitive information.

Advanced features to help you get your work done

With VPN Accelerator, Stealth protocol, and Alternative Routing, you can be sure that your VPN connection always works fast, no matter where you’re located, and even if the network is hostile.

Get started with Proton VPN for Business

We’re excited to bring a new level of protection and access to businesses of all sizes with our new Proton VPN for Business plans:

• Proton VPN Essentials — Safely access the internet from anywhere with basic monitoring and organization management.
• Proton VPN Business — Get all advanced security features, including private gateways with dedicated servers and IPs, easy access segmentation, and more advanced organization management.

As before, we will continue to provide a Proton VPN Enterprise offering, which provides customized solutions to meet the exact needs of your organization. A full comparison, plus the contact details for our enterprise team, can be found on our new Proton VPN for Business pricing page.

In the months and years to come, we look forward to expanding the features and functionality of Proton VPN for Business based on your feedback. To learn more about Proton VPN for Business, you can get in touch with us directly using the form below.

The post Introducing Proton VPN for Business appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

Proton VPN was not the world’s first VPN service, but it has always been the VPN of choice for people who value their privacy due to Proton’s unique values and philosophy. Proton VPN started as the only VPN with no logs or ads that is open source, publicly audited, and freely available for everyone. But today, Proton VPN is so much more, empowering you with features such as:

• VPN Accelerator — Increase your connection speed by up to 400%
• NetShield Ad-blocker — Stop ads, malware, and trackers before they can be loaded
• Alternative Routing — Bypass advanced online censorship
• Secure Core VPN — Stay secure with enhanced privacy protection
• Support for streaming services — Watch Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, etc. in dozens of countries
• One of the world’s most diverse VPN networks — Connect to nearly 2,000 servers in over 60 countries

This is just a small selection of the features that make Proton VPN technologically superior. However, our unique values, such as operating with unparalleled transparency, allow us to achieve better security and trust than any other VPN. 

Updated Proton, unified protection

While a VPN is an essential online privacy tool, the internet is so central to our daily lives that many other services are required to stay safe online. Today’s update reflects Proton’s ongoing evolution from individual privacy services toward a unified privacy-by-default ecosystem. Your Proton Account is now more powerful, offering you access to Proton VPN, Proton Mail, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, and future Proton services. 

Improved paid plans

As a special thank you to existing Proton VPN subscribers, we’re upgrading your subscription at no extra cost. You will receive more storage and, depending on your current plan, access to paid features for Proton Mail, Proton Calendar, and Proton Drive. You will receive your new subscription at a discounted price forever as long as your subscription is active.

A new visual universe for privacy

An integral part of Proton’s mission is the notion of providing an alternative. Proton represents a parallel universe where your information is kept private. In the Proton universe, your data always remains private and under your control. The new Proton product logos reflect this duality. 

Proton services are portals that you can pass through to reach a better internet experience. In the case of Proton VPN, it’s not a metaphor; Proton VPN literally provides you with an encrypted tunnel to reach the free, uncensored internet. The private side is represented by Proton’s purple, our historical color from when Proton Mail launched in 2014. We’re returning to those roots, but our purple has been updated to be bolder and brighter. 

Consistent with Proton’s evolution to an encrypted ecosystem that counts VPN as one of its many constituent parts, we’ve unified Proton VPN’s logo with the rest of our products. This creates a family resemblance and demonstrates the unified privacy protection that Proton can now provide. 

Similarly, the name “ProtonVPN” is also transforming into “Proton VPN”, two words instead of one to reflect the language adopted across all Proton services.

While Proton VPN has always been part of Proton, it has its own rich history and community. Members of the Proton VPN community have contributed to localization efforts, cooperated  on GitHub to build the first version of our Linux application, and developed their own unique Proton VPN communities in Russia, Hong Kong, and other countries. This has led to Proton VPN developing its own identity.

To respect this heritage, the new Proton VPN logo keeps its triangular shape, which represents the shape made when you draw lines linking the three countries (Iceland, Sweden, and Switzerland) that house Proton VPN’s Secure Core servers. Proton VPN’s unique green, which has long conveyed trust, reliability, and security, also stays as a subtle accent color. Proton VPN is growing and serving new audiences, but our history and values will never change. 

Discover the story behind Proton’s new logos

What’s next for Proton VPN

The things that have long made Proton VPN unique are staying the same. We will always be open source, independent, neutral, and community-first. However, that does not mean that Proton VPN will not be improving. For the second half of 2022, we are embarking on an ambitious plan to bring Proton VPN onto more and more platforms, including a browser extension. Also coming is a larger redesign of our desktop and mobile applications to make them even easier and faster to use. We will also be building upon our long track record of innovation by bringing new features and functionality that enable Proton VPN to do more to keep you private and secure. 

We look forward to sharing more with you soon. Thank you again for supporting us as we build a better internet where privacy is the default.

The post Welcome to the updated Proton VPN appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

Today, we are excited to announce we passed a new milestone in our drive to make Proton as transparent as possible with the completion of a third-party audit of our infrastructure that confirmed our strict no-logs policy. Now, when we say we are a no-logs VPN, it is not just a claim: it has been double-checked by independent experts.

As an organization founded by scientists who met at CERN, we believe in peer review and transparency. This is also why we make all our apps open source so that anyone can examine our code. 

Of course, we understand that not everyone has the time or skills to inspect code themselves. That is why, in addition to our internal audits, we regularly submit our apps to third-party security audits and make the results public. This way, everyone can get an independent expert’s opinion of our apps’ security.

In the most recent security audit of all Proton apps, security experts from Securitum, a leading European security auditing company that oversees more than 300 security testing projects every year for major corporations and banks, uncovered no significant security issues. This shows that Proton’s internal audits and culture of secure software development are effective. And because our apps’ code is entirely open source, our security is bolstered by our bug bounty program, which brings security experts together from all around the world to check our applications. 

However, with a VPN service, it’s also important to verify what is happening on the server side and not just the application side. 

Why it’s important to verify a VPN’s no-logs policy

When you connect to a VPN, it becomes your internet provider, meaning any VPN provider is technically capable of tracking and logging what you do online. While many VPNs claim to have no-logs policies, these policies do not always hold up when put to the test. 

Proton VPN’s strict no-logs policy was tested in a legal case in 2019. We were ordered to turn over logs to help identify a user, but we were unable to comply because these logs did not exist. Proton VPN’s Swiss jurisdiction also confers additional benefits for VPN services. For example, within the current Swiss legal framework, Proton VPN does not have any forced logging obligations. However, there remains the possibility that an incorrect server configuration or flawed system architecture could cause logs to be accidentally stored.

To address this, we asked Securitum to perform a thorough examination of our infrastructure and server-side operations. Securitum security experts spent several days on site reviewing our VPN configuration files and server configurations, assessing our operating procedures, and interviewing our staff. The audit was extensive and checked the following:

• Does Proton VPN track your activity on VPN servers (servers that are passing the traffic)?
• Does Proton VPN log metadata about the activity on VPN servers, such as DNS traffic?
• Does Proton VPN inspect or log the network traffic on VPN servers?
• Does Proton VPN monitor or log information about which services (websites, servers, etc.) you connect to?
• Does Proton VPN monitor which services (websites, servers, etc.) have been used by a specific VPN server?
• Does Proton VPN apply the same privacy policy to all servers, regions, and subscription tiers?
• Does Proton VPN have a specific process to ensure that any unauthorized configuration change (such as “log=false” to “log=true”) will be detected? Will it trigger an automatic alarm?
• Does Proton VPN have a proper change management process in place to ensure that any authorized changes applied to the logs-related configuration files are reviewed and approved by another employee (dual control)?
• Do VPN configuration files have any logging enabled?
• Does Proton VPN log information about which VPN server you are connected to at a given time (or which users are connected to a specific VPN server at a given time)?

The resulting report confirms that we do not keep any metadata logs, do not log your VPN activity, and do not engage in any practices that might compromise your privacy. 

You can read the full report from Securitum below:

• Proton VPN no-logs security audit

Trust through transparency

At Proton, we believe that all claims should be investigated and verified, including our own. Going forward, we will continue to perform periodic security audits and publish the results so you can read an independent security professional’s report before you entrust us with your data.

If you are a security researcher, we also invite you to support security at Proton through our bug bounty program that offers generous bounties to anyone who can identify vulnerabilities in our open-source services.
Sign up for Proton VPN to get a transparent, open-source, and fully audited no-logs VPN that respects your privacy

The post Proton VPN’s no-logs policy confirmed by an external audit appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

VPN Accelerator improves VPN connection stability and can increase our VPN speeds by up to 400% in certain situations. Thanks to this new technology, you can always enjoy the best possible VPN speeds when using our service. 

VPN Accelerator is enabled by default, works on all Proton VPN apps, improves performance for all VPN protocols, and is available for all users. 

How does VPN Accelerator work?

VPN Accelerator is unique to Proton VPN and comprises a set of unique technologies developed internally by our research team to better leverage our large network capacity. 

ProtonVPN’s capacity across our networks, which we are constantly expanding, currently exceeds 1 terabit per second (1,000 Gbps) and is one of the largest VPN networks in existence. For comparison, SwissIX, the largest internet exchange point in Switzerland, has a daily average network capacity of 80 Gbps. 

However, capacity is just one element of VPN speed, and it is often not the limiting factor for VPN performance. Below, we look at how VPN Accelerator can unlock even higher VPN speeds by overcoming other limiting factors. 

Overcoming CPU limitations

Server CPU speed is often a limiting factor because many popular VPN protocols (including OpenVPN) do not use multithreading. This means the CPU power of a single core on the server processor becomes the limiting factor for speeds. 

Proton VPN solves this problem by using multiple OpenVPN processes per server to fully take advantage of multi-core processors. However, this alone is not enough to fully address the problem unless the load is properly distributed between the multiple processes. Otherwise, a single CPU thread could become overloaded. 

To resolve this, we have re-engineered OpenVPN so that sessions can be evenly distributed to all running OpenVPN processes, eliminating the possibility of a single thread becoming overloaded. Similar techniques are also applied by other VPN protocols. 

Latency and TCP congestion

TCP (transmission control protocol) carries the bulk of the world’s internet traffic. TCP goodput is inversely proportional to latency and packet loss, which is why internet speed tests usually select servers as close to you as possible.

Goodput

The number of useful bits of information delivered within a certain time. Goodput can be calculated by dividing the size of a transmitted file by the time it takes to transfer the file.

Establishing connections to very distant servers can result in low TCP speeds. This has nothing specifically to do with using a VPN, but connecting to a VPN can amplify this issue by increasing the length of the end-to-end path from your device to the final server. 

To give an extreme example, if you were in Switzerland, connected to a server in New Zealand, and visited a website in the US, your traffic would travel most of the way around the world, resulting in approximately 600 ms of round trip delay (RTD) latency. 

We cannot increase the speed of light or bring New Zealand closer to Europe, but VPN Accelerator addresses the issue by breaking up the 600 ms path into shorter paths (for example, two 300 ms paths). Much faster goodput is possible on each of the shorter paths, resulting in higher combined performance over the entire path. 

To achieve even higher speeds, VPN Accelerator also uses a TCP delay-controlled TCP flow control algorithm called BBR along each path. On longer paths or congested networks there is often some level of packet loss. BBR recovers faster from packet loss and also ramps up quicker (that is, it achieves maximum speed faster when a data transfer begins). 

For high latency servers, or when there is packet loss, the performance increase can be game-changing. The performance gain is less noticeable when connected to a nearby server with perfect connectivity. In the example below, we see that even with just 1.5% packet loss, BBR provides a 100x performance improvement compared to other congestion control algorithms. 

Improving “forwarding” efficiency

Most TCP congestion algorithms are quite sensitive to gaps or sudden delays in packet forwarding. It is therefore important to reduce any risk of a stall (a small duration where packets are either queued or dropped) as these stalls result in a strong reduction of TCP pacing and subsequent performance. 

As part of our work on VPN Accelerator, Proton VPN’s research and development team also addressed protocol-specific issues that can lead to stalls. For example, there are inefficiencies in the OpenVPN and IKEv2 core code that can sometimes cause the control socket to be blocked. By offloading interprocess communications to custom-written “companion” processes, we were able to eliminate this class of stalls.

Usually, each Proton VPN server processes more than 100,000 packets per second, which adds up to a significant amount of CPU time. By modifying the Linux network stack on our servers, Proton VPN circumvents the normal packet processing path for “known traffic,” leading to a significant increase in speed and decrease in latency. 

Lastly, Proton VPN avoids the virtual servers, virtualization, or containers used by many other VPN services. Our entire infrastructure is installed on bare-metal servers, eliminating the need to forward encrypted packets between virtual machines or containers and their host machines. This further reduces latency and boosts speed.

How you can benefit from faster VPN speeds

Under normal usage, VPN Accelerator can increase connection speeds by 400% or more — particularly when connecting to more distant servers. 

Because VPN Accelerator is built into all Proton VPN apps, you don’t need to do anything to take advantage of this unique technology. VPN Accelerator also allows different VPN protocols to achieve similar performance. So, for example, with VPN Accelerator, OpenVPN with Proton VPN offers similar performance to the usually much faster WireGuard.

Under ideal network conditions, VPN Accelerator may not make any improvement on performance. However, more often than not, network conditions are less than ideal. With Proton VPN, no matter which server you connect to or where you are, you will always automatically get the fastest speeds possible. 

FAQ

Feel free to share your feedback and questions with us via our official social media channels on Twitter and Reddit.

The post Increase VPN speeds by up to 400% with VPN Accelerator appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

We feel every corporation has a responsibility to protect basic human rights wherever they are under threat. Unfortunately, by blocking Proton VPN security updates, Apple has demonstrated that it does not share this philosophy.

Recently, the people of Myanmar have been fighting to preserve their human rights after the military deposed the democratically-elected government and seized power on Feb. 1. In the weeks since, military forces have killed over 250 peaceful protesters and illegally detained over 2,500.

On March 17, the United Nations appealed for people to collect and preserve documentary evidence of crimes against humanity. To safely convey such sensitive information to UN investigators and ensure whistleblowers are not attacked or killed, the UN recommended people use Proton Mail or Signal to report evidence of wrongdoing. 

Proton Mail is not the only Proton app being used by activists and protesters in Myanmar. For the past month, the Myanmar military has forced the national telecom companies to regularly shut down the internet and block access to social media to prevent damaging evidence from getting out. 

The people of Myanmar have also turned to Proton VPN to get around these internet blocks, seek accurate news to stay safe, and report on the killings. In the days immediately after the coup, the sign-ups for Proton VPN in Myanmar spiked to 250 times the previous average daily rate.

Apple blocks Proton VPN updates

On the same day the UN recommended Proton apps, Apple suddenly rejected important updates to our Proton VPN iOS app. These updates include security enhancements designed to further improve safeguards against account takeover attempts which could compromise privacy. 

Apple says it blocked our security updates because our app description in the App Store, which we have used without issue for months, mentions Proton VPN is a tool to “challenge governments… and bring online freedom to people around the world”. Given the current context, Apple’s actions could not be more insensitive.

Today, apps like Proton VPN are a lifeline to the rest of the world for the people of Myanmar who are being massacred. By preventing us from informing users that Proton VPN can be used to bypass internet restrictions, Apple is making it harder for people to find this lifeline. Apple’s decision will make it even more difficult for the citizens of Myanmar to send evidence of crimes against humanity to the United Nations. 

Apple’s actions are also hypocritical. Apple has no problem challenging governments when it is in its own financial self-interest (e.g., avoiding EU taxes or evading antitrust charges). However, when Proton does it for human rights reasons, it’s suddenly against Apple’s policies. 

Actions have consequences, and Apple’s actions are actively hampering the defense of human rights in Myanmar at a time when hundreds of people are dying.

Apple’s actions hinder progress on human rights

Apple has systematically blocked updates that outline that Proton VPN can be used to overcome internet blocks used by regimes engaging in human rights abuses. We were forced to censor our app description to get approval from Apple to update our app. We strongly object to this policy of censorship and strong-arming. We believe that Apple’s policy of rejecting apps that “challenge governments” is simply wrong.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident with Apple but part of a longstanding corporate policy to put profits ahead of human rights. During the Hong Kong protests last year when Proton VPN became one of the most downloaded apps in Hong Kong, Apple similarly forced us to self-censor. In 2019, it removed the HKmap.live and Quartz apps, which Hong Kong residents used to stay informed about the protests, from its App Store after it received pressure from China. 

Apple’s priority is to preserve access to markets and maintain its profits, so it almost never challenges the policies of dictators or authoritarian regimes. By giving in to tyrants, Apple is ignoring internationally recognized human rights and preventing organizations such as Proton from defending those in need. What is also troubling is that Apple requested the removal of this language in ALL countries where our app is available. By doing so, Apple is helping spread authoritarian laws globally, even in countries where freedom of speech is protected.

What can we do?

We can create an internet that promotes freedom around the world. The situation in Myanmar shows how encrypted services are an essential part of that internet as they allow activists, journalists, and everyday citizens to access the entire internet and privately communicate. When a regime turns against its own people, this ability to access and share the truth can save lives. More broadly, a free and independent internet is essential to democracy in the 21st century. But Big Tech companies like Apple have a different vision of the internet, one where profits matter more than people. 

This is why we support the EU’s efforts to regulate big tech companies through the Digital Markets Act. If you live in the EU, contact your MEP to express support for this legislation. You can also reduce the power of tech giants by switching away from Big Tech to services like Proton Mail, Signal, or DuckDuckGo.

Together, we can ensure that the internet of the future serves the interests of all citizens. 

PS: Proton Mail and Proton VPN have free plans that are free forever. If you are an activist organization in Myanmar that could benefit from a paid Proton plan, please contact us at advocacy@protonmail.com. We have been supporting organizations in Myanmar with paid plans for free since February.

UPDATE March 25, 2021: We clarified which part of Apple’s policy we object to.

The post When Myanmar needs Proton VPN the most, Apple stands in the way of human rights appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

We have also seen how Big Tech companies increasingly control every aspect of our lives, from what news we see to which apps we can use. As the recent US and EU antitrust investigations highlight, Big Tech companies use their market dominance to disadvantage competitors and further their control over the internet, putting at risk essential rights, such as privacy, freedom of speech, and democracy. Against this backdrop, the announcement of a Google VPN is even more troubling.

What’s wrong with Google VPN?

VPNs have long been essential online tools that provide security, freedom, and most importantly, privacy. Each day, hundreds of millions of internet users connect to a VPN to prevent their online activities from being tracked and monitored so that they can privately access web resources. In other words, the very purpose of a VPN is to prevent the type of surveillance that Google engages in on a massive and unprecedented scale.

Google knows this, and in their whitepaper discussing VPN by Google One, Google acknowledges that VPN usage is becoming mainstream and that “up to 25% of all internet users accessed a VPN within the last month of 2019.” Increasing VPN usage unfortunately poses a significant problem for Google, by making it more difficult to track users across the internet, mine their data, and target them with advertisements. In short, VPNs undermine Google’s power.

Products like Proton VPN have long been a threat to Google’s business model because we stand for something completely different. Proton believes everyone should have access to privacy, security, and freedom. Our products and business model are centered on the concept of putting privacy first and giving users control over their online data. Whether it’s Proton Mail, Proton VPN, or Proton Drive, our mission has consistently been to prevent Big Tech companies from misusing your most private data for profit.

A Google VPN is a thinly disguised attempt to keep control over user data. By launching Google VPN, bundling it with Google One, and potentially preloading it on every Android device in the future, Google is essentially saying, “Since third-party VPNs prevent us from spying on internet users, we’re going to drive unsuspecting users to Google VPN so we can keep control of their data.” By leveraging its control over the Android platform and bundling Google VPN with other services, Google is leveraging its market dominance to the detriment of internet users, and engaging in the exact sort of behavior which is the subject of antitrust investigations in both the US and EU.

Google’s brazen claim that its VPN will be good for privacy is akin to claiming a Facebook VPN or NSA VPN would be good for privacy. It is imperative that we do not allow Google to redefine privacy as ‘privacy between you and Google.’ This only serves their abusive business model, which profits off surveillance and enables mass manipulation. If we let Google define privacy, everyone loses.

The risks of using a VPN by Google

While no VPN is a perfect privacy solution, there are specific risks to using Google’s VPN in particular.

• Google’s new VPN will increase its ability to collect data on you. Any time you sign in to Google Chrome, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, or Google Drive, Google already starts tracking you. Any time you sign in to an app that is part of Google’s AdMob platform, it will be able to monitor your activity, and use this to help third parties gain insights to better target you. If that isn’t enough, by using Google’s VPN, you give Google direct access to ALL of your online browsing activity.

• Google is based in the United States, meaning your data is vulnerable to US government surveillance. Google’s VPN is subject to the secretive FISA court and warrantless national security letters. Google is already a tool of surveillance for national governments; giving Google technical access to all your internet activity is a gift to the NSA and other spy agencies around the world. Even if its VPN does not keep user logs now, the US government could compel Google to begin collecting logs in the future.

• With VPN technology, trust is paramount. Yet Google has done nothing to earn your trust. From monitoring users in incognito mode to tracking your location even if you tell it not to, Google has demonstrated repeatedly that it puts profit ahead of user privacy.

The bottom line is that when you connect to a VPN, you are shifting trust from your internet service provider to your VPN provider. If you use Google’s VPN, you are placing your trust in a company whose business model is surveillance.

Don’t fall for privacy theater

This is not the first time Google has tried to assure its users it is concerned for their privacy. Last year, Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote an op-ed in The New York Times arguing that “privacy should not be a luxury good.” And much like the bad faith arguments presented in that op-ed, Google’s new VPN is nothing more than an attempt to pacify users into a false sense of privacy.

Unfortunately, there is still a large learning curve when it comes to VPNs. Many people don’t know how they work or how they protect privacy. Google appears to be counting on users’ ignorance. Many people may use Google’s VPN thinking they are protecting their privacy, when in reality, it gives Google the ability to collect even more data on them.

But there may be one positive thing about Google’s desperate entry into privacy tech: they know the tide is turning. The demand for privacy is growing, and despite what Google wants, the future will be more private. As internet users, we deserve the right to privacy because it is the foundation for a healthy society and functioning democracy.

Make no mistake, despite what they might claim, Google’s VPN is an attack on internet privacy. What we need is not an internet that puts Google first, but an internet that puts people first, and puts people in control over their data. We can all take a step toward this better internet by saying ‘No’ to Google VPN.

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

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

The post Why using Google VPN is a terrible idea appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

These are dark days for Hong Kong. On July 6, in the middle of the night, Hong Kong’s governing body effectively destroyed the idea of an autonomous, democratic Hong Kong by imposing a series of measures designed to eliminate privacy, sharpen censorship, and curb freedom of speech.

The cause of freedom has no borders, and in order to succeed we must stand together. Hong Kong’s fight is also the world’s fight, and we all have a responsibility to stand with Hong Kong. Today we’re announcing a new initiative to defend democracy, privacy, and freedom of speech in Hong Kong. 

We will be donating 50% of our revenue from July, August, and September 2020 from Hong Kong to support two local civil rights organizations: 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund and Stand With Hong Kong.

Over the course of this campaign, we hope to raise over HK$1,000,000 (about US$130,000) to help defend freedom in Hong Kong. As of July 20, 2020, the campaign has so far raised HK$171,000.

Why Hong Kong needs our support

Since 1997, Hong Kong has been a Special Administrative Region (SAR) within China, governed by the Hong Kong Basic Law which protects a number of fundamental rights. However, despite this internationally recognized legal protection, Chinese authorities have repeatedly attempted to chip away at Hong Kong’s freedom. These attempts have triggered massive protests from Hong Kong citizens concerned about protecting their freedoms. 

In an attempt to crush the protest movement, China passed a National Security Law on June 30, which outlaws “subversion,” a vaguely defined concept, which clears the way for China to impose the same iron-fist tactics it deploys on the mainland: Orwellian censorship, warrantless searches, secret trials against political prisoners, coerced confessions, and even torture. The decree, and its July 6 implementation rules, have radically changed the situation on the ground in Hong Kong. In effect, the Great Firewall of China can now be extended to Hong Kong, and protesters can now be arbitrarily detained and subject to criminal prosecution. 

Former Hong Kong legislator Nathan Law explains how freedom is under threat and what Hong Kongers can do to resist.

We also noticed these impacts at Proton. Both Proton Mail and Proton VPN have long been used by Hong Kong citizens to keep their communications and online activity secure from government surveillance. After July 6, Proton VPN could also become essential in order to access the Internet without censorship. Since the introduction of the National Security Law, interest in Proton VPN in Hong Kong has increased by 3,000%, reaching the third position in the Hong Kong app store.

At Proton, we believe in freedom and democracy for all citizens of the world, and we have long been supporting the activist community in Hong Kong, including organizations such as HKmaps. Protecting freedom is a long and difficult struggle, and in order to succeed, the peoples of the world must stand together, and today we stand with Hong Kong. We hope that through our financial support, the cause for freedom in Hong Kong can continue to burn brightly. 

Hong Kong civil rights organizations we’re supporting

We have selected two organizations in Hong Kong, and we will distribute funds equally to each of them. We decided on these organizations based on a selection process that involved nominations from activists in Hong Kong that we work with. Our goal was to select organizations where we believe our donation will make a meaningful impact on democracy and rule of law for Hong Kongers.

612 Humanitarian Relief Fund

Established after the anti-extradition protests in 2019, the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund provides financial, medical, and psychological support to people arrested during pro-democracy demonstrations. The fund’s trustees include Joseph Zen (Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong), Margaret Ng (a barrister who was also a member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong for 17 years), Cyd Ho (an activist for LGBT rights), and Denise Ho Wan See (a singer who is widely respected for her participation in social movements). The fund operates in a highly transparent manner and is non-political, representing all citizens of Hong Kong.

Stand With Hong Kong

Stand With Hong Kong is an advocacy organization that works to raise international support for the Hong Kong democracy movement. Their awareness campaigns take many forms, including organizing demonstrations in Hong Kong and around the world, generating publicity through op-eds and advertising, and lobbying international governments to put pressure on Beijing. 

How you can support freedom in Hong Kong

There are two main ways to contribute to our initiative.

1. If you’re in Hong Kong, just use Proton VPN

We will be donating 50% of all revenue from Hong Kong in both July and August. By getting a paid Proton VPN subscription, you will automatically be supporting freedom in Hong Kong, while also getting a VPN service which protects against government surveillance and allows you to access censored websites. 

Get Proton VPN

If you already have a Proton VPN account, any payments you make during this period will be included in the donation. This includes upgrades to the various paid versions of Proton VPN. To upgrade, log in to your account.

Log in

2. If you’re not in Hong Kong, make a donation on our website

For those not in Hong Kong or who do not wish to use Proton VPN, you can still make a difference.

In July and August, we will add 100% of contributions from our donations page toward our Hong Kong initiative. 

Donate

About Proton’s mission

We believe everyone should have access to a free and private Internet. Unfortunately, this is not the default around the world. From the United States and Europe to authoritarian states like China, governments are constantly working to undermine online privacy and security. Meanwhile, big tech monopolies enable state surveillance and censorship while enriching themselves.

Proton builds tools to protect online freedom and return control to the people. Since being founded by scientists who met at CERN in 2014, Proton Mail has helped over 20 million people easily secure their email communications with end-to-end encryption. 

Then in 2017, after recognizing the need for more trustworthy privacy and anti-censorship tools, we launched Proton VPN, which protects Internet activity from surveillance and helps unblock censored content. Like Proton Mail, Proton VPN is fully open source and available to all citizens worldwide.

We created Proton VPN and Proton Mail to defend fundamental rights: democracy, privacy, and freedom of speech. The citizens of Hong Kong deserve the same freedom to exercise these rights as anyone else in the world. Proton has an office in Taiwan so we feel great solidarity with our users in Hong Kong, and a duty to help uphold our shared values. You have long supported us, and now it is our turn to return the favor. Together, we can build a better future.

The post Help us defend democracy and freedom in Hong Kong appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

On July 6, Chinese authorities forced through Article 43, a collection of new regulations that gave Hong Kong law enforcement sweeping online surveillance and censorship powers. These rules are an extension of China’s National Security Law, which cracks down on “separatism, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference.”

These laws give Hong Kong police the ability to put people in prison for sharing content online that the government considers “offensive” and foreshadow increased surveillance. There is little doubt the Chinese government will use these exceptional powers to crush Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement and strictly curtail the freedom of expression.

In light of these developments, we have carefully considered whether Proton VPN will continue to maintain servers in Hong Kong. After much deliberation, we have decided to keep our servers in Hong Kong, not only because we believe we can keep them secure, but also because we believe in fighting for Hong Kong.

Why Proton VPN is staying in Hong Kong (for now)

We are outraged at the new measures enacted by Chinese authorities, but they are not a surprise. We have always had concerns about such an outcome and have long designated Hong Kong as a high-risk country when it comes to VPN security. As a result, our policies for high-risk countries have long been in effect in Hong Kong, allowing us to mitigate certain risks, which we discuss in more detail below. 

In light of the significant challenges facing freedom of speech in Hong Kong today, the easiest (and by far cheapest) thing to do would be to shut down our server network there. However, at Proton, we have never focused on doing what is easy, but on doing what is right. Our longstanding policy is to leave countries rather than compromise our values. However, it is not our policy to leave without putting up a fight. 

If any measures are enacted to pressure Proton VPN into compromising the privacy or security of the users of our Hong Kong servers, we intend to challenge those measures in a court or another appropriate venue first. If it subsequently becomes impossible to ensure an appropriate level of privacy or security, we would indeed shut down our servers in Hong Kong. However, we think that preemptively abandoning Hong Kong to its fate without even a symbolic resistance sends the wrong message to authoritarian governments around the world that would seek to deny people their fundamental rights.

How we are securing Proton VPN servers in Hong Kong

We should first state the obvious: Under current regulations, Hong Kong is a high-risk location, and we would not generally recommend using servers there if you are handling sensitive content or communications. Proton VPN has one of the most geographically diverse VPN server networks available, and we maintain servers nearby in Taiwan, where we have an office. We also have servers in Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia, all of which are also in the region and support low latency connections with Hong Kong.

However, if you would like to use the servers in Hong Kong, we have implemented a number of safety measures to keep them secure. First, we offer Secure Core VPN, which routes your traffic through special, hardened servers in countries with strong data protection laws (in this case, Sweden) before connecting you to a server in Hong Kong. This makes it extremely difficult to track Proton VPN users.

Learn more about Secure Core VPN.

Second, we have experience maintaining servers in high-risk countries, and in fact, we specifically designed Proton VPN to help people protect their privacy in the face of pervasive surveillance. We have a strict no-logs policy, and there is no personally identifiable information stored on any of our VPN servers. This means that even if the Hong Kong servers were to be seized or compromised by the authorities, they would not contain any information that could compromise Proton VPN users. We have also taken several additional precautions to ensure our servers remain secure even in a high-risk location.

Our security measures for high-risk countries

We have put several technical protections in place to keep our servers secure. 

• We only use bare metal (physical) servers, which lets us control the server down to the hardware level. Once we procure a physical server, we provision it ourselves from scratch to minimize the risk of using tainted software. We lock the server down to tightly control who has access and extensively monitor the machines to detect any potential tampering.

• We also implement full-disk, block-level encryption on all our servers. Even though our VPN servers do not store any personally identifiable information, we protect them with full-disk encryption. This encryption makes it even more difficult to tamper with Proton VPN servers, even if the attacker has physical access to the machine.

Learn more about the full-disk encryption of our servers.

• We have zero staff or physical presence in Hong Kong or China, which makes us less susceptible to pressure from Chinese authorities. And as a Swiss company, any request for assistance from the Hong Kong or Chinese government under Article 43 would have to be deemed legal under Swiss law and approved by a Swiss court, which is unlikely. Moreover, we have and will vigorously defend our users’ rights in any jurisdiction they are challenged.

Find out more about how we secure servers in high-risk countries.

We are committed to defending Hong Kong

We created Proton VPN to help people maintain their privacy, protect their freedom of speech, and access censored information. Proton has an office in Taiwan, so we feel great solidarity with our users in Hong Kong and a duty to uphold our shared values. As part of this commitment, we are leading a campaign to directly support organizations fighting for freedom in Hong Kong. 

Today, we are not just fighting for the future of freedom and democracy in Hong Kong, but for freedom around the world. Now, more than ever, the people of the world must stand together, and today, we stand with Hong Kong.

The post We are not abandoning Hong Kong appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

In light of recent events, this addition to the Proton VPN network comes at a crucial moment for our users in Asia. In times like these, access to reliable information is more important than ever and critical for sustaining democracy.

We have selected Taiwan as one of our main locations as we build out our network in Asia in part because of its strong foundation for democracy and freedom. Taiwan is home to a robust independent press and civil society groups, and it is the world’s only democratic Chinese society. Taiwan has long been a beacon of democracy in Asia, and is a compelling example of the transformative powers of freedom.

About our Taiwan VPN servers

We installed eight new VPN servers in a data center in Taipei. They are available to users on one of our paid plans.

TW#5-7 are available on our Basic plan.
TW#8-12 are available on our Plus and Visionary plans.

These servers add to our 54 other servers throughout the region, including in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan. These include 3 Free plan servers in Japan, a one-click Tor server in Hong Kong, and dedicated VPN servers for BitTorrent in Singapore.

Learn about all of our VPN servers.

Our commitment to human rights in Asia

We believe that digital freedom is a fundamental human right, and our mission is to make sure everyone has access to an Internet that respects their privacy, security, and freedom. Technology has the power to unlock liberty for people around the world, provided the technology is accessible and free.

At Proton, we develop tools that help all people exercise their rights and freedoms, including Proton VPN, Proton Mail, our encrypted email service, and Proton Calendar, our private calendar.

We don’t just build technology, however. We also actively support the communities and projects that are pushing democracy forward, including in Asia. Whether it is providing safe communication services to activists and protesters on the front lines in Hong Kong, or lobbying for greater privacy protections around the world, we fight for the civil liberties that are essential for a democratic society. This is also why we contribute to numerous open source projects and continuously develop our own anti-censorship capabilities.

In part because of Taiwan’s strong stance on democracy and human rights, we’re also proud to have an engineering office in Taipei, as part of our effort to keep Proton operating 24/7. We hope our footprint there will only continue to grow in the future.

More about Proton VPN and how to sign up

Proton VPN is a secure, community-supported VPN service. It was developed by the same team that created Proton Mail, the world’s largest encrypted email provider. We offer the only free VPN service that does not have data caps, bandwidth limits, privacy-invading ads, or log user activity. Joining is easy; click the signup button below. Or if you already have an account and want to upgrade to access premium features, like Secure Core, click upgrade.

Proton VPN works on various desktop and mobile devices: Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, and iOS.

Our mission is to make online security and privacy accessible to all. 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

The post Another step forward supporting access to information in Asia appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

We launched Proton VPN in 2017 to provide Proton Mail users with a trustworthy VPN service, which was increasingly necessary given the rise of Internet censorship. VPN in particular was an area in dire need of improvement. Studies have found that over one-third of Android VPNs actually contain malware, many VPNs suffered from major security lapses, and many free VPN services that claimed to protect privacy are secretly selling user data to third parties. In general, there is also a lack of transparency and accountability regarding who operates VPN services, their security qualifications, and whether they fully conform to privacy laws like the GDPR.  

Proton VPN changed this by delivering an unparalleled level of transparency and accountability. We have done things differently from the start: We have a strict no-logs policy, we’re based in Switzerland, regulated by some of the world’s strongest privacy laws, we have a deep security background, and we have even opened up our technology for inspection by Mozilla. We’re regularly audited by independent security experts, and our latest security audit results confirm our no-logs policy.

Making all of our applications open source is therefore a natural next step. As former CERN scientists, publication and peer review are a core part of our ethos. We are also publishing the results of independent security audits covering all of our software.

You can find the open-source code and audit reports here:

You can also find the latest security audit reports for all Proton services on our community page explaining why we prioritize open-source code.

Why it’s important to use an open-source VPN

When you choose to use a virtual private network, you are placing an extraordinary amount of faith in that service provider. Here’s why:

When you are not connected to a VPN, your unencrypted Internet traffic (i.e., that which is not protected by TLS) may be intercepted by your WiFi provider, by your Internet service provider (ISP), by hackers monitoring the local network, or by the government authorities in your jurisdiction. Your IP address (i.e. your device’s identity and your geographical location) is also exposed, including to the websites you visit, which can use that information to track you across the Internet. Even encrypted traffic can be monitored to observe the websites you visit, and your IP address will remain exposed.

When you connect to a VPN, your Internet traffic is encrypted between your device and the VPN server, protecting it from local network surveillance. Even your DNS lookups (the names of the web domains you visit) are protected. And your IP address is masked to help protect your identity and location. However, when you connect to any VPN, the VPN provider can see the same kind of data that your ISP could when not using a VPN, including your browsing history and IP address. This is why choosing a trustworthy VPN service is so important.

A VPN application, therefore, has a lot of privileged access to your device and your online activity. Open-source code allows security researchers and the global security community to inspect how we implement encryption and how we handle your data, giving you more certainty that we are adhering to our strict privacy policy. Open-source code provides security through transparency, meaning that because the code is heavily scrutinized, potential vulnerabilities are quickly spotted and fixed. This reduces the risk of a security vulnerability in a VPN app putting you at risk. 

In contrast, proprietary code relies on “security through obscurity,” meaning vulnerabilities are less likely to be discovered. Or worse, these vulnerabilities may be only known to malicious actors who exploit them secretly without users being aware. 

When it comes to online privacy and security software, we believe free and open-source software is better for safety and provides better accountability to our user community. Open source has long been at the core of Proton, and our open-source software includes the Proton Mail web app, iOS app, Android app, and the desktop Bridge app.

This means that all Proton apps that are out of beta are open source.

We also maintain open-source encryption libraries, such as OpenPGPjs, which power a significant fraction of encrypted applications on the web today and serve tens of millions of users.

Third-party security audits

Another unique quality of Proton VPN is our commitment to having independent security researchers inspect our software before releasing it publicly. Previously, Mozilla reviewed our implementations, organizational structure, and our technology as part of their due diligence for a partnership with us. 

Since then, we have initiated more thorough security-focused audits for all our clients. We contracted SEC Consult, a leading security firm, to conduct the audits. Although such audits are expensive and time-consuming, we believe these are a critical step that must go together with open sourcing our code. Going forward, we will continue to do audits on an ongoing basis to have continual independent checks on our application security.

Working with the Proton community

The other important benefit of open sourcing our software is that it furthers our overall mission to build an Internet that’s more secure, private, and free by leveraging the power of the community. Security improvements can now be submitted by developers from around the world through our bug bounty program. And in some cases even features improvements from the community may be incorporated into the official Proton VPN apps, similar to what we have done previously with the official Proton VPN Linux client. 

As a community-supported organization, we have a responsibility to be as transparent, accountable, and accessible as possible. Going open source helps us to do that and serve you better at the same time. 

Your feedback and suggestions have become a vital source of ideas and inspiration for us, and we will continue working to meet your expectations in 2020 and beyond. We will be launching new servers all over the world, improving security, and releasing new features to keep you safe and help you bypass censorship. None of what we have achieved to date could have been done without our community.

Thank you for your support!

Best Regards,
The Proton VPN Team

Follow us on social media to stay up to date on the latest Proton VPN news:

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

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