But in recent months, authoritarian orders targeting VPNs and a new disclosure from telecommunications officials suggest the attack on privacy is entering a new phase. 

On Nov. 10, the tech site Entrackr revealed that the Department of Telecommunications has had virtually unrestricted access to web traffic directly from the source: India’s internet service providers (ISPs).

Through a public records request, Entrackr learned that the government can access internet users’ activities remotely and in real time, without the user or even the ISP knowing about the surveillance.

This means that Indian internet users can never be sure that their conversations and web browsing are not being monitored by law enforcement agents.

This report comes shortly after the Indian government enacted laws requiring VPN services to keep logs on their users’ activity. These developments raise serious questions for Indians who care about their privacy and the importance of privacy in a democracy. The extent of the government’s surveillance is not known publicly, but the government has made no secret that it wants privileged access to everything Indians do online.

This article explains what the latest revelations mean for Indian internet users and how you can protect your privacy in the face of these intrusions.

The Central Monitoring System

The cornerstone of India’s surveillance infrastructure is its Central Monitoring System. Conceived prior to 2007 and fast-tracked after the 26/11 terror attacks, the system is designed to intercept telephone calls and internet data, but much of the program is shrouded in secrecy.

The director of the Software Freedom and Law Center in India said in 2013 that “No one knows what they have proposed or whether it has parliamentary mandate. … It’s like a black hole.” 

An anonymous source working on the program told The Times of India that the Secretary of Department of Electronics and Information Technology authorizes all targeted surveillance orders which would then be passed to the telecoms provider. Such spying is permitted under a law based on India’s 1885 rules for intercepting telegraph messages.

The writers of this law could not have imagined how it would be stretched and abused by The Central Monitoring System. “Essentially, every form of electronic communication will be under the government’s microscope. Even partially written emails saved in draft folders will be vulnerable to government intrusion,” according to a 2015 paper by a Washington University law professor.

The extent of the government’s technical capacity to access this data would depend on the cooperation of internet companies. But the news reported by Entrackr suggests that in the case of internet service providers, no such barrier exists. The ability to conduct real-time remote surveillance raises the possibility that law enforcement agents and spies can monitor any user at will.

Closing the VPN loophole

Savvy readers may recognize the simple solution to ISP-level surveillance: Just connect to a VPN.

A virtual private network uses end-to-end encryption to conceal your web traffic as it travels between your computer and the websites you visit. The internet service provider can’t see much of anything about your activities when you connect through a VPN.

VPNs, therefore, are a major loophole in the Indian government’s surveillance regime. That may be why this year they launched an effort to close that loophole.

Most VPN providers explicitly design mechanisms to capture as little data as possible about their users. Proton VPN, for example, does not keep any logs of your activity, and any government requests for user data must withstand the scrutiny of Swiss courts. 

But in 2022, the Indian government issued an order to VPN companies that have servers in India requiring them to maintain extensive logs about their customers. They expect VPNs to maintain logs of users’ names, IP addresses, and even the reason people are using a VPN. 

In response, we at Proton VPN replaced our servers in India with servers in Singapore that use Smart Routing. This feature allows our VPN servers to provide you with an Indian IP address even though they’re located in Singapore, where they’re safe from India’s VPN logging requirements. 

Learn more about Smart Routing

How to stay private in India

Between its 19th-century surveillance laws and a powerful Central Monitoring System, India is a country increasingly hostile to online privacy.

We still do not know if the Central Monitoring System is being used to conduct mass surveillance, but there is so much secrecy about the program that the possibility cannot be ruled out. 

This isn’t the first time critics have raised the alarm about mass surveillance in India. In 2021, the Indian government tried to force WhatsApp and other online messaging services to remove their encryption and keep a record of all messages in a “traceable” database, leading WhatsApp to sue. 

Technically, the government is only supposed to use surveillance to protect the “sovereignty or integrity of India, defense of India, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states or public order.” But these conditions are broad, ill-defined, and applied without public scrutiny. Human rights experts say overreach is all too easy.

The good thing is there are simple ways to protect your privacy that are almost impossible for the government to counteract.

The best way to keep your data private in India is to encrypt as much of it as possible and to use internet services based in privacy-friendly countries.

• Use a no-logs VPN service that does not have physical servers in India. In the wake of the September 2022 user logging order, Proton VPN no longer has any physical presence in India, instead using Smart Routing servers in Singapore. 
• Use end-to-end encrypted email. If you are using an end-to-end encrypted email provider, the government will not be able to obtain the contents of your communications. It’s important to be sure both ends of the conversation are using the same platform. (For example, if you are using Proton Mail but the person you email is not, then your message may be accessible via your recipient’s email provider.) Again, you should also choose service providers that do not have a physical presence in India.
• Use end-to-end encrypted chat apps. For secure messaging, we recommend using Signal, which is not based in India and encrypts both ends of every conversation by default, including all metadata.

The post Indian government can spy on Indian internet users in real time appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

Save money and support Proton with our special limited-time Black Friday offers. You can now get up to 50% off Proton VPN and six months free. 

This has been a challenging year for many people, with rising inflation and a higher cost of living, and we feel it’s more important than ever to continue serving the community. For this reason, we’re offering larger-than-normal discounts for this year’s Black Friday to make Proton VPN accessible to even more people.

This year’s Black Friday deals

50% off Proton VPN Plus + six months free

Get our best deal with 50% off our Proton VPN Plus plan* with a 24-month subscription, plus six months free. This deal is billed upfront at $119.76 for 30 months. With a VPN Plus plan, you get:

• Access to 1700+ servers in 60+ countries
• Highest VPN speeds
• 10 VPN connections
• Stream popular services from around the world
• P2P BitTorrent support
• NetShield Ad-blocker (can also block malware and trackers)
• Secure Core servers
• Tor over VPN

*Discount calculated based on our standard monthly pricing: $9.99/month for a VPN Plus plan.

40% off Proton VPN Plus + three months free

We’re also offering 40% off our Proton VPN Plus plan* with a 12-month subscription, plus three months free. This deal is billed at $71.88 upfront for 15 months.

*Discount calculated based on our standard monthly pricing: $9.99/month for a VPN Plus plan.

40% off Proton Unlimited

Upgrade your privacy, enjoy the convenience of the entire Proton encrypted ecosystem, and save with our best deal for Proton Unlimited. Get 40% off* when you buy a 24-month subscription during our Black Friday sale. This deal is billed at $172.56 upfront for 24 months. With our Proton Unlimited plan, you get all the benefits of our VPN Plus plan, together with:

• Proton Mail Plus encrypted email
• Proton Drive with 500 GB total storage (shared with Mail)
• Proton Calendar with 20 calendars and calendar sharing

*Discount calculated based on our standard monthly pricing: $11.99 for a Proton Unlimited plan.

If you take advantage of any of our Proton VPN specific Black Friday offers, your plan will renew at the discounted rate for as long as you keep your subscription active. The Proton Unlimited offer renews automatically at the standard price ($191.76) for 24 months.

Privacy you can trust

At Proton, our mission is to build a better internet where privacy is the default. That’s why we offer a Free plan with no data or artificial speed restrictions. If you subscribe to a paid plan, you’ll not only support our mission, you’ll also receive access to our many premium features. 

Proton exists to serve our community, and we work tirelessly to improve our products. In the last year alone, we have added the following features to our VPN service:

• Port forwarding for improved P2P performance
• Stealth protocol to help defeat censorship
• Confirmed our no-logs policy via an independent audit
• Expanded our server capacity to 1700+ servers in 64 countries worldwide
• Introduced Smart Routing servers to allow VPN access in sensitive locations (such as India)

Our apps are fully open source and have been independently audited. We are trusted by activists, journalists, and dissidents around the world, and Swiss laws guarantee your privacy when using our service. As a member of our community, you help us fight for a better world.

Frequently asked questions

How do I get these deals if I already have a Proton VPN account?

If you already use Proton VPN and are eligible, you will see a Special Offer icon on your account dashboard and in your Proton VPN apps.

To get one of our Black Friday deals, click or tap the Special Offer button at the top and select the desired plan.

Why don’t I see the Black Friday deal on my dashboard or app?

If you do not see the icon on your account dashboard, try refreshing the page. If you’re using our mobile app, try closing it and restarting it. 

If you still do not see the icon, please contact Support.

Who is eligible for the 50% off Proton VPN Plus + six months free Black Friday offer?

You can take advantage of this Black Friday offer if you do not currently have a Proton subscription or are already subscribed to one of the following plans:

• Proton Free
• Proton VPN Plus 1-month
• Proton VPN Plus 1-year

This offer is not available if you downgraded to our Free plan after October 1, 2022

Who is eligible for the 40% off Proton VPN Plus + three months free Black Friday offer?

You can take advantage of this Black Friday offer if you do not currently have a Proton subscription or are already subscribed to one of the following plans:

• Proton Free
• Proton VPN Plus 1-month

This offer is not available if you downgraded to our Free plan after October 1, 2022

Who is eligible for the Proton VPN Unlimited Black Friday offer?

You can take advantage of this Black Friday offer if you do not currently have a Proton subscription or are already subscribed to one of the following plans:

• Proton Free
• Proton VPN Plus 1-month
• Proton VPN Plus 1-year
• Proton VPN Plus 2-year
• Proton Unlimited 1-month
• Proton Unlimited 1-year
• An existing paid Proton plan (Mail Plus, Drive Plus) without VPN Plus

Are there any deals if I am already on the VPN Plus two-year plan?

Yes, you can take advantage of our Proton Unlimited Black Friday offer. This is an all-in-one bundle that provides convenient access to the entire Proton encrypted ecosystem at our best price of the year.

Are there any deals if I am on other Proton paid plans?

If you have a Proton Mail Plus or Proton Drive Plus plan, you can take advantage of our Proton Unlimited Black Friday offer. This is an all-in-one bundle that provides convenient access to the entire Proton encrypted ecosystem at our best price of the year.

Can I pay for the Proton VPN Plus special year-end offer using Bitcoin?

You can pay in Bitcoin to get the deal, but not directly from the landing page or your account dashboard. 

• If you’ve never used our service before, please sign up first. 
• Then log in at account.protonvpn.com and go to Credits → Add credits → Payment method and select Bitcoin from the dropdown menu. Add a sufficient amount for the promotion you would like to get. 
• Once you see the credits on your account in the dashboard, click the Special Offer button and select the desired offer.

Will I keep the discount when my plan runs out? What price will my plan renew at?

Our 50% off VPN Plus + six months and 40% off VPN Plus + three months Black Friday deals are lifetime offers that will continue to renew at the same discounted price once the subscription period is over as long as you keep the subscription active. 

• The 50% off VPN Plus + six months free offer is billed at $119.76 every 30 months (or $3.99/ month)
• The 40% off VPN Plus + three months free offer is billed at $71.88 every 15 months (or $4.79/month)

Our Proton Unlimited Black Friday offer renews at standard pricing ($191.76 for 24 months or $7.99/month) once the subscription period of 24 months is over.

If I upgrade my Proton VPN Plus one-month plan with the special Black Friday offer, what happens to my existing paid plan?

If you already have a paid Proton VPN Plus one-month plan and take advantage of this promotion, your new plan will replace your one. We will apply the unused balance of your existing subscription as a proration credit that will reduce the cost of your upgrade at checkout. This proration credit is applied on top of the special Black Friday discounted offer.

How are the discounts for this year’s Proton VPN Black Friday year-end offers calculated?

The discount percentages are based on the standard monthly $9.99 pricing for a VPN Plus plan and the $11.99 monthly pricing for a Proton Unlimited plan.

Do you have professional or enterprise plans?

Yes, we offer Mail Essentials, Business, and Enterprise plans to protect your business. To find out more, please get in touch with our Customer Success team.

Can I combine the Proton VPN year-end offer with other offers or discounts?

No, this offer cannot be combined with other offers or discounts available on Proton VPN, Proton Mail, or Proton Drive plans.

The post Black Friday 2022 year-end offer: 50% off + six months free (now over) appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

We’re pleased to announce Stealth, a new, undetectable VPN protocol that can bypass most firewalls and VPN blocking methods. You’ll be able to bypass advanced VPN blocks, access censored sites, and communicate with people on social media, even if your government is trying to restrict access.

Why is Stealth needed?

In 2017, we launched Proton VPN because there was no trustworthy, reliable, and freely available VPN service. Our motivation was simple. Because our services, such as Proton Mail, play a crucial role in ensuring freedom and privacy worldwide, we knew authoritarian governments would eventually try to block them.

But with Proton VPN, people can bypass those blocks and continue using Proton Mail. Over the past few years, Proton VPN has become an essential tool, helping ensure the free flow of information for tens of millions of people during crises and wars around the world.

Since we launched Proton VPN, we’ve continuously worked on technology to bypass surveillance and censorship. For example, in 2017, we launched Secure Core VPN, which provides greater privacy than typical VPN services.

In 2020, we launched alternative routing, which bypasses VPN blocks by re-routing our connections over other hard-to-trace paths. Finally, in 2021, we released VPN Accelerator, a unique technology that provides connection speeds that are up to 400% faster, which is critically important for users in far-flung regions with slower internet.

As we have stepped up our efforts to build a more censorship-resistant VPN, authoritarian governments have also stepped up their efforts to block VPNs. Traditional VPN protocols (such as OpenVPN, IKEv2, and WireGuard) are relatively easy to recognize on a network. And as deep packet inspection (DPI) technology becomes more widespread, it will be easier and easier for authoritarian governments to detect and block VPNs using these protocols.

For years there have been various projects to try to obfuscate existing VPN protocols, but many of them are hacks on top of existing protocols that unfortunately no longer work very well.

We designed our Stealth protocol from the ground up to not have these issues. With Stealth enabled, your Proton VPN connection will be almost completely undetectable.

Stealth is available on all Proton VPN plans, including our Free plan, because everyone deserves online freedom. For now, you can use Stealth on our Android, macOS, and iOS apps.

How do I use Stealth?

To activate Stealth, open the Proton VPN app on your device.

• On Android,  tap ☰ →  Settings → Advanced → Protocol and choose Stealth.
• On iOS and iPadOS, tap Settings → Security options → Protocol and choose Stealth.
• On macOS, ProtonVPN in the macOS taskbar → Preferences → Connection → Protocol and select Stealth from the dropdown menu. 

Stealth is not yet available on our Windows or Linux apps.

Learn more about changing VPN protocols

How does the Stealth VPN protocol work?

Stealth uses obfuscation to hide your VPN connection from censors. The general idea is to make VPN traffic look like “normal” traffic — or common HTTPS connections. Stealth does this by using obfuscated TLS tunneling over TCP. This is different from most popular VPN protocols that typically use UDP, making them easier to detect and block. Without going into too much detail, Stealth also establishes VPN connections in a specific and unique way that avoids alerting internet filters.

Despite these obfuscation features, the Stealth VPN protocol is also optimized for high performance and is compatible with our VPN Accelerator technology. Coupled with our lightweight internals, Stealth can achieve higher performance than older obfuscated VPN protocols that are generally built on top of OpenVPN over TCP.

The fight continues

We want to thank the members of the Proton community who helped us test the Stealth VPN protocol over the last couple of months. They live under restrictive censorship regimes, and Stealth would have been impossible to develop without their assistance. Thank you.

However, in the constantly evolving battle for online freedom, our work is not finished. Accordingly, we designed Stealth to be an extensible and adaptable VPN protocol that is flexible enough to meet new challenges.

The cause of freedom has no borders, and we must stand together for it to succeed. Tools like Proton VPN play a vital role in keeping the internet free. Our investment in technologies like Stealth is part of our commitment to provide internet privacy to everyone, regardless of their ability to pay.

Proton VPN will always be free, but if you would like to support our mission to keep the internet free and open to all, you can subscribe to a paid plan which offers even faster speeds and premium features.

P.S. We want to say thanks to the hundreds of Proton VPN community members who suggested names for our new protocol. Your top choice was Neutrino, which we liked a lot because of the connection to physics. And neutrinos can pass through all matter, making it even more appropriate. 

Unfortunately, we felt this name might cause confusion with a Web3 project, so we picked Stealth instead. This was another popular community suggestion, and its meaning is more obvious to those less familiar with physics.

The post Defeat censorship with Stealth, our new VPN protocol appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

As an organization building an internet where privacy is the default, we at Proton are always interested in how people protect themselves and their data online. We asked 1,000 randomly selected people over the age of 16 questions about their online habits to reveal what the average US citizen is doing to secure their online data.

The survey results indicate just how common data breaches are, which data people are most concerned about being exposed, as well as the level of protection individuals use to keep their information safe. 

We have highlighted the key findings from the survey below. 

Gmail is the most common email provider, but iCloud is popular among people under 25

The survey asked respondents which email provider and internet browsers they used most. 

Gmail came out on top as the most popular email provider, with 73.71% of respondents using a Gmail account. 

Apple’s email service, part of the iCloud suite, was the fourth most popular overall. However, the results showed a sharp increase in iCloud accounts within the 16 to 24-year-old age bracket (over 18% had an iCloud account compared to under 10% of those above this age range), signaling a conspicuous appeal to the younger generation. 

When evaluating email service providers, it’s important to consider their track record as well as the protections they have in place. Some email providers, such as Yahoo and Outlook, have suffered major data breaches. Other email providers, such as Gmail, have a good security record but scan your emails, track your purchasing habits, and share access to your messages with third parties. And, unfortunately, none of these popular providers, including Apple’s email service, offer end-to-end encryption or zero-access encryption.

Proton Mail uses zero-access encryption on all emails so that we cannot read your messages, meaning no third parties can read them either. It also means that even if there were a data breach, your messages would remain secure.

Most providers do now offer two-factor authentication for their logins, and you should always use this security measure. However, 2FA by itself won’t always be enough to protect your account, depending on the type of breach. It also cannot prevent your provider from selling or sharing your data. For a more private email experience, you need to use an encrypted service, such as Proton Mail, that protects all messages.

For internet browsers, Google Chrome came out on top with 63.45% of people using Chrome as their day-to-day browser, while Safari came second with 26.29% of people using Apple’s chosen browser as their main search provider. 

Many people use Big Tech services simply because they come preinstalled on their devices or offer name recognition and speed. Yet these services are built on a business model of exploiting your data for advertising purposes, which is at odds with privacy. This is especially true with browsers, which is why using alternative services that minimize data collection is the best way to find what you’re looking for while handing over the least amount of information.

72% of people admit to using public WiFi networks without adequate security measures, despite privacy warnings 

Though many may feel they are as careful as possible with their online security, do we give this as much thought when we are on our phones or on the move? 

Chances are, when you have been out grabbing dinner, on holiday, or working from a coffee shop, you’ve logged into a public WiFi network. Our survey revealed that over 72% of people use public WiFi networks, despite the risks they pose to your privacy.

These WiFi networks often will make you agree to terms and conditions that allow them to monitor your browsing and link to your email so that they can sell that data to advertisers.

Having a trustworthy VPN running on your device can help with this issue, as the VPN encrypts your data, preventing the network operator from monitoring your online browsing.

Over a quarter of people surveyed had their data exposed in a breach

As part of the survey, we additionally asked respondents to enter their main email address into a website called haveibeenpwnd.com. This website is free to use and checks whether an email address has been exposed in an online breach. 

Our survey found that 25.8% of people have had their data exposed in a breach online at least once. Over 10% hadn’t even realized this was the case before checking for the survey. 

The website also checks if your email address has been subject to a “paste”. “Pasting” is a type of data breach where hackers copy and paste personal information, such as email addresses, names, passwords, and so forth, on specific websites, like PasteBin. This makes it much easier for others to obtain and share a person’s data. 20% of people who took part in our survey found that their personal information had been subject to “pastes”. 

We asked respondents to specify the type of information they found being exposed the most. Three kinds of data were especially common:

1. Email Addresses (57.19%)
2. Passwords (38.36%)
3. Usernames (33.22%)

The survey also asked respondents to specify the type of companies that had been breached. The social media industry had the highest percentages of people affected by a data breach (42.12%), followed by gaming (25%) and tech-based websites (20.55%). 

A larger breakdown can be seen below:

Unfortunately, there isn’t much anyone can do when an external company suffers a data breach. People trust that a company or website has as much security in place as possible to keep their online data safe. This is not always the case, and even companies with high security levels have suffered large data breaches.

Most large social media platforms have suffered data breaches, including Facebook in 2019 and TikTok, Instagram, and Youtube, where the information of millions of users has been exposed. In this case, there is nothing more these individuals could have done to protect their data. 

If people are worried about their information being exposed from websites such as social media, sharing as little personal data as possible on these accounts will reduce the amount of data at risk in any potential breach.

82% of people are concerned about having their personal data exposed in a breach, but less than 21% would change their online habits

The team at Proton VPN wanted to find out not just what information has been exposed online, but ultimately what information people are most concerned about being exposed.

The survey revealed that the three types of information people are most concerned about being exposed in a breach are: 

1. Bank details (54%)
2. Passwords (43.53%)
3. Physical addresses (18.13%)

Overall, 82% of people admitted to being worried about having their information exposed in online data breaches. 

However, when we asked the same survey respondents about the precautions they take to protect themselves and their data online, their responses did not match this level of concern:

• Less than 23% of people said they read privacy policies to ensure their data will not be sold to third parties.
• Less than 20% of people said they have two-factor authentication (2FA) set up on all accounts, which keeps your accounts safe if your password is stolen or exposed.
• Moreover, when asked after taking the survey whether they plan to do anything more to keep themselves protected online, only 20.82% said they plan to do so. 

But for those who want to take extra precautions, what more can you do to make sure they keep their data and online usage as private and secure as possible? 

Steps you can take to protect yourself 

Though a company data breach is not something an individual can protect themselves from, there are several precautions you can take to keep your data and online usage as secure as possible. 

The security experts at Proton VPN have given their tips on what to do if you are worried about your data being exposed online: 

• Where possible, set up 2FA and extra steps to sign in to ensure your accounts are as safe as possible. With 2FA, even if someone obtains your login details, they will not be able to access your account without also having access to your second authentication pass. 

• Don’t sign up for or share personal information with a website or service unless it is strictly necessary. We know that this is not easy with social media. However, we recommend sharing as little personal information as possible. 

• When checking out, always untick any boxes that ask if they can keep your payment information for the next time you shop. 

• Make sure all your passwords are different for each of your accounts, which is made easier by using a password manager. This means that if your data is obtained on one website’s data breach, hackers will not have access to your other accounts. 

Sources and Methodology

Based on a survey of 1,000 US citizens aged 16 and over and picked at random from across the US, which took place in November 2021.  

Censuswide conducted this survey on behalf of Proton VPN.

The post US data protection: Online habits and data breaches appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

Digital freedom is something that much of society takes for granted, but, unfortunately, online liberty doesn’t exist for everyone. Your ability to use a VPN, access social media, or even read freely and fairly reported news in the media is entirely dependent on the laws governing the country you live in. This leads to a fractured world where the level of digital freedom can vary wildly from country to country.

To demonstrate how government decisions can impact people’s ability to access the internet, and read and publish digital media, we created the Digital Freedom Index. The team have used publicly available data from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and Freedom House to find out which countries have the most media freedom and which impose the most restrictions on their internet usage. 

What makes this index unique is that we additionally analyzed how free people in a given country are to access networks, websites, and online tools — such as VPNs and social media.

The following seven categories were analyzed and weighted equally to create our Digital Freedom Index: 

1. Media freedom 
2. Obstacles to access 
3. Limits on content 
4. Violation of user rights 
5. Pornography (explicit content) legality
6. VPN legality
7. Social media legality

Below you can find the most and least digitally free countries, according to our index:

According to the index, Sweden enjoys the most digital freedom of all the countries analyzed, with high scores across all seven of the categories we examined.

The United Kingdom and United States are notably not in the top 10. The UK just missed out, placing 12th while the US came in at 14th. Their overall scores were mainly affected by their lower than average violation of user rights scores. This category reflects the balance between legal protections and restrictions on free expression, surveillance and privacy, and the legal and extralegal repercussions for online speech and activities (such as imprisonment, extralegal harassment and physical attacks, or cyberattacks). 

China, Cuba, and Russia took the bottom spots of the index, with all three countries having tight regulations and restrictions around media freedom, VPNs, and social media.  

Sweden, Germany, and Portugal are the top countries for media freedom

Countries with high media freedom scores are places where journalists can report freely on matters of public interest, an essential part of any democracy. A high level of media freedom means journalists can be critical of the government and truthfully cover failures within society without being restricted by leaders or elites. 

Our team used the Reporters Without Borders’s (RSF) media freedom score to look at how free the press is to operate within a given country. Their freedom scores are based on journalist information obtained across 180 different countries. RSF asked the journalists 87 questions that have been put together by their team of experts to determine a country’s level of media freedom. 

Sweden received the highest score for media freedom from RSF. Sweden is known for being the first country in the world to pass a press freedom law in 1776, a law that still stands today. 

Though Germany’s score declined slightly from last year, the country still comes in second place for media freedom, as freedom of the press is guaranteed and protected by law. 

Myanmar, Ethiopia, and Cuba rank as the worst countries for internet accessibility 

The ability to simply access the internet is an often overlooked component of digital freedom. The media will often report when governments unilaterally shut down the internet within their country. However, if a country’s internet is otherwise open and uncensored but the majority of its population cannot access it because there is insufficient infrastructure or an internet connection is too expensive, the internet is still effectively blocked. Obstacles to accessing the internet can be a huge issue when it comes to freedom of speech.

Iceland, Estonia, and Canada scored highly in this category as the vast majority of their populations have internet access, do not face obstacles using social media sites, and rarely encounter unaffordable paywalls or restrictions. 

On the other end of the rankings, countries such as Cuba, Ethiopia, and Myanmar had the lowest scores of countries where this data was available. 

Cuba only legalized private WiFi in homes and businesses in 2019 — and even now Cubans must obtain a permit to access the country’s internet, which is reportedly expensive and unreliable. In Myanmar, the military has ordered an internet shutdown, meaning most people have no access at all. 

VPNs are banned in over 10% of countries, including Belarus, Turkey, and the UAE

At Proton VPN, we track the countries where it is illegal to have or use a VPN. 

Belarus made the move to ban not only VPNs but all internet anonymizers in 2016, including proxies and Tor. The country’s internet freedom has declined ever since, with the government blocking internet access, interfering with the free press, and obstructing its citizens’ right to free speech.

Turkey has also banned VPNs. Given that the Turkish government heavily regulates online content, blocking thousands of websites and removing YouTube videos, it is not surprising that it banned VPNs, which are effective tools for accessing blocked content.

The UAE’s rules around VPNs have changed in recent months, but the government still keeps tight controls on internet usage. Connecting to a VPN is not illegal in all circumstances, but if you use one to access a site that is blocked or banned in the UAE, you can still face a hefty fine. 

Less than 60% of countries have “full” social media freedom 

Of the 70 countries in the study, only three currently have a blanket ban on social media: China, Myanmar, and Cuba. In China, for example, the government restricts access to large portions of the internet and closely monitors its citizens’ online activity. It is also willing to impose harsh jail sentences on anyone who violates the law or accesses restricted content. Digital access in these countries is much more restricted than it is in the majority of countries worldwide. 

Despite the harsh government restrictions, activists, dissidents, and everyday citizens in these countries do get around social media blocks using VPNs, software programs such as Ultrasurf, Psiphon, and Freegate (software that bypasses internet censorship and firewalls using HTTP proxy servers), or even inserting new IP addresses to host files.

Just under 60% of the countries in the study have “full” social media freedom (e.g., little to no restrictions on freedom of speech and content), including most European countries, Australia, and the US. 

There have been talks in the UK and EU about regulating social media more carefully via laws, but these decisions have come under scrutiny with the fear that putting these laws in place would affect freedom of expression. Some critics of these proposed laws even argue that they would be a new form of censorship. 

Below you can find our full Digital Freedom Index visualized in a heat map depicting which countries have the most and least digital freedom:

METHODOLOGY

Proton VPN analyzed data from a variety of different sources to find out which countries around the world have the most digital freedom.

The data was found via desk research using the sources below and each country was scored out of 10 to create the rankings within this index. 

KEY FOR GRAPHICS

For media freedom:

Best – Worst

Low – High 

For obstacles to access/limits on content/violation of user rights:

Best – Worst 

High – Low

For pornography:

Banned: 10

Not Banned: 0

For VPNs and social media: 

Banned – 10

Restricted – 5

Free – 0

Note: Some countries were scored 0 in categories where information was unavailable 

SOURCES

https://rsf.org/en/ranking

https://freedomhouse.org/

https://protonvpn.com/blog/are-vpns-illegal/

The post Proton VPN’s Digital Freedom Index appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

To bypass government blocks, you’ll need to have the proper technology installed on your internet-connected devices, especially in times of crisis or political upheaval. That’s where the right virtual private network (VPN) can help you.

A VPN routes your connection through an encrypted tunnel to a VPN server in another country beyond the reach of local censorship. By masking your IP address in this way, you can ensure that you’re able to obtain crucial information without fear of government interference.

How VPNs work

A VPN connects your device to a VPN server before routing your traffic to its destination (e.g., the website you are trying to access). The websites you visit will only see the IP address of the VPN server, not your device, and your internet service provider (ISP) will only see that your device is connected to the VPN server, not the website you are visiting. 

In the event your local network admin or your national government is trying to block a specific website or app, you can use a VPN to access another network where there is no block, bypassing censorship attempts. 

VPNs mask your device’s IP address and online activity using encryption. When a VPN is in use, your personal information is kept private.

Learn more about how VPNs protect your data

How internet censorship works 

Internet censorship can take many different forms. 

On a small scale, your employer, university administrator, or the local librarian — anyone running the network you’re using — can limit access to certain websites from the computers connected to their network. 

On a larger scale, governments can block websites that they perceive as a threat to their political influence or public order. Common examples include news websites, pornography and gambling, or the websites of opposition groups. As social media has become the go-to source for information on protests and the spread of critical opinions, corrupt governments will often target these sites, claiming that they spread lies and bad information. 

There are three main methods that governments typically use to censor content online:

DNS filtering — The Domain Name System allows browsers to look up the IP address that corresponds to the URL you want to visit. Often this is controlled by your internet service provider, which can be manipulated by the government and ordered not to resolve lookups for blocked content.

IP address blocking — Governments provide a list of blocked websites and apps and order internet service providers to block connections to those sites.

Deep packet inspection — Through this advanced form of censorship, governments can examine the metadata of each encrypted piece of internet traffic and discern information about the content being transferred and block it based on specified parameters.

Governments or administrators may also use some of these methods to block VPNs and encrypted communications providers themselves.

Learn more about the methods of censorship

More recently, some of the worst offending governments don’t even bother with a list of particular URLs, shutting down the entire internet instead. In this situation, a VPN won’t help. This is easiest in countries where there are few ISPs to begin with. It’s more difficult when several exist and resist government pressure. 

How do VPNs defeat censorship?

VPNs are powerful tools against censorship because they allow you to get around most blocks that governments can enforce. If a specific country has decided to block a particular messaging app, there is very little that can be done to re-establish service until that government decides to end its block. Using a VPN, you can bypass the block and access those apps. 

This often means that a government (or, on a smaller scale, a university network administrator) will then focus on blocking VPN services to ensure its censorship is enforced. 

This means that any VPN service you rely on to defeat censorship must provide two essential features:

• The app must be widely available for download across devices and in multiple app stores if possible. Often, sophisticated governments can prevent users from downloading these VPNs in the first place. 
• You must be able to connect to the service in the face of attempted blocks. That means being able to connect to a VPN even when the government seeks to cut off access at its source. Some governments do this by blocking IP addresses they believe are being used for VPNs. When choosing a VPN, make sure it has the technology in place to circumvent these more advanced measures of censorship. 

Why download Proton VPN to combat censorship

Users around the world rely on Proton VPN to bypass internet blocks and censorship. And because we are a reliable tool in times of crisis and upheaval, we’ve adapted to overcome new methods of censorship over the years. 

Proton VPN is downloadable across multiple platforms. Should one platform become blocked, there are several others available. You can currently download our apps from the Proton VPN website, App Store, Play Store, GitHub, and F-Droid. 

Proton VPN also makes it more difficult to block the connections themselves by offering multiple VPN protocols, including OpenVPN in TCP mode, and a feature called Alternative Routing. With Alternative Routing, when the Proton VPN app detects that your connection to Proton servers may be blocked, it seeks out alternative pathways to reach us.

Additionally, Proton VPN offers both unlimited browsing and is free to use, which means you won’t have to weigh the pros and cons of the app when your access to the internet is necessary. This is one of the core commitments of our service: We believe privacy and freedom should be accessible to everyone.

If you’re looking for a way to easily secure your information and successfully transmit information and ideas in a way that avoids censorship, Proton VPN is a good fit.

Internet censorship threatens the fundamental promise of the internet. Freedom of information is essential for the sharing of ideas, news, and opinions. Yet in some parts of the globe, these rights are denied by governments seeking to control their citizens. That’s where Proton VPN can help. 

FAQ

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

The post Which VPN should I download to defeat censorship? appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

However, that increased popularity has also incentivized bad actors to enter the market, using VPN services as a vehicle to steal users’ browsing data or sneak malware onto their devices. Because of this, it is important for you to understand the tech and know what to look for when researching a safe VPN download. 

How VPNs work

VPNs work by creating an encrypted connection between your computer and the servers of the VPN service you’re using. The VPN provider then passes your traffic to and from the internet resource you’re trying to access, such as a website.

By encrypting your traffic between your computer and the VPN server, you prevent your internet service provider or network administrator from seeing your online activity. You also prevent the websites you visit from knowing your true IP address. All they see is the IP address of the VPN server you’re connecting to.

Free VPNs can be quickly downloaded from online app stores for immediate use. But because of the way VPNs work, any provider can technically monitor your web traffic. Free services have an incentive to do so because this information is valuable to advertisers. 

That’s why it’s so important to choose a trustworthy VPN that is transparent, does not keep users’ activity logs, and does not have a business model that relies on misusing your data for profit. 

Are VPNs safe? 

Most VPNs are safe from a technical standpoint. But there are some malicious VPNs waiting for unsuspecting users to unwittingly download their associated malware. 

Some of the more malicious free VPNs will secretly download malware onto your computer in order to steal your personal information. 

More common are VPNs that make money by logging your activity and selling your personal information to advertisers. And while not all free VPNs are malicious, many limit your data usage, can slow down your internet speed, and spam you with targeted ads while in use. 

Truly secure VPN tools will not track your data or attempt to access your private information, whether for targeted ads or otherwise. 

Safely downloading a VPN

To safely download a high-quality VPN, it’s best to identify one being promoted through a reliable provider. Trustworthy companies tend to have name recognition and real reviews. Untrustworthy companies might have hundreds of positive reviews, but a closer look will reveal that many appear to have been written by bots. 

Safe VPNs will also have a robust web presence. If you come across a free VPN, do a quick search on the company before downloading the app. If you can’t find much of a footprint, skip it and move to the next. Trustworthy VPN providers will have a transparent website and plenty of coverage in the news and by popular reviewers. Additionally, reliable VPNs will provide information on their founders and board members. Funding sources and company location should be easy to find as well. 

Don’t mistake price with quality. There are plenty of free or affordable VPNs that won’t steal your data. That’s because these companies typically operate under a “freemium” business model, offering paid upgrades to their services while keeping the base product free. If a VPN is charging for download, be sure to research them first. 

The benefits of downloading Proton VPN

We created Proton VPN to ensure security, privacy, and freedom for all internet users because we believe privacy should be accessible to everyone, everywhere.

Proton VPN provides both free and paid versions, meaning you can quickly download the app and start browsing or choose to upgrade for more servers and advanced security features. Both options are secure, encrypted and safe, and the free plan offers unlimited browsing. We do not track your usage or data and will not sell your information for targeted ads.

The paid version of Proton VPN also blocks malware, ads, and trackers and supports private streaming of Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and other channels. 

Our two-factor authentication ensures that your account is secure against hackers, and all of our servers are fully encrypted, so your data is safe even if a data center is compromised.

And as we mentioned earlier in this article, we pass our own transparency test: All of our code is open source and audited, and we disclose our leadership team, office locations, and funding sources. We believe in a better internet, and by using a trustworthy VPN, you can help make that vision a reality. 

Downloading a VPN FAQ

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

The post What to look for in a safe VPN download appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

Because apps, not browsers, are the mainstay of mobile internet usage, it’s easy to forget that your data is still vulnerable to surveillance by internet service providers, companies that profit off your data, and potentially the US government.

As a company dedicated to protecting your right to privacy, we hope to build awareness about the ways your data can be collected and what you can do to prevent it. In this article, we cover the types of information that can be pulled from your phone usage, how that information is collected in the US, and how a VPN can protect your privacy.

Increasing screen time

Americans are spending increasing amounts of time using their phones at home and in public. In 2020, the average phone user spent 4.3 hours of their day on their phones. That’s a quarter of our waking lives on average, and it went up by a full hour from the 3.25 hours spent a day in 2019.

As we use smartphones more often, we also store more of our data there: our conversations, entertainment, life schedules, private accounts, and financial information. But privacy often takes a back seat. Once data is allowed to be collected, we lose control over it.

Tracking and surveillance

A wide range of data can be collected or exposed on your phone when you use relatively mundane functions, like GPS for navigation or social media to post an image. This means that outside parties can collect information such as your location, demographics, or account information that you might not want to be accessed.

Location 

At some point, an app has probably asked for your permission to track your location, typically stating that it will only be used to enhance your experience with the app. However, sometimes hidden within lengthy privacy policies they reveal that your location data is actually being sold to third parties, with accuracy down to a meter. In 2018, The New York Times found that at least 75 companies were selling location data to marketers and advertisers without being upfront about it. Tracking the location data of users in this way is an invasion of privacy that allows companies to profit off of you without making you fully aware of how your location is being used.

Demographics 

Companies like Google and Facebook make money by collecting your data and building comprehensive profiles of who you are. Your age, occupation, family, interests, habits, and other attributes are monitored and made available to advertisers to influence you.

Many kinds of apps thrive on this kind of data: 

• Social media sites such as Facebook track activity on your phone even outside of the app. Because massive data breaches are not uncommon, this also means your data can be leaked.
• Fitness apps, including those used with smartwatches, track your real-time location, and health monitoring apps store your private medical information.
• Dating apps, such as Tinder or Grindr, leak everything from location data to sensitive health information.

Browsing history

Just as your social media information and location can be tracked, so too can your browsing history. ISPs are able to track and sell your browsing history for every website you visit on your phone, and organizations use this data to influence specific demographics. They are also required to reveal this information to law enforcement agencies if presented with a subpoena. These particular practices make your browsing profile liable for use without your knowledge.

Public WiFi

The risks described above are especially present when using any public WiFi. Even the WiFi at restaurants and shopping centers can be used to collect and abuse your data. Administrators of public WiFi in places such as airports and hotels can collect data in order to curate specific ads. Just because public WiFi is free does not mean no one is profiting off of it. 

Data collection in the US

Since Edward Snowden revealed the extent of NSA data collection in 2013, more people have become aware that the US government can secretly monitor their online activities. An entire technical and legal apparatus has been established for this purpose. 

The FISA court, created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, is a secret court that has been allowing government surveillance since long before the days of Snowden. This court oversees the approval of government requests for surveillance on citizens in operations such as wiretapping and data collection. This court is largely seen as a rubber stamp committee: From its inception until 2014, it approved over 98% of requests without modification.

In 2015, Congress passed the Freedom Act, preventing the NSA from bulk collection of data on private citizens. However, this does not prevent them from using the courts to obtain data collected by companies like Google and Facebook whenever they deem it a matter of national security. This, too, has faced little resistance, with 74% of requests to Facebook by the government going through. 

Even beyond this, the FBI can issue National Security Letters (NSLs) to secretly subpoena organizations to turn over user data without any court approval. According to our research on these statistics, the trend of governments using companies to collect data on their citizens is only growing.

Securing your phone with a VPN

Given the large amount of time we spend on our phones, it might feel like you are constantly under surveillance by eyes you can’t see. Luckily, features like location tracking can be restricted by denying apps permission to track your location or by simply turning off location services in your phone’s settings. You can also adjust your settings on social media sites such as Facebook to limit what information is stored for advertisers.

While having a VPN does not solve every problem with data tracking on your smartphone, it provides a fundamental level of privacy that in-app settings and other technologies cannot. To make sure you feel secure in making this step, ProtonVPN always places your privacy as the priority. We cover all of the following privacy concerns and more:

• Your data is encrypted when using the internet, so browsing history cannot be tracked by your ISP or mobile service providers. 
• We have a strict no-logs policy, meaning you can feel secure that Proton never stores your mobile data.
• When using public WiFi, Proton VPN keeps you private by protecting your data from being collected by hackers or the WiFi administrator.

We launched Proton in the wake of the Snowden revelations, and one of our major concerns in the US has always been securing the privacy of citizens who find it increasingly difficult to stay private in a connected world. For these reasons, Proton is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Switzerland has some of the strictest privacy laws in the world, which makes it much harder for even the FBI to access our users’ data because even they require a Swiss court order to acquire it. This grants us the ability to pass on the security benefits of Swiss law to those in the US, as well as the rest of the world. For as long as Proton continues to exist, this level of security and privacy is something we will always work towards.

Proton VPN offers convenient and easy-to-use apps on Android and iOS, so that downloading our VPN for your phone is easy. True privacy can be hard to attain in the US, but with our VPN, you can feel secure whenever you use your phone. 

Using a VPN on your smartphone in the US FAQ

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

The post Do I need a VPN on my phone in the US? appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

VPNs are not only a way to stream restricted content or hide your browsing activity. Learn how a VPN can increase your overall security, privacy, and freedom online, no matter how you use the internet.

We explain why and when you should use a VPN and some of the benefits and limitations of VPN usage.

What is a VPN?
What does a VPN do?
What is a VPN used for?
Do I need a VPN?
When to use a VPN
Should I use a VPN at home?
Limitations of a VPN
Protect yourself with Proton VPN

What is a VPN?

A virtual private network (VPN) is a tool to protect your internet connection so that you remain private and secure online. It can also help you access restricted content online, bypassing internet blocks based on your location.

By encrypting the data from your computer, smartphone, or tablet, a good VPN can secure your web traffic against spies, criminals, or anyone else that gains access to your network, legally or otherwise.

What does a VPN do?

A VPN establishes an encrypted tunnel between your device and the VPN server. When you browse the internet using a VPN, all your traffic passes through this encrypted tunnel to a VPN server before reaching the public internet. 

This means your internet service provider (ISP) cannot see what websites you’re visiting, and the website you visit cannot see your IP address or location.

Learn more about how a VPN works 

What is a VPN used for?

You can use a VPN to protect your privacy and security whatever you’re doing online. But here are some activities for which a VPN is particularly useful:

• Streaming: Some streaming services use “geoblocking” to restrict access to content based on your location. A VPN changes your public-facing IP address to make it look like you’re back home, so you can stream your favorite shows while abroad.
• Gaming: As with streaming, a VPN can help you access cloud gaming services outside your region. A VPN can also help you avoid bandwidth throttling, when your ISP slows down your connection based on your online activity.
• Activism: Using a VPN can help you access censored content and help hide your identity online. So a good VPN is an essential tool for political activists and journalists, especially in states with authoritarian regimes.
• Peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing: A VPN hides your real IP address to keep you safe from potential malicious actors on the network while sharing files using BitTorrent. A VPN can also help you access torrent sites that your ISP may block.
• Business: By encrypting your internet traffic, a VPN can help keep your business data secure. For example, a VPN can help you work from home securely and protect your confidential business transactions.

Do I need a VPN?

We believe that everyone deserves privacy online. Using a VPN to encrypt your internet traffic is the most impactful way to protect your browsing activity from prying eyes. 

To protect your privacy all the time, we recommend using a VPN whenever you connect to the internet. The Proton VPN kill switch and always-on VPN features help ensure your browsing traffic is always protected.

It’s not just activists and journalists who benefit from VPN protection. Everyone can benefit from encrypting their online activity. Here’s why you should use a VPN:

Stop ISPs spying on you

When you use a VPN, it routes your internet traffic through an encrypted tunnel to a VPN server that sits between your device and the rest of the internet. That prevents your ISP from seeing which websites you visit.

Without a VPN, your ISP can see almost everything you do online. ISPs can exploit this capability to throttle certain websites or charge more for access to “premium” websites. 

Block government surveillance

Many states, such as those in the 5 Eyes, 9 Eyes, and 14 Eyes agreements, also use ISPs to conduct mass surveillance on citizens. Government agencies, like the US National Security Agency (NSA) or the UK’s GCHQ, rely on ISPs to log their users’ browsing histories for this surveillance.

Because a VPN prevents your ISP from seeing the information you send and receive online, it becomes more difficult for the NSA and other agencies to monitor you.

Browse anonymously online

It’s not just your ISP or government who can spy on you. When you visit a website without a VPN, the website can see your IP address and location. A VPN can prevent websites from tracking you across the internet because it masks your IP address and replaces it with the IP address of your VPN server.

There are, however, other ways for websites to track users, which is why it’s also important to use a privacy-focused browser. For even more anonymity, you can use the Tor network (you can access Tor servers with one click with Proton VPN).

Access censored content

ISPs don’t just spy on you, they also monitor your online activity so they can slow down or block certain websites or file-sharing protocols like BitTorrent.

In some countries, governments also impose internet censorship to prevent citizens from accessing certain websites. These blocks are put in place to stifle protests or limit the spread of opinions critical of the government.

Using a VPN is your best protection against your ISP or government tampering with your ability to use the internet without restriction.

Proton VPN also includes anti-censorship tools like alternative routing and the Stealth protocol to prevent our app itself from being blocked. And we’ve made our VPN available for download in places that are hard to block, like GitHub.

When to use a VPN

Although you can use a VPN every time you connect to the internet for maximum protection, there are times when using a VPN is crucial — when your data is more at risk or when you cannot otherwise access censored or restricted content.

Browse securely on public WiFi

The most important time to use a VPN is whenever you’re connected to a public WiFi hotspot. Public WiFi has some vulnerabilities that criminals can exploit, making it risky to connect to public WiFi without a VPN. These attacks can include:

• Man-in-the-middle attacks (MITM) — A hacker intercepts traffic between your device and the router, often without you noticing at all.
• Malicious hotspots — A hacker creates a hotspot that mimics legitimate public WiFi to gain access to your network traffic.
• Malware — A hacker sends a malicious program to your device when you’re connected to unsecured WiFi.
• WiFi sniffing — Attackers monitor a hotspot’s network traffic to analyze your data and try to steal passwords or private information.

To find out more about these risks of public WiFi, read our public WiFi safety guide.

Using public WiFi without a VPN can also mean that the hotspot provider can sell your browsing metadata to advertising and analytics companies (this metadata includes the domains you’ve visited, when you visited them, and for how long).

If a website doesn’t use HTTPS, WiFi hackers and “evil twin” hotspots can also monitor everything you do on that website. HTTPS secures the connection between your browser and a website, so the widespread adoption of HTTPS over the last several years means that using public WiFi hotspots is not as dangerous as it once was. 

Access blocked video streaming and other content

One of the most popular reasons for using a VPN is to access video streaming services or other content that is unavailable in some locations. 

Using a VPN server in a different country allows you to browse the internet as though you were in that country and access content that would otherwise be restricted. That way, you can use a VPN to stream your favorite shows when traveling abroad.

For example, imagine you live in San Francisco and take a trip to London. You have a paid US Netflix subscription, but you’re while in the UK, you may not be able to watch your favorite Netflix shows or movies as they’re only accessible from the US. But if you connect to a VPN with a US server, you can continue watching as if at home.

Please note that while it’s not illegal to use a VPN to watch a streaming service abroad, you need to make sure you comply with the service’s terms of use.

For example, the Netflix Terms of Use say:

“You may access the Netflix content primarily within the country in which you have established your account and only in geographic locations where we offer our service and have licensed such content”.

So using a VPN to watch content that’s not licensed for the area you’re currently in is against Netflix’s policy. However, you have a right to watch content you pay for and can normally access when you’re home.

For more information about streaming with Proton VPN, check out our streaming guide.

Unblock censored content

If you live in or travel to a country with restricted or censored internet, a VPN can help you access blocked websites. Using a VPN can also help bypass censorship on a more local level, such as blocked websites on your employer’s or university’s network.

When you use a VPN, your traffic is encrypted, so your internet provider cannot see the domains you are accessing. The people running your network cannot block what they cannot see, making a VPN crucial in accessing restricted content.

For example, when Proton Mail was temporarily blocked in Turkey in 2018, Proton VPN provided a way for users to bypass the government internet censors. And Proton VPN has been an important tool in helping Russian and Iranian citizens fight censorship during government crackdowns in 2022.

Should I use a VPN at home?

We recommend using a VPN whenever you connect to the internet for maximum protection. Whether you work from home or just go online for leisure, a VPN helps to protect your privacy and security, whatever you’re doing.

A VPN helps prevent your ISP, governments, tech giants, or hackers from spying on you and allows you to browse the web more privately and securely. So if you’re sick of being tracked online, keep your VPN on as much as possible.

Limitations of a VPN

As with any security product, it’s extremely important to understand the limitations of a VPN to avoid any false sense of security.

Can I be traced using a VPN?

A VPN hides what you are doing online and masks your identity by hiding your IP address and location. But a VPN alone cannot make you completely anonymous. Snoopers can sniff out data that can help identify you even when you’re using a VPN.

For example, your ISP can see your connection logs showing the time you spent online and volume of traffic.

Websites cannot see your IP address but can still track you with cookies or browser and device fingerprinting.

Search engines, social media, and mobile apps have multiple ways to track you when you’re signed in, depending on the permissions you give them.

And even the best VPN is no guarantee against a well-resourced state agency that decides to target you specifically.

Remember, too, that your VPN provider will always know your IP address at least and will always be able to view and store your internet activity if it wants to.

So if you’re a journalist or activist and hiding your identity is critical, consider using other privacy tools, like the Tor network, which routes your encrypted data through multiple random servers.

Learn more about the threats a VPN is designed to guard against

Can I trust a VPN?

When you use a VPN, all your online traffic passes through the VPN, so the VPN provider sees everything. You’re effectively transferring trust from your ISP to your VPN. So it’s essential you choose a VPN you can trust.

But not all VPN providers are worthy of your trust. According to one independent study of Android VPN apps, around 38% of the apps reviewed contained malware, and 18% were not even encrypted. Other VPN services claim to keep “no logs” but actually record large amounts of user data.

With Proton VPN, full details of the user information we store are laid out in our privacy policy. As we’re based in Switzerland, our strict no-logs policy is subject to Swiss privacy laws. Under current Swiss law, we’re not obligated to log user data, and the government cannot order us to start recording it either.

What’s more, all our apps are open source and independently audited, so you can be sure they’re trustworthy. And we’ve published our VPN threat model, so you can understand exactly what Proton VPN can and cannot protect you against.

Can VPNs beat internet shutdowns?

While a VPN is a great tool to help access censored content, it may not be effective against more sweeping forms of censorship. For example, an ISP may slow down or shut off your entire internet connection, or a website may block all traffic coming from known VPN servers. 

Governments can also attempt to block connections to VPN servers, locking users into the local network. 

However, VPN services like Proton VPN make it easier to bypass blocks by providing multiple VPN protocols and alternative routing. Proton VPN also has Stealth, a unique protocol that can avoid detection and help you defeat censorship.

Does a VPN protect me from viruses and other malware?

A VPN helps to protect your privacy and security online by hiding your IP address and encrypting your web traffic. But it cannot replace antivirus or malware removal software.

If you click on a malicious link and install software that turns out to be malware, a VPN cannot protect you. You still need to use antivirus software, which actively scans your device to detect and remove malware.

However, the best VPNs have additional security features to protect you online. Proton VPN has the NetShield Ad-blocker, which prevents many forms of malware, adware, and other trackers from being automatically downloaded onto your device in the first place.

Protect yourself with Proton VPN

Now you know why you should use a VPN, you can start using Proton VPN right away for free. Or, if you already have a free account, consider upgrading to a paid plan.

As a community-supported project, we rely on support from paying members of the Proton community. With your help, we can continue to provide a free VPN to millions around the world.

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

The post Should I use a VPN? — VPN benefits and limitations appeared first on Proton VPN Blog.

With the rise of Covid-19, entertainment has made an even further push towards streaming and away from movie theaters. Because of this, smart TVs that allow you to connect to the internet and download streaming apps directly have become more and more popular. This has also created an even greater need for internet privacy and freedom to stream what you want on your smart TV.

In this article, we’ll discuss why a VPN is important for your smart TV, what to look for when choosing a VPN, and how to find and download a VPN for your smart TV.

What is a smart TV?

Unlike older televisions that require an antenna or external hookup to receive signal, smart TVs are internet-connected devices. This allows a smart TV to access streaming apps like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max, as well as other video platforms like YouTube.

More recent smart TVs have even more functionality, making them almost like a giant tablet or smartphone. With newer smart TVs, you can:

• Browse the internet
• Connect with friends on social media
• Control other smart devices 
• Download and use third-party apps 

You can also turn most TVs into a smart TV with an Amazon Firestick or Chromecast with Google TV dongle. You plug these devices into the HDMI port of your TV and it turns into an Android-based smart TV capable of streaming.

Why do you need a VPN for your smart TV?

Like any smart device, your smart TV can expose sensitive personal data online. A VPN can prevent websites and services from monitoring your device’s IP address and location. A VPN can also help you stream geo-blocked content and evade throttling.

Keep your online data private

The more you use your smart TV to browse the internet, the more data you are exposing online. A VPN masks your device’s IP address, making it harder for online services to monitor your browsing activity. 

Access geo-blocked content

Streaming services have different libraries of content in different countries. Depending on where you are located, you might not be able to access the movie you want,  or even the streaming service it appears on. When you download a VPN, you can choose the country that your connection appears to be from. This allows you to access platforms or shows and movies on those platforms that are only available in certain counties.

Avoid internet throttling

Streaming high definition video requires a great deal of bandwidth, which can increase the load on internet service providers (ISPs). To make the load more manageable, some ISPs would throttle these streaming services. For example, Comcast was found to be throttling Netflix’s traffic, making it more difficult to watch shows and movies in high definition. 

Additionally, some internet service providers (ISPs) also own or operate their own streaming services, like Comcast in the US, which offers Xfinity TV. After net neutrality was repealed, these ISPs can throttle their competitors to make their own streaming site more attractive. 

Downloading a VPN on your TV enables you to hide your IP address and bypasses throttling by hiding what sites you are visiting from your ISP.

How to choose which VPN to download for your smart TV

When selecting a VPN for your smart TV that protects your internet security and freedom, there are three criteria to keep in mind. 

Large VPN network

Having a sizable offering of countries to choose from means you have the ability to change your internet’s connection location to access the content that you want to view.

VPN with fast connection speeds

When streaming directly on your smart TV, fast download speeds are required to properly stream video without constant buffering. Connecting to a VPN adds another step to your internet connection by increasing the distance your internet connection must travel. The server load of the VPN you are connected to can also impact your connection speed. 

VPN with dedicated apps for smart TVs

Perhaps the most critical aspect of a VPN on your smart TV is the ability to download onto your TV in the first place. If the VPN has a dedicated app for your smart TV, that means you can download it directly into your TV’s operating system. 

Why download Proton VPN for your smart TV

There are many VPN apps to choose from on your smart TV, but Proton VPN is open source and run by the same team that developed Proton Mail. Not only do you know who is running the company, you can actually go in and verify the code of our apps for yourself. 

Proton VPN offers:

• Strict no-log policy and apps that are open source and audited
• Over 50 countries to choose from for streaming
• Connections to 10 Gbps servers on our Plus and Visionary plans
• A dedicated Android TV app for your smart TV

The Proton VPN Android TV app allows you to use your smart TV safely and to stream how you want to on it. This is part of our goal to enable everyone to take control of their data and access censored or blocked content. You can get Proton VPN for free on Android devices include Android TV.

FAQ

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