from the team:

Hi everyone,

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

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

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

Thank you for your support,

The Proton Team

  • gmtom@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1026·
    6 months ago

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

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

    • Frank Ring@lemmy.worldEnglish
      152·
      6 months ago

      Proton recently became a non-profit organisation.

      This commitment means that they work for the people.

          • gmtom@lemmy.worldEnglish
            22·
            6 months ago

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

            • fossphi@lemm.eeEnglish
              2·
              6 months ago

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

    • Tilgare@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      6 months ago

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

    • Kayn@dormi.zoneEnglish
      52·
      6 months ago

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

      • gmtom@lemmy.worldEnglish
        36·
        6 months ago

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

        • Kayn@dormi.zoneEnglish
          42·
          6 months ago

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

          • gmtom@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            6 months ago

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

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

            • Kayn@dormi.zoneEnglish
              1·
              6 months ago

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

        • Markus Sugarhill@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

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

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