Proton VPN review — the privacy-first pick

Most "free" VPNs are the product, not the service: they log your traffic and sell it on. Proton VPN is the rare exception, and that's why it leads our bench. It comes from the team behind Proton Mail, runs open-source apps on every platform, and backs its no-logs promise with an independent audit under Swiss privacy law.

Real-world protection#

Across a month of daily use, Proton VPN's kill switch held every time we forced a server drop — no traffic leaked before the tunnel re-established. DNS and IPv6 leak tests came back clean on all platforms. Its Secure Core feature routes you through a hardened data center before you exit, which meaningfully raises the bar for anyone trying to correlate your traffic.

Performance#

WireGuard connections settled within a second and cost roughly 8% off our baseline throughput on nearby servers — well within what you'd want for video calls and 4K streaming. Long-haul servers took a bigger cut, as they do for every provider.

Privacy#

This is where Proton earns its ranking. The apps are open-source and auditable, the no-logs policy has been verified by outside assessors, and the company's Swiss jurisdiction keeps it out of reach of the usual data-sharing alliances.

Verdict#

Proton VPN is the VPN we recommend first: trustworthy where it counts, fast enough for everything, and backed by the only free tier we're comfortable telling people to use.