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ProtonVPN - best free VPN 2021?

I was looking for a cheap no-log VPN for a long time. It is important to me that the VPN works on all common operating systems. In my case Macos, Windows, IOS. Also, in my opinion, a must-have feature of any VPN is that it has a kill switch. After a long search and testing of many VPNs, I have now ended up with ProtonVPN in the free tier. The VPN does not have to have a super low ping for me. However, the download should be enough for video streaming.

The user interface looks good, but is nothing special compared to other VPN providers like NordVPN/Cyberghost. It is clearly designed and you can easily find your way around. You can always see directly in the window whether you are connected or not. On the left side, the available servers are filtered in a list according to the respective country. If you press once on the desired country, you can see the available servers and the load. What I like most about Proton VPN is that the killswitch is not hidden in any settings window, but is always visible immediately. It should also be mentioned that you have a quick connection button, which works moderately well in the free tier.

Also, in the rest of the window you can see the servers on the map, so you can also just press the country you want to connect to. Although I personally prefer the list on the left, this is a helpful standard feature. This can be quite helpful when bypassing geoblocking.

Mobile User Interface

The ProtonVPN app makes a very clean impression. You can quickly see all the important functions and can easily find your way around. I especially like the fact that no matter which screen you are in in the app, you can always see directly whether you are connected or not and can connect or disconnect at the same time with the quick connect button.
For me as an iPhone user with a notch, this is handy because you can’t see if you’re connected to the VPN without going into the control center. I also noticed that the mobile app also has a killswitch. I haven’t seen that with any other VPN provider. To be honest, I don’t have a use case for it, but it’s cool to have such a feature. Of course, the app also has all the usual standard features like list view and map view of the servers. All in all a good app.

Pricing - different Plans compared

There are 4 levels in ProtonVPN. In the free tier, you can connect to 23 servers in 3 countries. However, the VPN connection is throttled to “medium”. For 4€ per month you can connect to 400 servers in 40+ countries and the speed is specified as “high”. In my opinion, the other levels are more aimed at users who want to encrypt servers or similar with the VPN. All levels are not logged according to ProtonVPN. Can this really be true if you can use the VPN completely free of charge? The price of 4€ is in my opinion rather expensive compared to Nord VPN (80€ / 2Years) or Cyberghost (65€ / 2Years). As with almost every other VPN, there are always new “unbeatable offers” at ProtonVPN.

Speed - Latency test

The speed test was done with the free tier. I tested on Windows 10 (Ethernet) and IOS 15.1 on an iPhone XS (WIFI). I have a contract with Telekom with about 260 mbit/s upload, 43 mbit/s download and a ping of about 12ms.  First, I tested on Windows 10. To be honest, I did not have high expectations, since a free VPN usually achieves poor values in the speed test. But when I tested Proton VPN, I was really convinced. The upload and download with VPN are hardly slower than without VPN. Even if the ping is quite high with 176ms, these values are excellent. Then I tested my iphone, which gave moderately good results. In download I reached about 41mbit/s, in upload 9,35 mbit/s and the ping was 135ms. Compared to Windows 10, the result is not the best, but for the fact that it is free, it is a good result. I only need the VPN on IOS anyway to bypass website blocking in foreign networks.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ProtonVPN in the free tier is a great option if you don’t want to spend money. The speed test definitely convinced me on the desktop and should be ideal for everything except gaming. I also think that ProtonVPN in the free tier is already better than some paid VPN providers. Cyberghost, for example, delivers poor uploads and downloads, the quick connect button doesn’t work properly, and there’s no real killswitch in their interface either. I rate ProtonVPN 4.5 out of 5 stars in the free tier because I haven’t found a comparable free VPN that even comes close to achieving such scores.

4.5/5