Proton VPN

Proton VPN is the VPN service of Proton AG, the Geneva company behind Proton Mail. It operates under Swiss privacy law, is paid for by subscriptions rather than advertising, and keeps no logs of what subscribers do online. The apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS and several TV platforms are open source and have been examined by outside security auditors.

Paid plans reach servers in more than 140 countries and cover ten devices. Secure Core sends traffic through a second server in a privacy-friendly jurisdiction before it leaves the network, so an attacker watching the exit point cannot trace it back to the user, and the NetShield DNS filter blocks tracker and malware domains.

Most people meet it through the free tier, which has no data cap and no advertising but is limited to one device and a short country list. Buyers usually weigh speed and streaming reliability against jurisdiction, the audit record and the strength of the no-logs claim.

Proton AG is a Swiss stock corporation at Route de la Galaise 32, 1228 Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva, registered as CHE-354.686.492. Its terms of service are governed by the substantive laws of Switzerland and give the courts of the Canton of Geneva exclusive jurisdiction for business users and for consumers outside the United States. The company launched in 2014 after a crowdfunding campaign in which more than 10,000 people put up over USD 500,000.

The primary shareholder is the Proton Foundation, a Geneva non-profit that founder Andy Yen, co-founder Jason Stockman and first employee Dingchao Lu endowed with their own shares in June 2024; its first board of trustees included Tim Berners-Lee. Proton says employees hold the large majority of the remaining shares, with the rest split between the Geneva technology foundation FONGIT and Proton users. Innosuisse and the European Commission have both supported the company and hold neither shares nor control.

Proton reports more than 100 million accounts and over 600 staff across nine offices: Geneva, Zurich, Skopje, Taipei, Vilnius, London, Barcelona, Paris and Prague. The line-up covers Mail, Calendar, Drive, VPN, Pass, Meet, Docs and Sheets, Authenticator, Wallet and the Lumo assistant, and the client apps are open source.

In July 2025 Proton said it was moving most of its physical infrastructure out of Switzerland and putting more than EUR 100 million into the EU, starting with Lumo. It objected to a proposed revision of the Swiss VÜPF surveillance ordinance that would oblige services above 5,000 users to identify customers and retain metadata for six months. The new capacity is going to Germany and Norway.