For two years protonvpn plus costs $6.63/month while some other vpns like PIA costs $2.69/month and Surfshark $2.49/month. All of these provide the same benefits plus other vpns offer new protocols like wiregaurd as well. Is it just because proton is swiss based?
Those two you mentioned are the Walmart of VPNs. If that’s what you’re looking for, then you should go sign up for for one of them. Proton is built around customer privacy. Trust is a huge factor. PIA, for example, is run by the guy who previously ran Mt. GOX into the ground. That guy has serious baggage, yet now he’s running PIA. You couldn’t pay me enough to put my privacy in that guy’s hands. Before you run off with the notion that all VPN providers are the same, take some time to look into each one, thoroughly. Then, pick the one that is best for you based on your needs and tolerances.
Additional to some posts already here there is the swiss labor cost and Proton maintaining/owning their own datacenters as well as Proton owning their secure core servers, their swiss and (iirc, might be wrong here) the iceandic servers.
I have used most of the companies and Proton is some of the best for me personally (plus Mullvad).
Proton provides a series of products - I use both their mail and VPN. Although they are implementing changes more slowly than other companies, I think it is important to support them with payments. Mail plus VPN is $12 a month (if you pay month by month) - like many others in the industry, but without additional services (the newest version of ProtonMail is very good, even free version).
By the way, their protection from tracking and ads is significantly good and for me, it does more work than other companies. Recently, Mullvad also introduced protection from ads and trackers, which is worth it (by the way, both companies are often recommended at the same level).
You should read Cypherpunks VPN Reviews for 2020/2021 and you will have a much better understanding of why ProtonVPN costs much more then those other VPN providers. I personally use TorGuard VPN & ProtonVPN + ProtonMail.
Edit: I mean Torrent Freaks Article I posted a comment with a link.
Because it’s quality. You get what you pay for
Proton seems to be a decent company with goals that benefit society.
I have far better performance on Proton than back when I had PIA, which would commonly error out.
The only use case I had where my own privacy was actually marginally justifiable was in China, where PIA just gave up trying. Personally I don’t have anything that’s really secret, but if I did, I would trust a company in Switzerland about 1000 times more than one run by Mark Karpeles and based in countries that are not Switzerland.
The trust factor has an impact on the price, I used Protonmail for years for free, so I decided to pay for ProtonVPN. I have a monthly renewal on and it costs 5 dollars per month for basic plan.
somebody gotta pay for us free users lol
Hey OP check this out and this should help you find which VPN is Best to use!
In addition to everything else already mentioned, ProtonVPN offers a free tier, which is subsidized by the paid tiers
The bad thing that they do not take into account underdeveloped countries.
In my country, I pay for 100Mb internet less than their subscription.
I actually emailed them asking for some special discount for such a case, but they couldn’t offer anything unfortunately.
Really hope that they would take this into account in the near feature… since this is the only VPN I can trust.
Maybe if it possible to provide a cheaper options with some speed restrictions, will be a fair approach for everyone who needs it.
Walmart of VPNs. I love that, I don‘t think there can be a better explication.
Thanks for the information. I am using ProtonVPN plus plan and I love the service. It is a little expensive but I am planning to continue using it.
IA, for example, is run by the guy who previously ran Mt. GOX into the ground.
Oh shit, he’s the head honcho of cyberghost? Didn’t know that. Steering clear for sure.
Unfortunately, Proton isn’t covered in this list.
1st is express
2nd is nord
they are getting paid to say that
Thank you for this. I am using proton for 2 months now. As of now, I don’t think I’ll switch.
can you explain that for non americans please haha
Cyberghost and PIA are both currently owned by Kape Technologies. Apparently, Kape bought PIA from the company that Mark Karpelès, the crook from Mt. GOX, was CEO of. The relationships between these various entities is confusing and complicated, and it makes me very hesitant to consider using them. How can you trust your privacy to companies like that? Not me.