Proton VPN – Frequently Asked Questions

No. Proton VPN's no-logs policy has been independently audited by Securitum, an external security firm. The audit confirmed that connection timestamps, browsing history, originating IP addresses, and any other identifiable session data are not stored. This is supplemented by Swiss jurisdiction, under which the type of data retention common in US and UK legal environments is not required of domestic companies.

Stealth is Proton VPN's proprietary obfuscation layer. It wraps VPN traffic to be indistinguishable from standard HTTPS, making it resistant to deep-packet inspection used by some governments, ISPs, and corporate firewalls. For most users in unrestricted environments, WireGuard is both faster and more appropriate. Stealth is primarily relevant in countries with active VPN restrictions (China, Iran, Russia) or on networks that explicitly block VPN protocols.

Secure Core routes traffic through a hardened relay server in Switzerland, Iceland, or Sweden before it reaches the exit node in the chosen country. If the exit server is compromised or monitored, the observer sees only encrypted traffic from the Secure Core relay – the originating IP remains concealed. This architecture is relevant for journalists, activists, and users in high-threat environments. The double-hop adds measurable latency and is not recommended for routine streaming use.

The free plan supports 1 simultaneous device. VPN Plus and Proton Unlimited both support up to 10 simultaneous connections. The application may be installed on unlimited devices – only the number of concurrently active connections is subject to the plan limit.

On paid plans, Proton VPN provides access to dedicated streaming servers optimized to unblock Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Disney+, and similar platforms. The free tier does not include streaming server access. It should be noted that streaming service VPN detection is an active and ongoing effort – access to specific content libraries may change without notice.

Yes. All Proton VPN client applications – Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS – are fully open source and published on GitHub under open licenses. Independent security researchers, developers, and technically capable users can review the code at any time. This removes the need to trust vendor assertions about how the application behaves.

NetShield is a DNS-based filter that intercepts requests to known malware domains, advertising networks, and tracker infrastructure before they resolve. It operates at the network level, protecting all applications – not only the browser. In testing, it reduced ad-network DNS requests by approximately 60% with no measurable impact on overall browsing speed. Available on paid tiers only.

Yes. Router-level WireGuard configuration is supported on devices running DD-WRT, OpenWrt, and similar custom firmware. This extends VPN coverage to all devices on the local network, including those that cannot run VPN client software directly (smart TVs, game consoles, IoT devices).

With Proton VPN connected, an IP-check tool should show the VPN server's IP address and location rather than the user's actual IP. DNS leak testing – using independent tools such as BrowserLeaks DNS Leak Test – should show queries resolving via Proton's encrypted resolver infrastructure. In our lab tests, all DNS queries were answered by Proton's own servers with zero requests reaching the ISP's resolver. The application also includes a built-in DNS leak protection setting that can be verified in the preferences panel.