I’m on the ProtonVPN Plus plan and have the app installed on my computer and my mobile phone. I always have the VPN active on my computer, but seldom use the one on my phone, other than when I access an insecure wifi network when I’m away from home. I do mostly everything on the computer. Is there any value in using a “always on” VPN on my phone in this sort of situation?
It’s really up to you. As long as your phone is on it’s transmitting data: to your mobile network provider (AT&T, Verizon, etc.), to your OS provider (Google in the case of Android, Apple in the case of iOS), and to all the apps you use or allow to run in the background.
Using ProtonVPN means you can hide your IP address (your traffic will go through ProtonVPN’s servers and use their IP addresses), use ProtonVPN’s DNS servers, and – if you enable NetShield – do some basic blocking of ads and trackers. It won’t make you completely anonymous of course, but it does provide a level of privacy that’s better than running without the VPN turned on.
So again, it’s up to you. For me personally I always enable ProtonVPN on my phone when I leave my home network; having NetShield alone is worth it for me.
They just added search in the beta so you can search for servers and countries. I do like the app but as others said it frequently disconnects when it’s locked which is the only real downside for me.
It’s free to download regardless of your plan so it could be easier to simply download and try for yourself.
Use it on all my phones (android) and its pretty good. Still get youtube ads but havent seen one on an article or in a LONG time.
i struggle with this. i want to use it but i dont have anything to hide and dont really care that google, apple, apps, know where i go online. i have 3 phones and i dont use proton vpn at all. i dont even use it on my home computer because some of the servers get spammed so much , some sites i access wont even let me on due to this. i just dont use them. i prefer simplicity over going thorough these hoops jus to hide my ip.
Not if you have an apple device. I got Norton home security on my devices but it messed up my phone! I called apple and they told me to get rid of it because they have their own software anyways which isn’t compatible with third party VPNs. Don’t know how true that is, but i would do some research on which brands are compatible with your device.
So true. The proton app is the worst iOS app with that flaw.
Using ProtonVPN means you can hide your IP address (your traffic will go through ProtonVPN’s servers and use their IP addresses), use ProtonVPN’s DNS servers, and – if you enable NetShield – do some basic blocking of ads and trackers. It won’t make you completely anonymous of course, but it does provide a level of privacy that’s better than running without the VPN turned on.
This is why I have it on all the time, even at home. I don’t want my ISP, my mobile network provider, or any website to know what I’m doing. Not that I’m doing anything illegal, I just don’t want people or corporations snooping around in my personal life. And even though I know that nothing is ever completely anonymous on the internet, one can sure try to make one’s internet life as private as possible.
Instead of NetShield, I use Blokada Cloud on my mobile devices, though. It blocks more ads and trackers, at the moment. If NetShield improves over time, I’ll switch over to that.
They supposedly are fixing that they say. I hope it is true.
edit – Source: https://reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/u1vujm/_/i4pe137/?context=1
Agreed, I prefer to minimize the amount of data that companies/apps know about me.
The difference for me is that I don’t need the ProtonVPN app turned on (on my phone) when I’m at home. I have ProtonVPN running on my router so it’s always on for my home network. Plus on my home network I have Pihole running and that does a great job with blocking ads and trackers. I wish the ProtonVPN iOS app had a “whitelist” capability that would disable the VPN when my phone was connected to a whitelisted wifi network; that way I wouldn’t have to remember to turn on ProtonVPN on my phone whenever I leave the house. NordVPN had that feature and it was really convenient.
I’ve been hearing. Might need to transition to it for vids.
Do you know when they said this? It’s been this way since the app first released.
Yep updated my comment. Sorry I should have included that in my original response. D:
Fyi /u/Loli-Loli – update is out now. Seems to have fixed it.