So I stumbled upon this VPN when I was searching for something to route my game traffic through, and I got a week’s worth of free premium service with this. I was pretty satisfied with the VPN service because it was fast, effective, and didn’t have ANY bloatware/adware at all…
But then came the end of the week.
I was downgraded to the “free” version, and I expected less speed, time gated access but not this…
It was EXACTLY like the premium service except for the “premium features”
To explain what I mean, the free version has blazing fast speed (I did a speed test and lost about 3 Megabit from my 24 Mb connection… yes that’s literally nothing when you’re running a vpn). I mainly use this for games which require a P2P connection (Like GTA etc) as well as Guild Wars 2 because I keep getting connection losses on my ISP.
This is like the holy grail. Free VPN with amazing speeds, with no catch… or is there? I don’t know because I haven’t seen one yet!
Can’t wait to save up a bit and actually buy the premium for even faster speed (as advertised) and SecureCore service as well as to give the devs some revenue!
This product is amazing hands down.
I’m skipping the old “comes down to if you trust them” thing and just assume they hold their word:
No, there is no catch. ProtonVPN is an entirely free VPN, that only has limitations in server access. There are only a few servers in US, NL and JP accessible with the free plan. And P2P is (normally) also disabled on those servers… So lucky for you if it works, I guess 
Other than that, nothing. Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited account life, unlimited speed (at least not software limited, but the free servers have higher load so that’s what limits the speed)
The free tier is backed by the paid users, so that’s how they pay the bills. I think the paid tiers are slightly more expensive than they need to be in order to allow the free tier, but that’s just an assumption of mine.
Thanks for the support everybody! Proton services in general are not designed to maximize profits, but instead we try to reach the most people and maximize our impact.
Could we make more money if we monetized our free users? Certainly, but we have chosen not to do so because it runs counter to our guiding principles.
We have been able to keep free accounts truly free because of the amazing user community, many who are paying just to support our projects. This support allows us to keep offering services for free to many of the people out there who need online security and privacy, but aren’t actually able to pay.
No catch that I’ve found. I pay because I want to support them, but they will give you a great VPN for free.
Brrrrr it’s shilly in here
Protonmail rocks!
You guys are awesome!
Will be supporting the project by buying the premium soon:trade_mark: 
Well the game works with P2P and it works great with the free version so I assume its working
Also, That’s pretty neat, they definitely deserve that extra bit because the product is actually pretty great.
I think the paid tiers are slightly more expensive than they need to be in order to allow the free tier, but that’s just an assumption of mine.
If there is any cost associated with providing the free service (and there must be), then in the absence of other revenue streams like selling user data, the cost must be passed on to paid users. Proton seems to be a fairly idealistic company and I think many of its users support providing free privacy and security.
I’m browsing this because I had the same thought as the guy asking, is there a catch ? This is really great and it felt almost too good to be true, thus the question. You guys rock ! Once I get more stable I’ll probably start paying aswell, totally worth it
nordvpn keeps logs though
This is a bot account, not a real person.
I wish more consumers had your attitude. Good on you.
I have used their free version for a while. I love it. I also use protonmail. I plan on upgrading to visionary when my tax return comes in.
Thanks for your support! People often do ask us if there is a catch, but that is because a lot of people don’t entirely understand the rationale behind ProtonVPN. As an operating business, we actually derive most of our revenue from ProtonMail. This means keeping ProtonMail accessible, even when governments try to block it, is the overriding priority, and that’s only possible if we make ProtonVPN available for free. So while it is nice that ProtonVPN does generate some revenue, the real reason for the project is keeping ProtonMail accessible in situations like this: https://protonmail.com/blog/turkey-online-censorship-bypass/
Well TECHNICALLY I was responding to a 1 month old comment…