We're two ex-CERN scientists who created Proton VPN to fight global censorship and surveillance together.

Two questions.
1. How does your VPN service differ from the mountain of them on the market?

1. What interesting projects might you be working on in the coming year (2023)?

There are indeed tons of VPNs on the market today, and there are also many things that set Proton VPN apart. Proton VPN stands out because it is open source, unlimited, and for those who don't have the means to pay, truly free (it doesn't have ads, and we don't monetize through selling user data). Unlike other VPNs, we also make heavy investments in overcoming censorship and trying to bypass internet blocks in authoritarian countries. You can find out a bit more about this work in a recent New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/06/technology/russia-internet-proton-vpn.html

We do this because Proton's mission is fundamentally about defending privacy, freedom, and democracy online, and as a mission driven organization, we are willing to make investments others are not. We believe in the end, these investments leads to a more reliable and trustworthy service. For example, because we invest so heavily on making VPN work on networks facing heavy censorship, Proton VPN connections and protocols end up being more resilient, which leads to better speeds and performance, especially when network connectivity is sub-optimal.

As for your second question, Proton does have some interesting projects in the pipeline for 2023, including many interesting new features coming for our VPN, and we'll be sharing more about this in the coming months :) --Andy

You’ve just made an incredible gesture for Turkey. Thanks so very much.

Q: Do you get shit from governments when you bypass their walls? (or whatever the correct term is)

Well, some governments definitely react by trying very actively to block us, when they recognize us as a challenge to their censorship.

-- Sam

We are definitely doing all we can in Turkey right now, along the lines of what we did in the past year in Russia and Iran. We are glad to see that we were able to help this week and are committed to continuing to provide free services in Turkey.

Governments do get displeased when we try to provide internet freedom against their will. Last summer, Russia made blocking Proton VPN a priority, came after us in state media, and actively launched a campaign to take down our services in Russia and this battle continues to this day. -Andy

I've heard of more than one instance of Proton giving up details of their users to authorities asking for them, even though one of your core ideals is "...a strict no-logs policy".

But I've also seen multiple audit reports of your service saying that they confirmed the no-logging policy.

Would you care to comment on that?

It's important not to confuse the various Proton services. Proton Mail is considered to be a communication service, and in most countries (including Switzerland), communication services are regulated to some extent. Privacy isn't a blank check to break the law with impunity, and unless you are based 15 miles offshore in international waters, you need to comply with the law.

That being said, Swiss law is very restrictive, and there are a LOT of hurdles that one needs to jump through to get a court order. And even with a court order (and has been proved multiple times in court), there is no way to break Proton Mail's encryption. Privacy is not the same as anonymity, and due to the way the internet works, if anonymity is what you are going after, you have to exercise proper infosec and take preventive measures, such as using Tor or VPN....

And...getting to the topic of VPN. Under Swiss law, the treatment of VPNs is different. So VPNs can indeed be no-logs. No-logs VPN, is also possible in other countries as well. What makes Switzerland different, and possibly unique, is that within the current Swiss legal framework, Proton VPN also does not have forced logging obligations. So, a no-logs US VPN could for instance, get a NSL (National Security Letter) to start logging particular users, but that's not possible in Switzerland.

Finally, it's worth noting that in October 2021 (after the case you mentioned), Proton won in court against the Swiss government and as a result, email services cannot be considered telecommunications providers, and consequently are not subject to the data retention requirements imposed on telecommunications providers. You can find more details here: https://proton.me/blog/court-strengthens-email-privacy --Andy

You can bet they won't comment

See above, we answered. --Andy

When do you release an addon for Firefox and co.?

It's coming soon! Stay tuned :-)
-Sam

Does soon mean still this year?

It might even be this month ;-) --Andy

Any future plans for a Secure Core connection with an exit in Switzerland, Sweden or Iceland?

( Reason for asking I find myself debating between using Secure Core or a direct connection to Switzerland, Sweden or Iceland:

Option 1: Direct connect to Switzerland, Sweden or Iceland. This ensures my exit IP is in a privacy friendly country. But no guarantee the server I use is actually owned by Proton.

Option 2: Secure Core connection. This ensures the entry servers is owned Proton. But my exit will not be in a privacy friendly country (CH,SW,IS).

Yes, this is in our radar, and it's pending some internal improvement. -Sam

Does Proton have any plans (or current capabilities) to implement Forward Secrecy, to protect against future quantum computing capabilities that could be used (again, in the future) to decrypt replayed network streams that are logged today?

Yes. This is in our radar. For now we wait until the PQ key exchange settle (we want to avoid issues like the SIKE fiasco) -Sam

Would you say Switzerland still a role model when it comes to data protection and privacy?

I am asking because Switzerland has introduced more and more questionable laws in recent years. For example the “anti terror” law or the intelligence act from 2016. Switzerland is also far behind when it comes to the GDPR from the EU. Isn't it just a marketing phrase at this point? And what makes Sweden and Iceland considered privacy friendly?

In general (and this is quite unfortunate), there's been a global backsliding on privacy in recent years, and this development is not limited to Switzerland. We are currently fighting a new anti-privacy legislation in the UK, and also watching closely developments in the EU. You can read a bit more about this in a recent interview I gave to Wired: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/encryption-faces-an-existential-threat-in-europe

Given this context and the global trend, Switzerland isn't particularly worse in comparison. I would say, Switzerland started out better than most places, and like most places, it has gotten worse in recent years, but relatively speaking, is still better than most places at the current moment. What makes Sweden and Iceland stand out, along with Switzerland, is strong rule of law, and strong cultures of privacy, and generally strong stances on human rights, and this helps to ensure that over the long run, privacy is more likely to be protected.

For example, while there are proposals in the EU today that are contemplating weakening end-to-end encryption, no such proposals have been put forward in Switzerland. We are also encouraged by the fact that in 2021, we were able to win in court against the Swiss govt and get a ruling that strengthens privacy for email providers: https://proton.me/blog/court-strengthens-email-privacy --Andy

Hello, when will a proton drive sync client for windows (and linux if possible) finally be released? It’s the only thing keeping me from moving fully to proton drive.

Windows is coming quite soon. It is already in beta with Proton Lifetime users, and we hope to get it out to everybody else sometime in the first half of the year. Linux is planned as well, but as with Proton VPN, it will take longer, but will eventually arrive as Linux support IS something we care about, being mostly Linux users ourselves. --Andy

How are your time machine experiments going?

Not yet successful, we still need time to release new features :-D

-- Sam

You mention Russia, China, Iran as threats to internet privacy, but what about the US? Do you see the US government either legislatively or covertly trying to break internet privacy in the US?

The issue with the US, is not so much what is happening within the US, but how the US can expand it's global reach. To give an example, almost every country in the world has surveillance laws of some sort. But in the US, those surveillance laws are backed by enormous resources to fund agencies like the NSA, which subsequently can act globally.

But what is even worse than government surveillance, is actually corporate surveillance. The amount of data Google has on you for example, completely dwarfs what the NSA has. Google of course is global (probably more so than the NSA), but is still a US company, which means that ultimately, it can be coerced to act on behalf of the US government, and impose values that might not be accepted in Europe, for example. --Andy

Will there be a Proton Drive integration with OS like Windows, iOS, Android? Similar to Google Drive?

The Proton Drive iOS and Android apps are actually already out, and we are working on getting Windows and macOS apps launched. Windows is actually already in beta for Proton Lifetime users, and we're aiming to do a wider release in the first half of this year. We'll be updating the website for our encrypted file storage service as more updates come: proton.me/drive -Andy

I currently have a Unlimited subscription. I would like to share it with my family, but currently is to expensive to subscribe one account for each family person. Have you thinking about family plans with affordable price?

The Proton Visionary plan so far is the closest thing to a family plan (6 users for $24 per month on an annual plan), and we brought this plan back temporarily for Black Friday last year. We are currently making some adaptations to make it a true family plan (currently, it requires having a family domain), and we looking forward to bringing it back later this year so stay tuned. --Andy

Have you ever seen steins;gate? If so did you enjoy their interpretation of CERN?

El psy congroo.

Haven't seen it before, but now you have made me curious ;-) --Andy

Now that you have Calendar, Drive and Mail, will you be expanding into other productivity tools to create your own ecosystem?

Proton is a user driven company. It was created through a community crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, and still to this day, all of our revenues come directly from users (as opposed to say, advertisers in the case of Google). For this reason, we literally work directly for you, and what we build, is largely determined by what users tell us via direct feedback or community surveys. So, if a big portion of the community wants something, we will indeed build it, and through that process, gradually, the Proton privacy ecosystem will expand. -Andy

Will ProtonVPN hand over user data if compelled by government entities?

We do not keep any IP logs so we cannot provide them when requested: https://protonvpn.com/blog/transparency-report/. Under Swiss law, law enforcement authorities and courts cannot require our VPN to start logging IPs for a specific account. As a Swiss company, it is illegal for us to collaborate with any external law enforcement agencies, therefore, no other authorities can require us to do this either.

Finally, there is little incentive for law enforcement to ask for IP logs. If they only have a Proton VPN IP address, we cannot trace it back to a specific account and also cannot provide billing data.

-- Sam

As a user of GrapheneOS without google play services, will Protonmail become available without it to get push notifications?

I am planing to go Graphene soon too, and i also wanna know this.

This is not the easiest project to complete as it requires building an entirely new and separate notification system. It is something that we want to do, but currently is not the highest demanded new feature from the community. It is on our list however, and we do want to get to this. We are ourselves also big supporters of GrapheneOS, and in the recent Proton Lifetime account fundraiser, we actually supported GrapheneOS: https://proton.me/blog/2022-lifetime-fundraiser-results -Andy

How does Proton VPN pay its bills if not by charging end users or selling advertising?

Proton VPN uses a freemium business model, so users that want more features, or more speed, can upgrade to the paid option, and this is how we keep the business sustainable. Proton also has business customers, who are always paying, and that also subsidizes the free services. -Andy

Is there a chance that we could get a roadmap for current or upcoming developments?

Sure!

For starting, we have published our roadmap at: https://protonvpn.com/blog/proton-vpn-roadmap-spring-2023/

Overall, we're going to soon release a Browser extension for Proton VPN, we're reimplementing our Linux client to support all the various flavors of Linux subsystems. In addition, this year we plan to greatly improve the quality of our UX and VPN connectivity, along with continuing our effort in supporting users affected by internet censorship. -Sam

Is the Stealth protocole ready for China ? has it been released yet over there ?

We are presently experimenting with using Stealth in China and the initial results are promising. However, Stealth is one of the building blocks that can help to defeat the Great Firewall of China. We do see that we have users coming through, but China is still able to detect our servers with statistical analysis. So a given server works only for a limited time. Our R&D Team will keep on ramping up our effort to get more and more users online. -Sam

I want to use a VPN but can't use anything that requires installing custom software on my devices because some of those devices are things like game consoles.

So, I need a VPN that can be set up at my home router, which I believe is called "VPN termination." A surprising number of well-known VPN products don't support VPN termination, making them a deal-breaker.

Does Proton support VPN termination?

Actually the answer is easy. https://protonvpn.com/support/installing-protonvpn-on-a-router/ :-)

-- Sam

Hi! Since government censorship is one of your main concerns, are there any specific problem areas you’ve recognised in India? If yes, what can an average citizen do to counteract these problems (in India or otherwise)?

I’ve been using Proton for a while here, and I’m deeply interested in digital authoritarianism and how it might be on the rise in India. Thanks!

We see the recent Indian VPN regulations (September 2022) that require the data centers we work with to begin logging user activity, as an assault on privacy. We remain committed to our no-logs policy, so we gave up on our servers in India and replaced them with new Smart Routing servers. These will give you an Indian IP address and behave just as our physical servers in India did. The only difference is that, in reality, they are based in Singapore: https://protonvpn.com/blog/servers-india/.

-- Sam

Thanks for your efforts, greatly appreciated. Samuele are you originally from Locate V. ?

That's stalking :-D But yes! My father was from Kyiv, and my mother from Belgium, though I was born in Italy. I feel like my origin are more from Europe :-)

--Sam

Edit: I see many of these questions have been answered but for transparency I'll leave this up (also don't want to spam separate threads). Just want to compile a list voicing many curiosity ideas.

I have a few questions about the VPN.

1. Have you looked at competing VPN services and what protocols they use? ProtonVPN seems lackluster to even smaller vpns offering wider varieties to bypass their networking situations. Is it because you want the best encryption and open source / proven protocols instead of a larger amount?

2. When will stealth protocol release on PC, Mac, and Linux? I know mobile is top priority for good reason but what is a good time frame of a general release date?

3. How are the Chrome and Firefox extensions going? This could help a ton of students with restricted computers or chromebooks and it would also be nice to have an updated time frame of that too.

4. What is the progression on IPV6? It could be revolutionary if and when more servers start rolling it out. It will help even more who need ipv6 support.

5. Is there any plan to add more protocols and workarounds for restricted networks? I've seen many great ideas being implemented to help those in Russia, India, and China but it would be cool to see if Proton could make it mainstream.

6. How about routing some users through tor or external proxies which can be accessed in the area? This can tremendously help.

7. Can you work on making the app more stable on Android devices? Many of us have complained and shown how broken the app can be causing constant timing out and this didn't happen a couple years ago. IOS seems to run way better but Android has taken a large step back.

8. On the free plan it has detected peer to peer on software which doesn't even run it or for a short second. An example is epic games launcher, windows update, steam friends, secret neighbor game authentication, etc. Could you improve the detection so it doesn't disconnect on non file sharing platforms?

9. If by chance ProtonVPN's website are blocked and also github, where can we find an installer or even sign up for an account? I've seen other platforms where you can get sent an email, mirror sites, etc. F droid is quite delayed in showing updates. Can you find alternate methods on also distributing APKs for those that don't have Google Play / Aurora Store?

10. This may not be a major concern, but will you eventually look into upgrading your DDoS prevention (as Proton struggles with malicious traffic)? Its really difficult for gamers to play and many have switched over because it cannot hold a connection stabilly when it is attacked.

Thanks for all the hardwork. We all appreciate it.

Quite a few questions here, but I'll try my best to get as many of them. 1. A diversity of VPN protocols is not always best. Today, Proton VPN supports OpenVPN, IKEv2, Wireguard, and Stealth. It only makes sense to add more protocols if they are better than the existing. To be honest, over time, we will probably phase out older protocols because they can be insecure. For example, Apple's IKEv2 implementation has many problems, so for security reasons, we actually prefer to drop IKEv2 on Apple devices. We'll be able to share more details about this later. As an example, you can see the last flaw we found in Apple's VPN implementation: https://protonvpn.com/blog/apple-ios-vulnerability-disclosure/

1. Stealth is already on macOS, and it is indeed coming on Windows and Linux later this year.

2. Chrome and Firefox extensions is coming this year as well, and likely a LOT sooner than you expect :)

3. IPv6 will be coming soon. We're presently testing it on our servers. It's pending some adaptation to some platforms.

4. Everything we have implemented is actually usable in every country. E.g. We've built Stealth following the Russian situation, but it has been instrumental everywhere else.

5. I am not fully sure if I get this question. We have integration with tor on some dedicated servers.

6. We are continuously improving our apps. In general our R&D team is working on an overhaul of our WireGuard/Stealth implementation that will bring the same quality of service across all platforms.

7. This is interesting, please report these scenarios to our Customer Support, as we would be need to investigate. Indeed if these services are using the BitTorrent protocol then this would be not available on free servers.

8. Indeed. In Iran we work with paskoocheh.com to distribute our apps. Alternatively our Customer Support can send you binaries to install (on Windows, Android and macOS). We are planning to also offer a presence on Telegram.

9. That greatly depends on the upstream data-centers we employ. external DDoS protection greatly depends on availability and countries. Please, report to our customer support which servers do you see that are suffering from this so that we can investigate further.

--Sam

What is your go-to response for the (many) people who say: "I have nothing to hide, who cares?"

It's hard to share services like Proton Mail & Proton VPN when people don't seem to really care unless they're significantly affected (and it's too late).

I always ask them to show me their messages and emails... if they have nothing to hide it shouldn't be a problem for me to see it no ? ;)

I always ask them to show me their messages and emails... if they have nothing to hide it shouldn't be a problem for me to see it no ? ;)

This is actually my answer. Also, saying you don't need privacy because you have nothing to hide, is like saying, I don't need freedom of speech because I have nothing to say. --Andy

Hello, and thanks for this AMA.

I'm not a very tech-savvy person, so this may be a dumb question:

Where is most of the physical infrastructure associated with Proton VPN?

Why should folks looking for privacy trust you over another VPN provider?

Proton VPN doesn't use virtual servers, all servers are bare metal servers so we can control all aspects of deployment and server management to ensure it meets our security standards.

The infrastructure itself is distributed across over 60 countries where we have servers, and all managed directly by us. All of our servers also utilize full-disk encryption so that no third-party can extract data off of them even if they have physical access to the hardware. Not to mention the fact that we have a strict no-logging policy so the servers would not contain logs to begin with.

Furthermore, Proton VPN has a Secure Core server network, where the traffic is passing through servers that are entirely physically owned by Proton, located in datacenters in Iceland, Sweden, and Switzerland where the privacy laws are particularly strong. You can read more about Secure Core servers here: https://protonvpn.com/support/secure-core-vpn/.

As for why you should trust Proton VPN, if I had to point to a single factor, it would be transparency. Proton VPN is open source, publicly audited, and fully transparent about who we are. We are probably the only VPN provider that has an address on the website, and you can visit that address and actually find us there. You can read more about our thoughts on VPN and trust here: https://protonvpn.com/blog/is-protonvpn-trustworthy/ --Andy

How do people know they can actually trust you or any VPN provider is private and secure?

As a computer scientist I can validate my side by using a complete open source environment. I can validate my connection to you by analyzing the VPN protocol you support. I can ensure I use TLS connections with all connections so I know my data stays encrypted even when going through your machines. However there is no way to know if logging my connections is turned on. Even if I completely trust you someone in the data center you use, developers you hire, or someone else in your supply chain could enable connection logging. How do you prove that's not happening?

The honest answer is: we can't prove it. But given the business model of Proton as a whole, we have very strong incentives to be very careful on these aspects. Indeed, picking up a VPN is a matter of trust. And through every single choice we take, we are always working in order to respect the pact we have with the user who decided to trust us.

-- Sam

How do the governments who want to block your service go about doing it?

They mostly try to use DPI (https://protonvpn.com/blog/deep-packet-inspection/). In addition, they can try to hamper the connectivity between our VPN clients and the Proton API.

-- Sam

Which 3 new projects would you personally like to add to the proton family that's currently not yet there but is in your opinion so important that some reliable and trustworthy company like proton does it?

In no particular order, if I had to pick 3, it would be, Password manager, Browser, and Search. For Password manager, recent security incidents have made it clear this needs to be done by organizations with a strong security DNA. For Browser, having almost the entire market dominated by Chrome or its derivatives is a systemic risk for the internet. And for Search, having almost the entire market dominated by just one company that is completely unregulated is a systemic risk for the world.

By now Proton has quite the suite of products. While I think this is great, I'm also familiar with the "just make one thing good" argument. Can you tell us more about the synergy between Proton VPN and other Proton products? Are these mostly technical or related to marketing/business strategy/UX/something else?

This is a very interesting question, and one that we spend a lot of time thinking about.

Proton VPN was created because we were afraid of Proton Mail becoming blocked in various countries (which eventually did happen), so we needed a way for people to safely access Proton Mail. The problem was that many of the VPN services out there back then (and still to this day) were either malicious, fraudulent, or simply insecure. And for that reason, we created Proton VPN as an open source and unlimited VPN that was also available for free.

In terms of future products, we follow the same principle. Generally, we try to anticipate what the Proton community requires, and also listen directly to what users are asking for, because at the end of the day, 100% of our revenues come from users, so you are the only ones we serve. -Andy

How would we know if/when Proton gets compromised. ?

Hopefully, we would find out, and we will tell you. In the end, everything is hackable, and nothing is 100% secure. Our philosophy
therefore is not to be unhackable (because that's impossible). Instead,
we leverage end-to-end encryption and zero-access encryption because the best way to protect data, is to simply not have it in the first place. -Andy

Us Linux users often feel like second class citizens. We pay the same amount for an inferior product. Are there plans to catch the Linux services up to other clients and keep them at feature parity?

Please see: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/10y49ln/comment/j7w8wxx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

-- Sam

If someone lives in a country with little or no censorship, is the VPN tool unnecessary for them? Is privacy something for them to really be concerned about? What of their information is vulnerable?

VPN does more than just protect against censorship. Proton VPN for example, has a feature called NetShield, which can block malware, trackers, and ads, which makes your internet activity safer and also faster. A VPN is also an important privacy tool to prevent websites from tracking you and having your actual IP address. Finally, it can be useful for security if for example, you are on a public wifi with either no encryption or weak encryption. In this case, a VPN can ensure that your internet activity is not being monitored or captured. -Andy

Would love to see secure alternatives to the Google line of editing software (docs, sheets, slides, etc.) could that be a possibility in the future?

Love proton by the way. I recently switched much of my stuff over and I’m very happy.

We want this too, especially for internal use :) Honestly, this is something we want to add, but it might take some time as we don't want to spread ourselves too thin. Thanks for your support and patience! --Andy

Also, we have a whole Drive community on Reddit at r/ProtonDrive. We're on there everyday listening and reading. :) - Andy

It seems Proton VPN and Mullvad are the ones that keep getting recommended. How would you say two compare or why should someone choose you or Mullvad?

It's a matter of what you want and need. Proton VPN and Mullvad share a lot of similarities, but Proton has a strong emphasis on accessibility. For instance, we provide a free version of Proton VPN, because we believe privacy is a fundamental human right. And we also understand that in order for Proton VPN to reach more users, we need to go beyond the original VPN use cases, and also support features such as NetShield malware, tracker, and ad blocking, and also support for streaming services for travelers to access their Netflix, etc, while on the road. Finally, we also believe that privacy must be comprehensive, which is why each Proton VPN account also gives you a free encrypted email, calendar, and file storage service. --Andy

Are you in touch with Apple about the VPN implementation flaws on iOS and did they react? Is the behaviour only present if one use the Proton VPN App or is it present if one uses the official iOS Wireguard App with a Proton VPN profile in it?

This flaw impacts all VPNs on iOS, and is not specific to Proton. We have been in touch with Apple multiple times about this, but fixing this is just not a priority for them unfortunately. We actually found another Apple VPN security/privacy flaw, which Apple has refused to fix, which we will be sharing more about later this year. --Andy

What happens if I logon through the VPN, and you logon through the VPN, and then we smash our connections together at speeds of 1Gb?

The bits would break apart into q-bits, but they would be highly unstable and collapse into specific auto-states that would cause our servers to need a reboot.

-- Sam

How do you deal with court or authority requests when monitoring a particular user is required?

Or is it impossible for you to connect a certain user account to the vpn connection he's using? Which usually is rather easy, depending on the way the backend is built.

​

I'm asking because on a video some years ago the public prosecutor of Frankfurt (could be cybercrime divison or sth similiar) said, that Proton(mail) is especially to mention because they are fond to share information. The german police also likes to do stupid things like this: https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2018/hausdurchsuchungen-bei-vereinsvorstanden-der-zwiebelfreunde-und-im-openlab-augsburg or try to annoy other privacy or Tor enthusiasts.

The next question is, what information are those?

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/10y49ln/comment/j7wbg1b/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

Kind of a stupid question but:

Have you guys watched Steins;Gate?

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/10y49ln/comment/j7wl20x/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

I'm assuming you guys hold terminal degrees - if so, what was your dissertation topic and who was your funding source?

Our head of R&D has a PhD in hydrogeology, though in reality he's a hacker! :-D

Myself I had a master in applied Computer Science on Digital Information System (I was spending my last university year at CERN implementing digital libraries for High Energy Physics papers), while my bachelor degree was on Quantum Computing :-)

-- Sam

My PhD in is particle physics and my thesis was on searches for supersymmetry at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. Funding was a mix of graduate fellowships and the Harvard University endowment ;-) --Andy

Do you have a vpn app for linux arm devices like the raspberry pi and othe mini pcb?

Our current Linux app is implemented in Python, and uses otherwise network-manager and systemd and OpenVPN.

In particular it is supporting Debian or RedHat distros.

However we are presently rewriting it in a way that would potentially supporting many more Linux flavors.

-- Sam

How are we able to trust your vpn vs anything else? What, beyond your pinky swear, would give people confidence that you aren't just data mining for government/powerful entities?

You may find these answers useful:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/10y49ln/comment/j7wlo5y/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
- https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/10y49ln/comment/j7w4mee/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

From CERN scientist to startup founders. Usually we go the other direction for self actualisation - money is the means goal. What happened?

A lot of people think on the surface that somehow, going from being a CERN scientist, to creating a startup is incoherent, but Proton is not the typical startup, and it is in many ways, it is consistent with the scientific ethos.

There are many CERN alumni at Proton, and as a scientist, I can say conclusively that nobody went into science in order to get rich. The reason for being a scientist is because you want to work on hard problems that ultimately contribute to a better world and society.

Proton, as a company created by scientists, is uniquely aligned with this ethos. So while Proton must be profitable in order to be sustainable, at the end of the day, we believe in putting people ahead of profits, and that's a legacy and culture that comes from our scientific past, that will forever be part of the Proton DNA. --Andy

As former CERN scientists, do you find interesting intersections between physics, information theory and practical software engineering in Proton VPN? If so, what is your favorite and why?

There's actually a significant intersection between particle physics and software engineering, because of the sheer size of particle physics datasets. The only way to analyze the large volume of data that come out of the Large Hadron Collider is really by using large massively parallel computing clusters. Perhaps it is for this reason that a large proportion of the infrastructure engineers at Proton come from CERN :) --Andy

Are their any plans to add a proton mail preview to apple watch? Gmail lets me see an email when it comes, in via watch, without pulling out my phone. Would be great to have on protonmail as I continue to leave gmail for protonmail

We are looking into it, but cannot commit to a timeline at the moment. You can join our r/ProtonMail for the updates about Mail-related features.

When will protonmail get better filters? Such as looking for keywords within the body of and email? I use a similar service that allows me to separate emails based on words seen in the body of an email.

When will protonmail get better filters? Such as looking for keywords within the body of and email?

That's impossible. Filters cannot read your inbox, because it is encrypted. Proton does not have access to your decryption key; only you have that - and it is unlocked only on your own devices when you log into the Proton services.

It's not impossible, just difficult. We already have full text search over encrypted content, so that can potentially be leveraged to support this. But it is still going to be computationally heavy to do it client side without homomorphic encryption. This is a topic we are actively following and I think it is just a matter of time before we bring this capability to Proton Mail --Andy

As ProtonVPN requires logging in, in theory user data can still be collected and tracked. Have you considered Tor's decentralized model (server run by community + no log in) at some point?

(Not implying you guys collect anything. Big fan of the Proton lineup)

The main issue with decentralized models are the exit node, which is a point where an attacker could intercept the user traffic exiting there. This is a problem for Tor for example, if you're not accessing a hidden service (within the tor network) you have to trust whoever operates the exit node.

So ultimately is a matter of who you trust.

-- Sam

When will a shared image folder be presented with slideshow options? Just downloading the files as a zip is not for everyone. Thanks!

We have this in internal beta already, and will be rolling out more improvements on the Proton Drive download page in the weeks to come, so stay tuned :) --Andy

Has Eamonn asked you to watch episodes of Father Ted with him yet?

Not yet, but we love Eamonn! He's great!

-- Sam

I visited CERN in 2014, and in the Control Room there were lots of empty bottles of champagne. Were you guys ever responsible for any of those?

Yes :) --Andy & Sam

Do you have plans to create a DNS service like NextDNS?

Proton VPN's NetShield functionality actually is similar to NextDNS, but with the added benefit that it is also encrypting your internet connection and protecting your privacy. NetShield blocks at the DNS level ads, trackers, and also malware, and combined with the VPN, is in our opinion, a more complete solution. --Andy

Are you physically based in Switzerland? And just want to say I’m a current user and love love the platform.

Still trying to get email into my main iOS app.

Yes! We are presently writing you from our office in Geneva :-)

-- Sam

Do the vpn servers/clusters at the various sites differ greatly or are some sites just used much more heavily than others? I guess the answer seems obvious but some sites in some states of the US seem almost always close to max utilization while others don't. Do you evaluate this utilization for upgrades regularly??

Certain areas of US are particularly used because e.g. they are either closer to Europe or to Asia. We keep on monitoring usage utilization and increase our servers' availability following usage growth, in order to always maintain the quality of service. -Sam

Just saw this thread by chance, thought I drop you a line. Migrated & consolidated all my email to proton & been a paid email user for a while now really enjoying the product.

I currently uses a separate VPN due to they simply have more servers, will proton expand to more servers in the future?

In general we grow our server base following user growth. What truly matters is not the actual number of servers, but the quality of servers you get out of it. And thanks to our R&D effort (e.g. see https://protonvpn.com/secure-vpn/vpn-accelerator) Proton VPN is among the fastest VPNs on the market.

-- Sam

Definitely, we are constantly adding support for new countries and adding more servers based on users’ inputs and needs.

Will port forwarding come to linux within the next 3-5 years? Sooner/later?

It already works with NAT-PMP if one downloads the WireGuard configuration file. We are following the RFC 6886. See: https://protonvpn.com/support/port-forwarding-manual-setup/

--Sam

Hello Proton team, I’m glad for this AMA 🙏🏻 I’m a old user, and is great to see the product taking maturity over time. First Protonmail, next protonvpn and last Protondrive. What is the possibility to Protondrive in the future to add 2vray and decentralized servers?

I know the last is crazy 😝

Thanks for all products and efforts!!

P.S: Some stickers in the store please 🙏🏻

I'll pass along the request for the stickers :) And thanks also for your long time support, it's very much appreciated.

Decentralized servers is tricky. Actually, Sir Tim Berners-Lee who is on Proton's advisory board, is working on projects in this area and we've talked to him about this. There are definitely certain problems where decentralization is the best solution (one example is public key authenticity) and we are always looking to apply the best technical solution. --Andy

Hi guys, I switched from PIA a few years ago and love the service.

My only complaint is that the desktop GUI has SO MUCH wasted space for the map, and a very very long list of servers to scroll through on the small left hand pane. I'm curious if there are any plans to make the interface a bit easier to navigate?

Thank you!

Absolutely, we are planning on a full redesign. Stay tuned on our Reddit at http://reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN when will ask the community for feedback :-)

-- Sam

How did the team react when the main character used proton mail in the Sound of Metal movie?

That was very cool! And we wish to see Proton products used in even more movies and series :-)

-- Sam

Are there any plans to add more features to the Android TV app like split tunnelling?

I feel like the app is lacking quite a lot since you can only connect and no other configuration options are available to the user.

Thanks a bunch for all your work!

Indeed presently the Android TV app is mainly focused on facilitating easy connection for streaming. The Android TV interface offers interesting challenges in terms of usability. We'll definitively be going to expand it and introduce more functionalities following the user demand.

In general though we aim at providing an experience that just works, where users do not need to fiddle too much on Android TV in order to stream.

What is your use case e.g. for split tunnelling (if you can share).

-- Sam

1-What misconceptions are you afraid of seeing being shared about VPNs? 2-If proton vpn is free and doesnt share data, how are u able to maintain? Only by user donations and payments?

1. that VPN are only used by "bad" guys. There are tons of legitimate uses for VPNs

2. it's subsidized by the people that have a subscription. So if you too want to contribute making the Internet a better place, think about subscribing. :-)

-- Sam

Hey, are you guys gonna provide services for Indians as well? )The government here, has passed some bad laws for the VPN providers that are forcing them to share their user data.) If so, how are you gonna manage that? If not, do I have any options as an individual for maintaining my privacy? (Not the most technologically advanced person in regards to privacy )

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/10y49ln/comment/j7w7by0/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3

Will ProtonVPN get per-connection credentials, that can be generated/disposed of on the fly? Having to expose the whole Proton services ecosystem’s global credentials for every protonvpn connection is highly problematic from a security standpoint...

The credentials are only used at app log in, not to connect to any server (they are not stored in the app, only a session token). For OpenVPN and WireGuard, the app itself uses ephemeral certificates to authenticate to servers, obtained from the Proton API using the session token. -- Sam

Why do you host so many of your servers with M247? Referencing this of course: https://whoisyourvpn.com/protonvpn/

In general, Proton VPN supports millions of free users, and for free servers, cost efficiency is important. We also run a lot of servers ourselves (and we operate our entire Secure Core network for paid users for example), but these are often in quite expensive countries and not scalable for free users unfortunately. -Sam

Hey there, VPN subscriber here. Are there any open source projects that Proton maintains, relies on, or contributes heavily to that are looking for contributions? Thanks!

At Proton we are maintainer of https://github.com/ProtonMail/gopenpgp

Specifically for Proton VPN we in general contribute patches upstream (e.g. to transmission BitTorrent client, the linux kernel, nftables, the WireGuard project) when we find bugs.

-- Sam

Thanks for doing this AMA!

Does Proton have any plans to open the drive windows client beta to visionary tier subscribers? I read your blog post about the road map predicting proton drive client by end of 2022. I was a long term proton subscriber who decided to abandon dropbox and go all in.

We are currently implementing the round of feedback from Lifetime users, and once that is completed, we will be expanding to Visionary users next. We anticipate it will happen this Spring, and we're putting a lot of effort on this right now. Thanks again for your support and patience. --Andy

Yes, we are planning to. It is already in beta with Proton Lifetime users, and we hope to get it out to everybody else sometime in the first half of the year. You can follow the Proton Drive updates on r/ProtonDrive.

Was happy using Proton until I realised that it was going through a lot more mobile data than if it were disabled. Is there any way to resolve this?

Since all traffic passes through Proton VPN, your mobile OS will count traffic as if Proton VPN is the whole responsible for it. Also, we noticed that on some iOS versions, a bug in iOS made it double count the traffic when using a VPN.

You could check with your mobile operator to see what actual traffic you have consumed.

In principle, there is no reason for Proton VPN to consume substantial more mobile data (it will consume a bit more traffic due to the encapsulation and encryption of your regular traffic and due to communication with the Proton API. But this should be negliable).

-- Sam

when are y'all going to make it work on linux?

https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/10y49ln/comment/j7w8wxx/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

Does Proton allow me to .torrent Ubuntu?

Yes, but only on plus servers :-)

-- Sam

Hello - there are so many basic features missing in your email and calendar apps for a variety of reasons I’m sure. Wouldn’t jt better to resolve those than rollout further products ?

Not OP, but just my two cents here: there's a limit in scalability in a team. Adding more people on a single "problem" won't make things go faster at some point, because the communication effort between people increases.

Yes, this exactly. Oftentimes, throwing more people at a problem, does not speed things up significantly, and that's why we will do projects in parallel when it makes sense, so we can ultimately and in aggregate deliver more value to the Proton user community. --Andy

Why did my subscription to your service default to the free plan when I canceled the recurring subscription, even though I paid for a full year?

We provide two options when you want to stop the service. Like with most services, you can disable reoccurring payments, which means you won't automatically get charged, and when you do this, your subscription runs until the end. However, Proton provides a second option that is the default option because we think it is more user friendly. Most people who cancel the service, do so because they are not using it anymore (and we have data that shows this very clearly). So instead of forcing you to go to the end of the subscription, you can downgrade immediately, and receive credits which can be used in the future if you resubscribe to Proton VPN (or any other Proton service). And this is something that we also see happening because there are folks who use VPN seasonally (like if they are traveling to a country with censorship). So these are the two options that are possible. It sounds like you wanted option 1 instead of option 2, and if that is the case, you can reach out to support and they can help you get on the cancellation option that best suits your use case.

How does your past experience at CERN relate to this project?

Also, what are the qualifications of your Cybersecurity team? The field is interesting to me and from what I've heard and read, a formal education is not necessary.

At CERN I was first a software engineer working on a Python-based digital library system. I started as an engineer up to becoming a tech-lead. It helped a lot working with some of the greatest physicist minds (they are among the most demanding users).

Indeed, you don't necessarily need to have a degree to work in crypto but it's often useful. In particular, you would need strong math foundations.

-- Sam

What are you doing to make sure your services are blocking the spread of child porn?

Proton VPN has NetShield that has been designed to block malware and advertising. We are working to extend it's filtering capability to block CSAM web domains.

-- Sam