ProtonVPN

Overview

What this release is

ProtonVPN is a client for encrypting your network traffic and routing it through a server somewhere else, which changes both what your network provider can see and what the sites you visit can tell about where you are. The client here is the desktop application with the paid tier features enabled, so the full server list, the higher speed connections, and the additional routing modes are all available.

The connection handling is the part that matters day to day. The client picks a fast server automatically or lets you choose one by country, city, or load percentage, reconnects on its own when a network changes, and holds the tunnel through a laptop sleep and wake cycle. Profiles save a preferred configuration so a specific route is one click rather than a menu walk.

The kill switch is implemented at the network filter level rather than as an application watching a connection, which means when the tunnel drops the traffic stops rather than falling back to the open connection for a few seconds. There is also a permanent mode that blocks all traffic outside the tunnel from the moment the machine starts, which is the correct setting if the point is that nothing leaks at all.

The multi hop routing sends traffic through two servers in sequence, so the server that sees your traffic is not the one that saw where you connected from. There is also a split tunnelling configuration that keeps chosen applications or addresses outside the tunnel, which is how you keep local network devices and banking sites reachable while everything else is routed.

The client supports several tunnelling protocols including the modern lightweight one that gives the best speed, and it can present traffic in a form that looks ordinary on networks that block tunnelling outright. This build enables the paid server list and the additional routing modes without an account subscription state.

Feature set

What you get

Changes in this build

What changed

• Faster reconnection when the underlying network changes
• Server list refreshed with additional locations and capability filtering
• Kill switch rebuilt at the network filter level with a permanent mode
• Split tunnelling now supports address ranges as well as individual applications
• Fixed the tunnel that failed to restore after a laptop resumed from hibernation

Installation

How to install it

1. Turn off real time protection before extracting. The client installs a network driver and that is always flagged.
2. Extract the archive to a short path.
3. Run the setup executable as administrator and allow the network adapter installation when prompted.
4. Apply the included configuration step before opening the client.
5. Open it, confirm the full server list is present, and set the kill switch mode before the first connection.

Hardware

System requirements

Package

Release information

Questions

Before you start