# Mullvad VPN or Proton VPN? **URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/mullvad-vpn-or-proton-vpn/15866 **Category:** General **Tags:** software **Created:** 2023-12-27T12:26:24Z **Posts:** 45 ## Post 1 by @anon86552080 — 2023-12-27T12:26:24Z Hello everyone, I wanted to ask your opinion about choosing a VPN provider. I saw on the website that Proton, IVPN and Mullvad are recommended. I’m debating between Mullvad or Proton but I feel like Mullvad is more privacy oriented even though it’s listed number 3 on the website. For some reason I feel like Proton are not totally transparent with their VPN service, and I also took a look at their GitHub repository and noticed they didn’t update the macOS code for a long time which makes me wonder if I can really trust them. What do you guys think? --- ## Post 2 by @Reusable6833 — 2023-12-27T12:37:21Z I would always choose Mullvad, they feel more transparent about everything and have fair pricing. There is also a browser extension so you can utilize SOCKS5 proxy to change country without changing servers. But if you use MacOS there is not split tunneling support yet, although I think you can use a different VPN client to achieve this. --- ## Post 3 by @moonwriting — 2023-12-27T12:51:22Z I prefer Mullvad because they don’t force you into a multi-year deal, have a lot of owned servers that run on RAM, and offer anonymous registration and payment options. --- ## Post 4 by @anon86552080 — 2023-12-27T13:08:24Z Thanks, May I ask how do you pay for Mullvad ? And also will it be a bad practice to pay with apple in app purchase instead of more anonymous payment method ? It’s just very convenient to pay for every month separately. --- ## Post 5 by @moonwriting — 2023-12-27T14:07:11Z I pay with Monero and cash, but using something like Apple’s in-app purchase is also probably just fine. [Here](https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy) Mullvad also explains what information it stores regarding different payment methods if you’re interested. --- ## Post 6 by @anon29374801 — 2023-12-27T14:57:30Z > [@anon86552080](#): > > For some reason I feel like Proton are not totally transparent with their VPN service As a rule of thumb, you probably should not use services from companies you don’t trust if you can avoid it. Mullvad has been the gold standard for years so unless there is a feature that is critical to you that they don’t have, they will always be a top choice. --- ## Post 7 by @Sharply — 2023-12-27T18:06:20Z I use both, and my recommendation would be to use Proton if you 1: already have Proton Unlimited or 2: want to use it for streaming services like Netflix. Otherwise, I’d go for Mullvad. They’re both excellent options and hard to go wrong with either imo. --- ## Post 8 by @anon97654407 — 2023-12-27T21:59:44Z I use Mullvad VPN, and I’m very happy with the service. I really recommend them, of course streaming services will not really work with it, though that isn’t one of my use-cases at all. --- ## Post 9 by @InternetGhost — 2023-12-28T02:05:53Z I have used Mullvad for about a year and it worked great. Switching to Proton VPN due to a bigger shift to Proton and so far so good. I’d say both are good from a security and privacy situation, but Mullvad I think edges out the win because of the private ways to pay and no subscription. As you can see, that piece might not even be relevant for you unless you plan on using the more private payment options. --- ## Post 10 by @anon58739604 — 2023-12-28T18:45:15Z IMO, if you can’t trust Proton then just use Mullvad. Not saying Proton isn’t safe or anything, but Mullvad seems to be more transparent, and account creation is more private than Proton. But depending on your use case, if you want to torrent or stream movies, I would go with Proton as they seem to have support for port forwarding and servers for streaming. If you just want to browse the internet and don’t really care about that, Mullvad is a great choice, and it should work for streaming as well. (I should also note that I never used Proton’s premium plan, this is just from what I saw on their website, but I do use Mullvad.) --- ## Post 11 by @Tech-Trooper — 2023-12-29T06:42:37Z I have not faced a single reasonable explanation why Proton cannot be trusted so far. You may not like its UI, pricing etc, but their products are very robust privacy and security-wise. So, dont mix your feelings with the reality on the ground. --- ## Post 12 by @anon86552080 — 2023-12-29T11:36:21Z It’s not the UI, in my opinion it’s great, but as I said in my original post their open source repository for macOS app wasn’t updated since May 15, which in my opinion means they’re using different code to publish new releases and not their open source code. --- ## Post 13 by @yipii — 2023-12-29T17:24:21Z Proton vpn disabled port forwarding some time ago, just like mullvad disabled it. Its hard finding a vpn that support that on pg. Pg has not been updated to reflect it. I think ivpn still does, but havent checked. --- ## Post 14 by @redoomed1 — 2023-12-29T18:13:14Z > [@yipii](#): > > Proton vpn disabled port forwarding some time ago Any source(s) on this? I could not find anything about this on their [blog](https://protonvpn.com/blog/). * * * They have a port forwarding article in their Support Center: [Port forwarding | Proton VPN](https://protonvpn.com/support/port-forwarding/) > Port forwarding is currently available in our Windows and Linux apps for everyone with a paid Proton VPN plan. > It is also possible to manually configure port forwarding (including on macOS). [**Learn how to manually set up port forwarding**](https://protonvpn.com/support/port-forwarding-manual-setup) > Note that port forwarding is only permitted on our special P2P servers. These are marked with a **double-arrow icon**. * * * Also, their [instructions for enabling port forwarding on Linux](https://protonvpn.com/support/port-forwarding/#linux) includes an image of their new, rewritten Linux GUI app, which was [released](https://old.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/174pv4a/the_new_proton_vpn_linux_app_is_officially_out_of/) just two months ago. --- ## Post 15 by @anon58739604 — 2023-12-29T18:47:34Z I looked at their website, it seems they still support it? Can you give sources to this? --- ## Post 16 by @anon97654407 — 2023-12-29T20:07:10Z They still support it : > **[Port forwarding | Proton VPN](https://protonvpn.com/support/port-forwarding/)** > > Port forwarding setup guide for ProtonVPN, plus how to configure popular torrent clients for port forwarding Though : > Note that port forwarding is only permitted on our special P2P servers. These are marked with a **double-arrow icon**. --- ## Post 17 by @yipii — 2023-12-29T20:24:43Z @anon97654407 @redoomed1@anon58739604 Seems I was mistaken and co fused with mullvad. mullvad removed port forwarding [source](https://mullvad.net/en/blog/removing-the-support-for-forwarded-ports) Ivpn does not support it [source](https://www.ivpn.net/knowledgebase/general/do-you-support-port-forwarding/) Proton seems yo still support it. I wonder if its easy to do it on a wireguatd enabled router. --- ## Post 18 by @anon97654407 — 2023-12-29T21:45:59Z > [@yipii](#): > > Ivpn does not support it [source](https://www.ivpn.net/knowledgebase/general/do-you-support-port-forwarding/) No, they actually had that feature but removed it (for the same reasons as Mullvad I believe) --- ## Post 19 by @simple — 2023-12-29T23:02:44Z ProtonVPN has exposed users to the government before: - [Climate activist arrested after ProtonMail provided his IP address](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28427259) So ProtonVPN doesn’t collect logs “by default”, but the second you do something interesting (in this case, the activist was merely squatting), they will enable logging on your account. It does not look like to me that Mullvad has this ability, as accounts are not connected to email or other identifiable information. In my view, Mullvad has put much more thought into their signup flow to prevent issues like the above. Still, both services know your home IP, so theoretically, both services could theoretically be compelled to build functionality to log connections from a given IP (as opposed to email/account.) But I’ve not seen any evidence of this. --- ## Post 20 by @pinkandwhite — 2023-12-29T23:36:20Z As it has always been, you should not rely on VPN or email if your threat model includes any degree of privacy or anonymity from law enforcement. A legal case effectively reminding people of this fact doesn’t make a particular privacy-oriented product less private from e.g., big tech or companies wanting to send DMCAs --- ## Post 21 by @simple — 2023-12-29T23:52:48Z Of course, you can never expect someone else to help you break the law, but these cases are good “stress tests” of promises a VPN company makes. In this case, I think it is evident that Proton’s statement of “we don’t collect logs” was plainly misleading, when that is exactly what they were doing (for a minor crime at that.) Perhaps Mullvad can be compelled to do the same thing, but 1. They [claim](https://mullvad.net/en/help/how-we-handle-government-requests-user-data) they cannot be forced to add such functionality under the Swedish jurisdiction, and if forced to do so, they will shut down 2. They collect far less information on account creation I have nothing against Proton as a company, I subscribe to one of the more expensive ProtonMail plans. I am just trying to answer OP’s questions based off of what we know about the two companies. --- ## Post 22 by @FlipSid — 2023-12-30T01:48:10Z Re Proton: > **[Important clarifications regarding arrest of climate activist | Proton](https://proton.me/blog/climate-activist-arrest)** > > We would like to provide important clarifications regarding the case of the climate activist who was arrested by French police. --- ## Post 23 by @dngray — 2023-12-30T05:31:41Z > [@simple](#): > > exposed users to the government Any VPN will abide by court orders, and there’s no real evidence he even was a climate activist besides some post a friend of his made on twitter. This was pretty much debunked ages ago. Some crappy news sources kinda ran with the “climate activist” thing for sensationalist clickbait reasons and that basically stuck. We never heard anything more about it after that. --- ## Post 24 by @Throwitaway — 2023-12-30T07:45:34Z You can find their transparency statement at the link below. It shows how many court orders per year they get, how many they fight against and how many they follow through with. Remember that is mostly the email end as they said they keep no logs of vpn use to hand over. Seeing as we have never heard of ProtonVPN helping to bust someone despite all the court orders followed it stands to reason they do in fact hold to their word on this. My advice? Their VPN is solid, safe. Their email or anything that sits on their server? Not so safe so encrypt all with a strong password if you feel the Swiss would agree to such a legal court order from another government for what you do. Highly illegal activities are the only way most of the time. But whistleblowing? Reporting? Need extra security. Hope this link and information helps, here are list from last two years if you do not want to click. ## 2022 - Number of legal orders: 6,995 - Contested orders: 1,038 - Orders complied with: 5,957 ## 2021 - Number of legal orders: 6,243 - Contested orders: 1,323 - Orders complied with: 4,920 > **[Transparency report | Proton](https://proton.me/legal/transparency)** > > Proton's transparency report with aggregate statistics of legal orders from the Swiss authorities, covering Proton Mail, Proton Drive, and Proton Calendar. --- ## Post 25 by @kaw_erij — 2023-12-30T09:37:53Z > [@Throwitaway](#): > > Their email or anything that sits on their server? Not so safe so encrypt all with a strong password if you feel the Swiss would agree to such a legal court order from another government for what you do. Can you please elaborate more as to why it isn’t safe? Is Proton Mail not fully E2EE? AFAIK, certain metadata (such as the subject of the mail) aren’t encrypted. Please correct me if I’m wrong. --- ## Post 26 by @Tech-Trooper — 2024-01-01T14:53:00Z Did you really read the article? It’s not ProtonVpn, but Protonmail. This is discussed thousands of times. If the climate activists had used any vpn, then they were not being exposed. You should not rely on email for very sensitive communications. Moreover, Protonmail did not provide any content, only IP addresses, meaning that they really have E2EE, and cannot access your messages. I have no information about this case, but like @dngray I hardly believe France requested from Switzerland to track those guys for being climate activists I heard some complaints from law enforcement guys that criminals use Protonmail to evade them, or sending threats to the healthcare professionals during the covid period. Protonmail did not respond to the most requests. They were thing Proton as a heaven for criminals and I tried to explain that it’s privacy preserving company which received funding from the Swiss govt and EU. They were very surprised. **Edit by dngray: There is no evidence they were even climate activists, that was never supported by any court documentation, it’s literally based on a tweet a friend of the person made at the time and some media sources went with it.** --- ## Post 27 by @0xMatt — 2024-01-01T15:25:28Z I use Proton VPN for personal and Mullvad for work, and they’re both great. I tend to recommend Proton VPN to anyone who’s already using their suite of products (mail, drive, calendar, pass), and Mullvad otherwise. If you’re already paying for Proton Mail, there’s no (or little) reason to pay for Mullvad. If you’re not, there’s little advantage to paying for Proton VPN. I’d say Mullvad cares more about privacy since they don’t store identifying information, and I trust that they’d rather shut down than release someone’s info to authorities. But that’s not to say that Proton doesn’t care about privacy, and that difference is probably irrelevant to most people who use a VPN anyway. I also think that Proton VPN would probably work better with streaming or torrenting. If you don’t feel good about Proton, use Mullvad. You really can’t go wrong here though. --- ## Post 28 by @anon30398290 — 2024-01-03T00:09:29Z Well, I have two opinions: - As a Linux user: the Proton VPN experience is pretty bad. - As an Android user: the experience is almost perfect. The Linux client doesn’t even supports kill switch or WireGuard(!) yet, and the UI is bare bones. But I got it for $1, so not a big deal. Would never buy it on the original price, though. If you are an Android or Windows user it’s just a matter of “_I already use the Proton suite, should I use it as well?_”, I guess. They are both pretty good (can’t say anything for Apple’s operating systems). In my use case, Mullvad or even iVPN would be the best option, no doubt. --- ## Post 29 by @crossroads — 2024-01-03T19:36:22Z Mullvad works great on ubuntu (based) distros, but their application is not working on opensuse (officially .rpm is only for Fedora), so I use network manager to set VPN connections (wireguard or openpn) iVPN works well on opensuse, proably on other distros also, but still, I stayed with Mullvad, mainly due to price --- ## Post 30 by @anon21489307 — 2024-01-03T21:40:07Z For Proton, I didn’t test the unofficial Flatpak app, I don’t know whether it’s working well. However, I’m using Proton VPN through `wg-quick` with some minor issue, e.g. trying to edit the connection settings via the network manager will crash the settings altogether. And **[the instruction on Proton’s website](https://protonvpn.com/support/wireguard-manual-linux/)** is not working for me at all, as my system won’t accept any configuration file if it’s not named as `wg0`. Other than that, everything seems to work fine on openSUSE here. I hope Proton officially packages the client using Flatpak. I would use the service seriously (become a paying customer). Now, it’s just a nice to have tool in my pocket. There are requests for Flatpak package on the official feature request forum: > **[Submit Linux package updates in official distro repos](https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932836-proton-vpn/suggestions/48200693-submit-linux-package-updates-in-official-distro-re)** > > Proton VPN is open source and uses well-known and established components of the NetworkManager stack. Due to these two things, there is virtually nothing standing in the way of the Proton VPN team from building and submitting packages officially to... > **[Official Flatpak support on Linux](https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/945460-general-ideas/suggestions/46955335-official-flatpak-support-on-linux)** > > Flatpak is a modern packaging format for Linux distributions, with the advantages of: > - working consistently across a wide array of distributions (thus making it much easier for developers to support any Linux distro) > - relative independence from the... --- ## Post 31 by @Sprout3425 — 2024-01-04T01:31:55Z For me pricing would be the biggest factor, which VPN has the best price, the same security features, independent audits… It may not even be Mullvad or Proton, I don’t know. --- ## Post 32 by @anon21666177 — 2024-01-04T01:59:40Z Neither. The best is IVPN since the clients are well-designed, there’s V2Ray support, and the company behind it doesn’t oversell its value for anonymity. This is in contrast with others who openly promote using their app to connect to Tor. --- ## Post 33 by @anon80779245 — 2024-02-15T04:33:02Z Mullvad doesn’t have a TOR option. Proton does, and the option isn’t recommended by PG. --- ## Post 34 by @stjose — 2024-02-15T08:10:01Z I have Mullvad and Proton both each there purpose for me,but I mostly use Mullvad. I have Proton VPN because it’s bundle with my Proton Mail has a premium client. --- ## Post 35 by @anon32162901 — 2024-02-15T15:39:30Z I lack the resources and technical acumen to determine if IVPN is truly the best of the three PG recommended providers, but it’s a better fit for my needs when compared to Mullvad. Where I’m located, I don’t have the buffet of performant servers (in terms of latency) those of you in the US or EU have, but IVPN at least offers two nodes relatively close to my location, while Mullvad offers just one. Makes a huge difference when I have peering issues (useless ISP) or if I want to double-hop. IVPN’s mobile apps are also higher quality (imho) than Mullvad’s, especially the iOS/iPadOS build, which offers a lot of functionality compared to Mullvad’s which feels like an afterthought. IVPN’s ad/tracker blocking is also superior, more so after they added the ability to select from multiple filterlist combinations. Can’t say anything about ProtonVPN since I’ve never been attracted to them (personal reasons, none of which are related to privacy or security), but it does make for a sensible option (financially) if you’re getting it bundled with their mail service, I suppose. --- ## Post 36 by @anon97654407 — 2024-02-15T15:59:28Z > [@anon86552080](#): > > even though it’s listed number 3 on the website. I don’t think the VPN list on PrivacyGuides is classed in a specific order. --- ## Post 37 by @jonah — 2024-02-17T03:20:05Z 4 posts were split to a new topic: [Are Privacy Guides recommendations ordered?](/t/are-privacy-guides-recommendations-ordered/16912) --- ## Post 38 by @Viper — 2024-02-25T01:52:07Z I went with what was cheaper. Protonvpn. --- ## Post 39 by @Reusable6833 — 2024-02-25T15:39:46Z I trust Mullvad much more than Proton and it doesn’t even require your email address unlike Proton. --- ## Post 40 by @rsxxx — 2024-02-26T13:05:29Z I use two, Mullvad and Airvpn. Reason for Airvpn, port forwarding. It’s only used on one device for the sole purpose of torrenting linux iso’s. The UI is terrible, it’s extremely difficult to configure, but the speeds are extremely fast and the connections are stable, it has never dropped. And for mullvad, multihop nearby servers from two different companies. That on top of Tor and/or mullvad browser. My only complaint being webrtc is enabled by default with mullvad browser. I emailed them but they said it was standard, turn it off in the extension if you dont want it. There’s no legitimate reason to have it enabled, they dropped the ball there. Proton was good! They even have port forwarding. But they’re too expensive and their Protonmail service has questionable business practices, which leaves too much room for doubt imho. I would never trust them with anything sensitive, but that’s just me. I’ve heard it goes on sale once in a while but have yet to see anything. --- ## Post 41 by @moonwriting — 2024-02-26T14:27:16Z > [@rsxxx](#): > > My only complaint being webrtc is enabled by default with mullvad browser. I emailed them but they said it was standard, turn it off in the extension if you dont want it. There’s no legitimate reason to have it enabled, they dropped the ball there. WebRTC isn’t really a big concern. The maintainer of the Arkenfox project who has also worked with the Tor Browser, has stated [the following](https://github.com/mullvad/mullvad-browser/issues/1#issuecomment-1495247827) regarding WebRTC on Mullvad Browser: “You do not need to disable webRTC, as it is already protected by mDNS and is gated behind user gestures - the user must also explicitly opt in per site, per session to start sharing. WebRTC support is trivial to fingerprint.” --- ## Post 42 by @Sprout3425 — 2024-02-27T00:00:37Z I think it is, I have noticed that the higher up the service is the more of the criteria it checks, but sometimes this is not true, and it goes into another criterion. --- ## Post 43 by @anon21666177 — 2024-02-27T00:27:31Z What questionable business practices has Proton engaged in? --- ## Post 44 by @anon97654407 — 2024-02-27T08:02:07Z > [@Are Privacy Guides recommendations ordered?](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/are-privacy-guides-recommendations-ordered/16912): > > Continuing the discussion from [Mullvad VPN or Proton VPN?](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/mullvad-vpn-or-proton-vpn/15866/36): @jonah can you confirm that there is no order ? --- ## Post 45 by @Sprout3425 — 2024-02-27T11:38:52Z The answer you linked confirms that there is order for some tool categories, whilst others are not so certain. Even for the others categories, of which not all are authored by Jonah (hence, the uncertainty), I see a clear order and non-randomness. I assume this is because the tools can be assessed directly for example for their features and price, and products aren’t identical, thus, ranking them is very feasible.