Remove ProtonVPN

[ignoramous]

@jonah

overall impression from most people on this thread, does that seem accurate to everyone

imo, this thread’s votes & consensus seem to be for removal of recommended public VPNs that don’t meet PG’s minimum criteria right away, then figure out criteria change in a separate discussion (ex: Separate VPN Servers and VPN Clients)

@jonah

It seems more likely to me that the strict criteria no longer makes sense

If the strict criteria doesn’t make sense, then PG needs to make it explicit that VPNs don’t really help much at all with “hiding traffic from ISPs” when some traffic might in fact leak (due to imperfect client implementations or setups or both). To give an example from earlier in the thread, such leaks would be akin to a hypothetical e2ee drive app encrypting every document except ones it unilaterally deems must be kept in plaintext instead.

@ignoramous

Is “killswitch” necessary to the model that goes “hide your traffic from ISP”?

To me, it does seem like on OSes that provide a “killswitch”, the end-user must be (as a minimum criteria) given an option to enable it by VPN clients, regardless of whether the OS implementation is up to the mark or not.

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@jonah

reliance on a killswitch feature for anything more than convenience is a mistake no matter how it is implemented

No, it isn’t a mistake. A “killswitch” is enforced by the OS, and without VPN apps opting in, all bets are off. As someone who develops VPN apps, “killswitch” is definitely extra work and one that VPN apps, imo, should invest in & get it right.

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@jonah

killswitch implementation quirks should be considered acceptable by non-Qubes users

Wha? Why? I don’t think it is acceptable at all. Most OS-provided / OS-assisted “killswitches” (Qubes or not) prevent accidental / unintentional / intentional leaks from VPN client implementations and/or incorrect end user setups.

@jonah

think that anyone who will be majorly impacted by this problem should be using Qubes

Should put this up on PG’s VPN page.

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Changing the criteria I think needs a much bigger discussion on why PG recommends “almost always” using a public VPN.

@ignoramous

PG doesn’t have to write about VPNs as something they are not then:

Should I use a VPN? Yes, almost certainly. A VPN has many advantages, including: Hiding your traffic from only your Internet Service Provider.

Without a “killswitch”, I don’t think a VPN can lay any claim to accomplish that (a client-side guarantee is hard to provide without a client-side implementation to match). In fact, 2 of the 4 points PG makes for why one must “almost certainly” use VPNs are not sound, I don’t think: Mention kill switch leaks caused by OS limitations - #4 by ignoramous