from the team:
Hi everyone,
As you may know, Proton VPN has repeatedly proven effective anti-censorship tools, allowing people to find trustworthy news sources and access obstructed content.
To make Proton VPN’s anti-censorship features even more accessible, we made it possible to log in to the Android app without creating an account. Now you can log in and use the Proton VPN Android app for free without entering any credentials (i.e. you can “continue as guest”):
Together with the constant expansion of our infrastructure (over 6000 servers in close to 100 countries), we believe that this will help our privacy-first VPN service reach those who need it the most more efficiently than ever.
Thank you for your support,
The Proton Team
Is that sustainable?
Why wouldn't out be? Proton has always had a free tier, this just makes it easier for free users to connect to a vpn
Because nothing is free.
Proton's free plan is supported by people with paid plans
Yes, but the root of the question is whether this is sustainable, or will it get shittified, when "too many" people jumps on the free tier.
Will it get more expensive for the paid tier?
Are they going to get rid of the free tier?
???
The free tier servers are finite resources and usually much more busy/ slow. Proton isn't guaranteeing fast speeds or availability, and all of their free offerings have always been done in a sustainable way.
They're transitioning to a non-profit organization now. While non-profits have their own problems, and it doesn't make them exempt from enshittifying, it removes the profit incentive to do so.
In other words: I'd give them a little more credibility when it comes to this sort of thing until they give us a reason not to. I'm hopeful that they can be a positive force in the industries that they are in.
Same. I'm really rooting for them to stick it to the big internet usurpers. And they are doing a stellar job so far.
I'm just really can't get excited about companies offering free stuff, that costs money to run. Stepped on that rake one too many times.
What they mean is normally when something isn't being paid for, you are the actual product. It's why people should never use free password managers, for instance.
Proton may be unique in that the free tier might actually be exactly what it says it is: A product for you. Not a product OF you.
I'm already interested. Anywhere I can get more information that is not on Proton's website?
@Xanis @DesolateMood
Sure!
Tuta.com
Privacyguides.org
EFF.org
Additionally, Proton Pass and Bitwarden are both well respected, open source, password managers that are Freemium products.
Thank you!
I hesitate to look these things up myself because not only is it a heck of a rabbit hole, sometimes those holes are actually tricksty gophers. So I appreciate it. :)
@Xanis You're welcome!
Both Proton Pass and Bitwarden are ad-free, secure, and very nearly have the full features of the paid versions.
For most users, the free versions are more than enough.
One limitation is that the free versions don't allow 2FA TOTPs to be generated. Personally, I'd never use that feature as it removes a barrier to being hacked *IF* the password manager was ever compromised. Instead, the use of a separate Authenticator app for those codes is probably safer!
X, Google, Amazon, you can pay for their services and still be the product. I am not sure if that rule is good in any direction anymore.
Proton has offered free plans for all its products for the last 10 years.
If it wasn't sustainable, I think we'd have noticed by now.
Well, userbases tend to grow.
Exactly the opposite.
Yes. Because they're either making a profit from your meta/data, or it's a promotion that ends as myriads of "free" services did before it
I pay for it so you can leach off of it. Go ahead. If you feel they did a good job, then consider subscribing.
Yes, but how many people can these contributors support?
7.5 billions. We are good for a few years unless somebody double dips.
Why does it matter?
Is this am honest question, or a drive-by downvote "get fucked" comment?
I mean, why do you care if it's a sustainable business practice or whatever? Unless you're a stake holder or something then how much money they're missing out on shouldn't even be your concern.
If I'm making an account and potentially moving to a whole new SaaS ecosystem, I might wanna know if what's going on.
Imagine moving to a new email address, informing every single person about your new email, and then the company goes under. Or starts displaying ads. Etc., etc.
There's no guarantee a paid service won't go under either, though.
Not moving is easier than moving.
Proton has been offering free services for 10 years now. And they don't profit from your data, so your assertion is false.
They recently changed to a nonprofit, so that's not it
Nah, i used free tier for a year, realized I liked it and wanted to support them so signed up to the unlimited plan. Their hope is to draw more people in that way, rather than a paywall that turns off potential users