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Proton VPN

VPN · Schweiz
Gegründet 2014 · protonvpn.com

CERN-founded Swiss VPN (Proton AG, Geneva), owned by non-profit Proton Foundation; 15,000+ servers, audited no-logs, open-source apps, free tier.

Proton VPN ist ein europäischer Dienst mit Hosting in der Schweiz und höchstens geringfügigem, vorübergehendem US-Bezug nach dem CLOUD Act. Gelistet unter VPN.

Bewertungsnotizen

Proton VPN, operated by Proton AG in Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva, is owned primarily by the non-profit Proton Foundation (Swiss-registered, CHE-418.863.304). Founders Andy Yen, Jason Stockman, and Dingchao Lu (CERN alumni) donated their shares in 2024, structurally protecting Proton from US-PE acquisition; account data is encrypted and stored exclusively in Switzerland, Germany, or Norway, Proton owns and operates its Secure Core servers and most Swiss/German nodes, the no-logs policy has been independently audited and published every year since 2022 by Securitum (five consecutive annual audits, most recent 2026), the transparency report is public and current through June 2026, all apps are open-source. Proton deliberately does not run a warrant canary and says so: it states a canary is not meaningful under Swiss law, because Swiss law requires the target of a surveillance or data request to be notified eventually. Swiss-jurisdiction, non-profit-owned, with a public DPA (proton.me/legal/dpa): the US support/payment sub-processors (Zendesk, Stripe, PayPal, Chargebee) are ancillary and off the service-data path, never touching user traffic or encrypted data (Proton runs its own infrastructure); however, Proton's account and API endpoints sit on Proton IP ranges for which the only upstream is Cloudflare's network (AS13335, the pattern of Magic Transit DDoS scrubbing, verified via RIPEstat on 2026-10-03), which carries TLS-encrypted traffic and connection metadata but does not terminate TLS and is not named in Proton's processor lists, so CLOUD Act exposure is recorded as minor (a transient US network layer with no plaintext access and no data at rest); VPN tunnel traffic itself runs on the VPN server network, not through these ranges. It remains the strongest ownership and transparency signal set in this category.

Befund

CLOUD Act
Eigentümer
Unterauftragsverarbeiter
7 · 4 US

Geprüfte Signale

Jurisdiktion
  • EU-/Angemessenheits-Hosting: Ja
  • EU-/Angemessenheits-Betreiber: Ja
  • Keine US-CLOUD-Act-Exposition: Nicht bewertet
  • Zahlung ohne Kreditkarte möglich: Ja
    Akzeptiert neben Karten auch Bitcoin und Bargeld per Post.
Transparenz
  • Öffentlicher AVV: Ja
  • Unterauftragsverarbeiter offengelegt: Ja
  • Open-Source-Clients: Ja
  • Zertifizierung durch Dritte: Nein
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Über Proton VPN

Proton VPN is part of the Proton privacy-tech group operated by Proton AG (Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva, Switzerland) and is the structurally strongest VPN listing in this directory by procurement-grade criteria. Founded in 2014 by Andy Yen, Jason Stockman, and Dingchao Lu (scientists who met at CERN), Proton has run a privacy-by-default product portfolio (Mail, VPN, Drive, Calendar, Pass) for over a decade. In 2024, the founders and first employee donated their controlling shares to the newly-established Proton Foundation, a non-profit registered in Geneva (CHE-418.863.304) which now serves as the primary shareholder of Proton AG. The foundation structure permanently protects Proton from venture-capital acquisition or US private-equity takeover, a unique ownership architecture in the EU/CH privacy-tech landscape.

Compliance posture is gold-standard. Switzerland holds an EU adequacy decision under Art. 45 GDPR, so transfers between EU and CH require no SCCs. The privacy policy (last updated 30 July 2025) commits that account data is encrypted and stored exclusively in Switzerland, Germany, or Norway; Proton owns and operates its Secure Core servers and most Swiss/German VPN nodes; all servers feature full-disk encryption with no stored logs or user data. The no-logs policy has been independently audited and published (a differentiator vs nearly every other VPN brand that claims no-logs without an audit), and Proton publishes a public transparency report plus a warrant canary documenting law-enforcement requests. All consumer apps are 100% open-source.

The product covers 15,000+ servers across 140+ countries, supports up to 10 simultaneous device connections on paid plans, and offers Secure Core (multi-hop through Swiss / Icelandic / Swedish fortified servers), NetShield ad/tracker/malware blocking, port forwarding, P2P/BitTorrent-friendly servers, streaming-unblock servers, and Tor-over-VPN. The free tier is uncommonly generous: one device, medium speed, servers in 10 randomly-selected countries, no data limits, no artificial speed throttling, no ads, and full privacy guarantees. VPN Plus is the paid entry tier with multi-currency (CHF / EUR / USD); spring-sale 1-year discounts up to 65% have been advertised. Best fit: privacy-maximalist consumers, journalists, activists, EU SMBs, and any organisation needing the strongest possible ownership-and-jurisdiction guarantees in a VPN provider.

Unterauftragsverarbeiter-Karte · 7

Quelle
  • Chargebee, Inc. US
    Vereinigte Staaten

    Payment data processing; ancillary

  • PayPal group US
    Vereinigte Staaten

    Payment data processing; ancillary (policy now lists US + Singapore)

  • Stripe, Inc. US
    Vereinigte Staaten

    Payment data processing; ancillary

  • Zendesk, Inc. US
    Vereinigte Staaten

    Customer support data processing; ancillary

  • Atlassian Pty Ltd non-US
    Australien

    Customer support data storage (policy now lists EU + US + UK as processing locations)

  • ProtonLabs DOOEL Skopje non-US
    Nordmazedonien

    Customer support / direct communications (Proton group entity)

  • ProtonLabs Taiwan Co., Ltd non-US
    Taiwan

    Customer support / direct communications (Proton group entity)

Quelle: veröffentlichte Unterauftragsverarbeiter-Liste des Anbieters, gelesen am 26 Aug 2026.

4 von 7 Unterauftragsverarbeitern sind in US-Eigentum oder haben ihren Sitz in den USA. Begrenztes CLOUD-Act-Risiko über diese ergänzenden Unterauftragsverarbeiter.

Rahmenwerke & Zertifizierungen · keine gelistet

Wir haben die Website des Anbieters und die Register der Zertifizierungsstellen geprüft. Keine aktiven Zertifizierungen gefunden zum Zeitpunkt der letzten Prüfung (2026-08-26).

Funktionsmatrix

Tabelle 2Funktionen von Proton VPN

Server 20688 Server
Länder 148 Länder
Gleichzeitige Geräte 10 Geräte
Protokolle WireGuard OpenVPN IKEv2
Kill-Switch Ja
Geprüfte No-Logs-Politik Ja
Port-Forwarding Ja
Plattformen iOS macOS Windows Android Linux

Integration & Zugriff

REST API Ja
SSO (SAML / OIDC) Ja

Compliance & Governance

Audit log Nein
Self-host / on-prem option Nein

Preise & Tarife

ab 5 €/Monat
Freemium
Preisseite ansehen

Öffentliche Dokumente

  • Auftragsverarbeitungsvertrag (AVV)
    proton.me/legal…
    Öffnen
  • Liste der Unterauftragsverarbeiter
    protonvpn.com/privacy-policy…
    Öffnen
  • Nutzungsbedingungen
    protonvpn.com/terms-and-conditions…
    Öffnen

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