- Choosing a free VPN can be difficult.
So many VPNs limit your speed or data use.
And today I wanted to take a look at Proton VPN
and Atlas VPN,
two of the most popular free VPNs
to see which one is worth your time.
I started off my testing comparing the speed
of Atlas VPN and Proton VPN.
Atlas VPN was consistently fast.
I was able to get about 500 megabits per second down
on my gigabit fiber connection and that applied
to any server I connected to in any location.
Now, with Proton VPN, I also had certain servers
where I got 500 megabits per second down,
but I also had other servers where I got
as little as three megabits per second down
which was very painful to use.
Now, I think it's worth noting that Proton VPN
lets you select a different server manually from the menu,
where Atlas VPN just goes by location.
So if I select US New York on Atlas VPN,
they're just picking the fastest server in New York
to connect me to where Proton VPN
will let me connect to server 1, 2, 3.
But maybe there's a reason that I shouldn't connect
to that server.
The Auto Connect function with Proton VPN
always found a fast server,
so overall I think the speed is pretty even
between the two VPNs, but Atlas VPN was more consistent.
One of the reasons speed is so important with a free VPN
is because many users like to stream shows on Netflix
and Hulu that maybe you can only access in another country
and a VPN lets you change your location,
so it appears as if you're in that country,
then you can access those shows on Netflix or Hulu
or whatever the platform is.
But streaming is not great on either of these VPNs.
They both don't guarantee that streaming is even supported.
In my testing, I was not able to get streaming to work ever
on Proton VPN.
I tried Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+
and it didn't work across the board
no matter which server or which location I was connected to.
On Atlas VPN, I had a bit more luck.
I was able to get Netflix to work
on every server, but that was it.
And it's also worth noting that the locations available
on the free VPNs are not very expansive.
So for Proton VPN,
you can choose between the US, Japan and the Netherlands.
And for Atlas VPN,
you can pick between the US and the Netherlands.
So you're not gonna have many choices
on which country to put yourself in to unblock content.
So if neither of these VPNs perform well with streaming,
then how do these VPNs do
with protecting your browsing activity?
Well, both VPNs have a strict no logs policy,
which means anything you do while connected to the VPN
is not going to be logged or stored on any of their servers.
But that's pretty much standard in the VPN industry.
And if any VPN does not say it has a no logs policy,
it would be immediately disregarded.
So in other words, just because a VPN says
it has no logs doesn't necessarily mean you should trust it.
And we can see this with Proton VPN.
Their sister company ProtonMail had an incident
where user IP addresses were accessed by French authorities.
So somehow ProtonMail was storing IP addresses.
They were caught doing something
that they said they weren't doing.
So using this example, we can go,
well, should we really trust Proton VPN?
I'm kind of sketched out by it personally.
It's also important to consider the jurisdiction
where a VPN company is based
because that country's data laws
are going to apply to the VPN company.
So Proton VPN is based in Switzerland
and Atlas VPN is based in the US.
Switzerland is a very privacy-friendly country
with data laws, which is good news for Proton VPN.
But Atlas VPN is based in the US
which is part of the Five Eyes Alliance.
This is an intelligence sharing program
between countries like the US, Australia, and the UK
where they all share data with each other.
And this is not good news
for a VPN that's based in one of those countries.
Reputation is another critical thing to research
when considering a VPN's privacy.
And in the case of Proton VPN,
they've already proven that they might not be
the most trustworthy,
but Atlas VPN hasn't had any known cases
of sharing user data and according to their Warrant canary,
they have not even received requests
from law enforcement to share that data.
This is both a good thing and a bad thing
because we know they haven't shared user data,
but we also don't know what they would do
if they got a request from law enforcement.
Neither free VPN has much to offer
in the way of extra features.
If you've ever researched paid VPNs,
you've probably seen that they offer features
like ad blockers, tracker blockers,
kill switches, sometimes even password managers,
but you're not gonna find most of these things
in a free VPN.
Both Proton VPN and Atlas VPN
offer an ad and tracker blocker,
but these are restricted to the paid plans.
They both offer kill switches in the free plans
and Proton VPN has something they call Secure Core
which is a paid feature.
This is where they run your traffic
through the most secure servers
in more privacy-friendly countries.
And Atlas VPN does offer free data breach monitoring
so you can see if your email or credit card number
or social security number was ever compromised.
As you can see from these extra features,
most of them are restricted to paid accounts
for Proton VPN and Atlas VPN.
But the biggest limitation to Atlas VPN
is that you're restricted
to five gigabytes of data per month.
So it's almost like a test account or a free trial.
You're not gonna be able to do a whole lot
with that five gigabyte data cap.
You're also restricted to two locations
being the US and the Netherlands.
Proton VPN's free plan has no data caps
which is a big advantage
because you can actually use Proton VPN
as a true free VPN, but they are limiting speed.
They say on their website that their 10 gigabit servers
are restricted for their paid plan,
and this is definitely evidenced
by the three megabits per second that I got
when testing one of their servers.
Obviously, both of these free VPNs are hoping you'll upgrade
to the paid plans but are either worth the money.
While Proton VPN offers a one year account for $71.88
and that gives you access to their fastest servers,
all their locations and their secure core feature.
Atlas VPN offers a one year account for 39.42
and that gives you access to all their locations
and their ad blocker and tracker blocker.
Honestly, I think Atlas VPN is a way better value here.
It's almost half the price
and they have a much cleaner reputation than Proton VPN
when it comes to privacy
and everything else just works great.
But if you absolutely need a free VPN,
which free VPN is worth using?
Well, my favorite free VPN is Atlas VPN.
It is so far ahead of the competitors
with speed and quality,
and although there is a five gig data cap,
I think this is going to be doable for many users
who are on the go and just do light web browsing.
And maybe you don't need a VPN 24/7,
maybe you'll just use it when you're at the coffee shop
or traveling between cities
and for that, Atlas VPN is wonderful.
But if you really need a free VPN that has unlimited data,
Proton VPN is honestly one of your only options.
I can't find many free VPNs that offer unlimited data.
Proton VPN is the main player in the space doing that,
so if you need unlimited data and you need a $0 price tag,
then Proton VPN is the obvious choice.
If you're considering upgrading to the paid plan
of either of these VPNs, I would highly recommend Atlas VPN.
And if you want a paid VPN that has more features
and is a smoother experience,
my favorite overall VPN is NordVPN.
If you're curious about my thoughts on the top paid VPNs,
I have an entire comparison video on that here.