Proton VPN
Version: 4.1.0 Web: https://protonvpn.com
Proton has a good track record when it comes to open source security products. Its Proton Mail service is popular with privacy-conscious users, particularly for its open source web client and the Mail Bridge app. The company has extended its same open source promise to its Proton VPN service, which has a very useful and unlimited free tier as well.
To get started, you first have to create an account with the service. While its paid accounts are competitively priced, it does let you create a free account as well. When creating an account, which involves nothing more than giving it your email address, the service creates a strong password for you, although you can replace it with your own.
After you have created an account with the service, you need to install its open source client. Proton has official binary clients for Deb- and RPMbased distributions. Experienced campaigners can also configure OpenVPN or WireGuard to route traffic through Proton VPN. However, the most convenient mechanism is to use the unofficial distro-agnostic Flatpak package with the flatpak install flathub com. protonvpn.www command.
When you fire up the app, you have to log in with the credentials that you used when creating your account with the service. You’re then shown a list of servers. You can just hit the Quick Connect button to delegate the server selection to the app, or you can select a server manually from the list. Users of the free service can only select one of three countries, namely Japan, Netherlands and the US.
You can use the Connect button next to a country, or use the pull-down menu to select a specific server within the country. Servers are listed along with their load, although the ones with the lowest load aren’t available to free users.