I’ve been using Proton for a couple of years now and absolutely love the quality… usually.
However, within the past week, I have noticed more of the servers being blacklisted from streaming apps and, more annoyingly, that the general speeds have suffered a lot.
I normally averaged about 80MB while connected to the app via WireGuard (which is as fast as my internet speed goes). Since about 3 days ago, I am lucky to hit 4MB with random bursts of speed going to 10MB. Additionally, social media apps have been breaking and failing to load videos or images altogether.
What’s the deal here?
I’ve been seeing the same thing on Canadian servers, though not all of them.
Seems like there might be a rise in bot attacks using VPNs or something.
I haven’t noticed anything unusual. My speeds and connection are still great and the only streaming app i can’t access is tubi but i have 5 others i can watch without issue. iOS 15.4 with protonvpn plus
No issues for me either using free US servers for streaming. They have just added a load more. I have three different vpn’s for streaming. One will never work with all of them. Their really cracking down; especially Netflix
Hi! Could you let us know with which servers in particular you experienced this? Were you connected to a streaming-support Plus server when you experienced the streaming issue: https://protonvpn.com/support/streaming-guide/? Which apps did you experience the issue with?
Have you tried switching to a different protocol (e.g. IKEv2) to see if you will experience normal speeds while connected to the VPN? We do not limit the bandwidth of your connection, so connection speeds may be influenced by many other factors such as your native ISP speed, location, server load, network setup, etc. You could try some of the tips in this guide to improve your connection speeds: https://protonvpn.com/support/increase-vpn-speeds/.
Please feel free to send us the error logs through the ‘Report an Issue’ option in the app so we can further look into the problem.
That could make sense!
Same thing here, in that manually selecting other US servers seems to fix it, at least temporarily.
Yeah, I think the problem is limited to a few servers in TX and GA specifically. I think I might have gotten unlucky and hit problematic servers a few times in a row, but thank you for the feedback to confirm!
Oh definitely, I switch up servers when I hit a specific one that has been blacklisted. Funny enough, I am also subscribed to 3 VPN services and ProtonVPN is by far the best for streaming in my experience (almost never blacklisted, even by Hulu’s strict standards).
I think I just got unlucky and hit a string of servers in TX and GA that either had some hardware issues or might have been mass blacklisted. Switching to other regions manually seems to clear it all up!
Hi there! I experienced this using the Dallas, TX and Atlanta, GA servers (multiple of them, as they are the closest when I use “fastest connection”) and the apps which experienced connection errors were Instagram, Twitter, Signal, and Hulu. I think this was not due to any particular failure on the apps’ part, since this affected my internet connection in general, but that is where it affected service the most drastically.
Switching protocols didn’t help. I was only able to regain normal speeds by manually selecting other locations. I don’t think ISP speeds were the rate limiting factor, as my limit is 80MB, which I hit consistently using other ProtonVPN servers. By manually switching to NY or FL servers, everything works perfectly as usual.
Thank you for taking notice of my issue, though!
I’m going to subscribe to Proton when my other two expire. Yes, it definitely seems like a good vpn. Just one issue I have sometimes. Using Firestick Max & selecting my server. Connected, then try & start a streaming app; not connected. Go back into Proton; not connected? I normally have to reboot the Firestick & chose favourite location USA. Might be because I’m using their free 32 US servers. Do you ever have this issue on Premium? I don’t want to subscribe & have the same issues
Thank you for the follow-up! We’re glad the speed improved after manually connecting to another server. Perhaps the server you were initially connected to was overloaded at the time. You can also try turning on VPN Accelerator in your app settings, or try switching to OpenVPN - TCP, in case you’re experiencing an unstable connection with all servers.
If you notice issues only with specific servers, please tell us the server number and send us the error logs through the ‘Report an Issue’ option in the app settings, so our technical support team can check if there’s any packet loss or some other issue.
Well, take it with a grain of salt as this is purely anecdotal, but the difference is huge.
I don’t think I ever connected to Hulu or Netflix successfully off the free plans when I tried that about a year ago, but after switching to premium, I think it has only been like twice out of hundreds of log-ins that I have ever had to change servers (until this past week, which seems limited to some TX and GA servers). Of course, this can change as different services put more resources into updating their block lists, but it seems really good to me and should stay this way for a long while. Disclaimer: I have not tested it on Firestick (just on iOS and on my router), but if it uses the same servers for this, I think it should also work.
For comparison, I also have NordVPN and it has only been able to get me into Netflix — both Amazon Prime and Hulu catch it nearly every time for me. I have also used MullVad, and it’s better than Nord, but not as good as Proton+ for streaming. The thing that makes Mullvad awesome is that they allow router-level wireguard connections, which is insane and something I hope Proton implements in the future.
Also, since I use it mostly on my iPhone, I like that Proton is the only one with a kill switch function. The secure core feature might be great, but I’m not a war journalist or spy and the connection is noticeably slower, so the extra servers for streaming and kill switch function are really the only reasons I went for premium.