Proton VPN has rolled out a series of updates, designed to fight censorship and protect free speech.
Its most notable feature is in the Android app, one of the best Android VPNs on the market. The feature, called Discreet Icon, lets users disguise the Proton VPN app icon as a weather, notes, or calculator app to help protect their privacy if their devices are seized by governments, police, or other authorities.
The company believes that a concealed icon could prevent authorities from easily discovering the user’s activities and reduce the risk of prosecution in places with anti-VPN laws.
“It has become increasingly common for authoritarian governments to go beyond purely online technical measures to discourage or block VPN use,” says David Peterson, general manager for Proton VPN, in a statement. “Certain countries have even begun demanding citizens hand over their smartphones for physical inspection. Protecting free speech and fighting censorship is a core part of our mission, and we’re committed to doing what we can to help users around the world.
“With today’s announcements, we hope to give people the tools they need to bypass censorship and access a free and fair internet, wherever they are.”
Note that if you choose to hide the Proton VPN app on your Android device, you should also disable all notifications from the app, as notifications won’t be automatically masked.
In addition to Discreet Icons, Proton is adding its Stealth protocol to the Windows app. This protocol makes VPN traffic look like regular HTTPS traffic, so ISPs (Internet Service Providers) in places that restrict or ban VPNs are less likely to block the user’s VPN traffic.
Proton is also launching a dozen new local servers in countries that rank the lowest on the Freedom House Index and Democracy Index lists. The VPN is setting up these servers in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Yemen.
“This further underlines our commitment to free speech and means that in these countries, Proton VPN will have local servers available to protect users in the event of government crackdowns and censorship,” the company said.