Using Vivaldi with a (paid) Proton VPN Plus subscription

Raident

As a paid Proton VPN user, I find the new feature to be confusing. There's a serious lack of documentation on how it works (or doesn't) with the Proton VPN desktop client. Am I supposed to:

Enable VPN in both the desktop client and Vivaldi?
Pick one or the other?
Do something else entirely?

stc1000

@Raident

My understanding of this is based on the assumption that it’s the same as the Proton VPN browser extension for all chrome or Firefox based browsers.

This means that if you have a paid Proton subscription you are better making the connection through the Proton app that way you will have;

1 A more secure WireGuard connection for all apps you are using on the computer rather than just the browser.

2 I believe that the browser extension only establishes a https tunnel to Protons servers (happy to be corrected if anyone knows something different). IMO this is nowhere near as secure as WireGuard.

3 You could of course use the browser extension if you wanted to have your specific browser to connect to a different VPN destination or you wanted to have your computer apps connect to your home country IP maybe because you need a local IP for some services and want your browsing protected and have a ‘foreign’ IP.

If you connect both main Proton app and your Browser client at the same time then you use up two connections to your Proton account and you just end up pushing an https connection down a WireGuard tunnel. Will be a bit slower with minor security benefit but depending on your risk profile it’s your call. There are a lot of possible reasons to do this but would mean too much typing right now.

Hope this is helpful

Raident

@stc1000 said in Using Vivaldi with a (paid) Proton VPN Plus subscription:

3 You could of course use the browser extension if you wanted to have your specific browser to connect to a different VPN destination or you wanted to have your computer apps connect to your home country IP maybe because you need a local IP for some services and want your browsing protected and have a ‘foreign’ IP.

For a brief moment, I got all excited thinking that maybe the integrated browser VPN could work on a per-tab basis, bypassing geoblocking for multiple sites/countries simultaneously without having to constantly switch VPN servers.

But nope, sadly it doesn't work that way The browser VPN truly is useless if you already have the desktop app.

stc1000

@Raident

Ah too much excitement! It’s good marketing for Vivaldi and a good way to encourage VPN use.