Proton VPN announced Stealth, its new, undetectable VPN protocol that can bypass most firewalls and VPN blocking methods. As a result, users will be able to bypass advanced VPN blocks, access censored sites, and communicate with people on social media — even if their government is trying to restrict access.
The birth of Stealth
Proton VPN was launched back in 2017 when the team behind the secure email service Proton Mail decided to enter this market, providing “freedom and privacy” to users all around the world.
Alas, some governments managed to block VPN services, going IP address by IP address, or using more advanced techniques such as deep packet inspection.
And so the fighting continued, prompting best VPNs to up their game on a regular basis. To that end, Proton VPN launched Secure Core VPN to provide “greater privacy than typical VPN services.”
A few years later, in 2020, alternative routing was added to the feature mix, bypassing VPN blocks by rerouting Proton’s connections over other hard-to-trace paths. Finally, in 2021, VPN Accelerator was released, providing connection speeds that are up to 400% faster — which is critically important for users in far-flung regions with slower internet.
Whereas some other VPNs have built their own protocols on top of existing solutions, Proton VPN designed its Stealth protocol from the ground up to make Proton VPN connections almost completely undetectable.
Stealth is available on all Proton VPN plans, including the Free plan, because “everyone deserves online freedom.” You can use Stealth on Proton’s Android app, and it’s coming to their Windows, Linux, macOS, and iOS apps soon.
How to use Stealth?
To activate Stealth, open the Proton VPN app on your device.
- On Android, go to Settings -> Advanced -> Protocol and choose “Stealth”.
- On iOS and iPadOS, go to Settings -> Security options -> Protocol and choose “Stealth.”
- On macOS, ProtonVPN in the macOS taskbar, go to Preferences -> Connection -> Protocol and select “Stealth” from the dropdown menu.
The “magic” behind Stealth VPN
The general idea of most VPN protocols is to make VPN traffic look like “normal” traffic or common HTTPS connections. Stealth does this by using obfuscated TLS tunneling over TCP, which is different from most popular VPN protocols that typically use UDP, making them easier to detect and block. Furthermore, Stealth also establishes VPN connections in a specific and unique way that avoids alerting internet filters.
Nevertheless, the Stealth VPN protocol is also optimized for high performance and is compatible with Proton’s VPN Accelerator technology. Coupled with the app’s lightweight internals, Stealth can achieve higher performance than older obfuscated VPN protocols that are generally built on top of OpenVPN over TCP.
A good day to try Proton VPN…
If you still don’t use a VPN, now’s the time to change that. Yes, today is a good day to try one out. And with Proton VPN, you can do that for free — and upgrade only if/when you determine it works for you. Try it from a location like a school or a workplace that you know employs censorship and see if it works for you. And only then proceed with spending your hard-earned cash. Hit the link below to get yourself Proton VPN…
Pros
Cons
- Easy to use apps for popular platforms
- Works with Netflix and Hulu
- Dedicated servers for Tor and torrenting
- There's a free version of the service
- No live chat support
- Doesn't work well with BBC iPlayer