Im a happy Proton user myself but if someone wanted the absolute most secure and private and reputable VPN I would point them to Mullvad. The main reason I use Proton is because I use the other apps in their suite as well and I get the VPN in the package deal. The threat model is good enough for my use cases

I am also a relatively happy proton user (now, but wasn't always this way). I second this. Based off the site, it looks like Mullvad passed a real world test too, Proton has not. I haven't tried Mullvad in a couple of years, but they were always reliable and fast. The only issue I had with Mullvad was getting connected to enough peers when torrenting, especially on older torrents where the pool of users is small. Proton's port forwarding feature did noticeably help with that. I do enjoy being able to pay a discounted yearly subscription price with Proton and their user interface is nice. There are some minor problems with split-tunneling in Proton though, sometimes it doesn't work and I haven't figured out why.

Mullvad doesn't support port forwarding [1] for users that need it unlike proton vpn [2].

Although I have never needed it myself, which in that case Mullvad might be better since they require minimal registration details.

[1]: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/removing-the-support-for-forward...

[2]: https://protonvpn.com/support/port-forwarding

unless you have a specific use case where you need to run a server through your vpn this isn't as much of a problem as you think it is.

torrents for example have hole punching functionality built into uTP where reachable peers help unreachable peers connect to each other.

The companies to trust are the ones that don’t run ads. I’ve used mullvad for a decade, before that airvpn.

I was a Mullvad user but needed forwarded ports so went back to AirVPN.

No issues so far.

Company who's blog post this is ain't bad either if you're looking for a non-ecosystem VPN. Proton is trying to be Nord and create an ecosystem of products that store all your most private data, all under the umbrella of 1 company which defeats the whole point of a VPN who should have no data on you (not even an email).

PS. I'm from the company who's blog post this is.

> Proton is trying to be Nord

I feel like it's Nord who's trying to be Proton but worse, no? Nord had just the VPN until recently, unlike Proton which was already trying to build an ecosystem (although they did speed up the new product drops significantly in the past few years). And unlike Nord, at least Proton actually has proper zero-access encryption and stuff, and they seem to know what they're talking about rather than just relying on influencer marketing.

Proton used to have mail, they they launched a VPN. Then cloud storage, then password manager, then docs + calendar, then wallet, now also AI and MFA app. They're following literally in Nord's footsteps, all Nord needs to do is launch a mail service and the circle is complete.

Proton is doing influencer marketing now too btw. Parallels are uncanny. All this while claiming to fight Google/big tech, but essentially offering the same products that store the same personal data.

But it is not a US company.