Proton Partners Program - Reviews and experiences

I was halfway through trying to watch something on HBO, thinking “okay, little buffer, whatever,” and then the playback just froze like my brain at 7 a.m. That was the first real clue. I’d signed up for Proton while living in Ho Chi Minh — VPN seemed sensible on VNPT ADSL — so I wasn’t expecting miracles, just that it wouldn’t wreck my connection. First impression? Hopeful but cautious. Interface was fine, privacy spiel was convincing, install was painless. Then I turned it on and everything went weird.
I ran the usual sanity checks because that’s what you do now, right? Baseline, VPN off: nPerf to Singapore — something like 950 Mbps down, 240 up, ping ~48 ms. Browsing felt snappy, streaming was smooth. Proton on, picking servers in Perth and Hanoi: Perth showed ~730 Mbps down but upload collapsed to 2–3 Mbps and ping ballooned to ~160 ms. Hanoi was worse — 180+ ms, upload strangled, streaming tests errored out or spiked to absurd values. Pages hung, logins timed out, web apps felt gluey. Same laptop, same cable (wired Cat5), same ISP. The only variable was the VPN toggle.
I went full detective: screenshots, side‑by‑side tests (VPN on vs off, different exit servers), streaming attempts, multiple nPerf runs. Sent it all to support. At first I thought they were helpful because someone answered quickly on the forum, but the actual support I got via tickets was slow and, honestly, boilerplate. Copy‑paste responses, long delays, and eventually a note saying “sorry, your 30‑day window is closed” when I asked for a refund — which felt cheeky since I’d been reporting the problem for weeks.
There’s a specific second I’ll never forget: I turned Proton off mid‑test, watched the latency drop to 48 ms and upload rocket back up, and a page that had been stuck loading just finished like nothing ever happened. That tiny instant — the switch, the immediate return to normal — was vindicating. Not because Proton fixed anything, but because I finally had proof for myself of what was happening. Satisfaction: I wasn’t satisfied with Proton; I was satisfied that I knew the cause and could act.
So I cancelled Proton (no dramatic refund, just the usual corporate shrug) and tried a competitor. Different provider, same machine, same ISP — and streaming worked, pages loaded, uploads weren’t strangled. Relief is underrated. The light scepticism that I’d had at signup flipped into outright relief: happy I’d tested, happy I’d documented it, happy I’d made the switch.
If you’re in Vietnam on VNPT and considering Proton, go in with your eyes open: it might install fine, and the privacy pitch is convincing, but test it under real‑world load. If you run into the slow‑upload/huge‑ping issue, screenshots help, but don’t hold your breath for miracles from support. In my case the best feeling was the simple one — turning something off and watching my internet come back to life. That’s when I knew I was done with Proton.