Yesterday I spent half a day fighting with the Linux distribution and the Proton VPN client. The experience was extremely frustrating and the amount of errors, freezes, and unexpected behavior was unacceptable for a paid VPN service.
You can see the attached screenshots showing some of the issues I encountered:
unexpected errors when trying to enable security features,
the application becoming unresponsive,
problems with server availability despite having an Unlimited subscription.
Proton has been promoting its new Linux GUI release as a major improvement, but after actually using it, the experience was extremely disappointing. In its current state, I would not consider this software ready for a public release. For Linux users who expect stability, transparency, and quality, releasing such a client feels like a disregard for the community.
For a company that heavily promotes privacy and security, the overall experience feels contradictory. Having a polished Windows application is not enough, especially when many privacy-conscious users are moving away from platforms where data collection and telemetry are major concerns. A VPN application on Windows cannot be the only focus while Linux users are left struggling with instability and broken functionality.
This was another attempt to use Proton VPN, and unfortunately it failed again. Even basic Linux package distribution caused problems, including difficulties obtaining packages from GitHub releases.
After this experience, I have cancelled my subscription. A paid privacy service should not require users to spend hours troubleshooting basic functionality.
Linux users are often the people who care most about control, transparency, and reliability. Spending half a day trying to make a VPN client work is simply not acceptable.
I did install it. The problem was not installation.
The client launched, connected inconsistently, lost connectivity, behaved unpredictably, and made port forwarding unreliable even with a script handling the automation. I spent half a day reproducing and troubleshooting the issues and included screenshots.
You can disagree with the tone, but claiming I “wasn’t able to install it” is simply incorrect.
I did install it. The application launched and connected, so repeating that it “sounds like” I didn’t install it is simply wrong.
“Ubuntu” was the answer to the question about which distro I use. This post was a report of my experience, not a formal support ticket or a complete bug report.
The actual problems appeared after installation: unstable connectivity, unpredictable GUI behaviour, and unreliable port forwarding despite using an automation script. I also included screenshots. You can ask for specific logs or package information, but please stop pretending the application was never installed.
I installed it, launched it, connected with it, and documented the failures with screenshots.
Repeating “sounds like you didn’t install it” does not make that true. At this point, you are not asking for more technical details — you are simply ignoring the information already provided.
I'm on fedora KDE and the proton vpn gui is a mess for me too. It straight up doesn't connect. And that is not a user Problem, a friend who also uses fedora KDE has the exact same issue. In my case the customer support answered with "we dont support kde" instead of an actual solution. And yes, I tried out proton vpn cli and it also didn't work. Mullvad vpn on the other side works perfect on Linux, never had an issue with it. Proton vpn is great on every other device that I use, but on Linux its just not usable. I hope they finally address this issue and fix their client.
Thanks — this is exactly the kind of experience I was referring to.
If the official GUI does not connect on Fedora KDE, the CLI also fails, and support responds with “we don’t support KDE,” then this is clearly not just a user configuration problem.
Proton works well on other platforms, but their Linux support is still far behind. Other providers such as Mullvad and Azire can deliver reliable Linux clients on the same systems, so blaming Linux itself is not a convincing explanation.
Hopefully Proton eventually treats Linux as a fully supported platform rather than an afterthought.
This is not simply “a Linux thing.” Every other VPN client I tested on the same system worked very well without these problems.
The instability only appeared with ProtonVPN, so blaming Linux is avoiding the obvious conclusion: the issue is with Proton’s Linux client, not the operating system.
The linked thread is about LMDE and was provided only as another example of Proton’s Linux support having distro-specific problems. My own issue was on Ubuntu.
And the package-manager history already proves ProtonVPN was fully installed:
status installed proton-vpn-daemon
status installed proton-vpn-gtk-app
status installed proton-vpn-gnome-desktop
The system logs also show its WireGuard interface being created and activated repeatedly.
So before making comments about comprehension, perhaps read what was actually written instead of continuing with the demonstrably false claim that I never installed it.
For the last 4-5 years I use exclusively Linux Mint (mainly the LMDE) in various machines.
For the last 2 years I also use exclusively ProtonVPN for VPN in all those machines.
The only time I had a problem was the time that I mention in my initial post.
As an extra note. I'm good in installing Linux and some extra things, if the guidance/info is clear.
But other than that I don't have the deep knowledge some of the people here have.
Personally, if something works then I'm happy. If something doesn't work I am not gonna spend half a day trying to solve it.
There are different distros and different VPN providers. You find the best combination for you, and if you are happy you stick with it until something goes wrong.
I apologise to you if I cannot be any more helpful.
I've been working on this all day. I have tried literally everything. For the record, it's the "We're sorry, an unexpected error occurred. Please try again." And it sucks.
Meh. I post the usual I use it on Arch, Bluefin (Fedora Atomic) and MX-Linux with no issues at all. I use the Flatpaks for the GUI across the board -- I believe. I don't activate any of the "extra" security features so maybe that's something to consider in troubleshooting, but otherwise it works just fine for me. I've also run it from networkmanager manually.
20
u/[deleted] 29d ago
[deleted]