Huawei shows off AI computing system to rival Nvidia’s top product
Reuters
Source: “site:reuters.com” – Google News.

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world and sinking into a new album can feel like a train ride through the countryside … unless you’re sharing that seat with two toddlers. Or if your neighbor’s dog is barking. Come to think of it, there are a lot of sounds that can ruin a good song. That’s why we have headphones that isolate and cancel-out noise. Below are the best noise-canceling headphones and earbuds you can buy, handpicked and tested by the Gear team here at WIRED.
Our top pick right now is the Sony WH-1000XM6, which offer some of the most staggering isolation we’ve ever experienced in a pair of headphones. The Bose QuietComfort Ultra are a close second, with similarly impressive quietude, and there are plenty more options at all price points to help you find the right fit. For more, check out our guides on the Best Wireless Earbuds, Best Workout Headphones, Best Cheap Headphones, and Best Wireless Headphones.
Updated July 2025: We’ve added the Sony WH-1000XM6 and Nothing Headphone (1) and updated pricing and copy throughout with the latest information.
Now that the majority of new headphones and earbuds offer at least a modicum of noise canceling, it’d be impossible (and unproductive) to list everything we like above. If you haven’t yet found your fit, here are more favorites worth considering.
Beyerdynamic Amiron 300 for $280: These simple-looking earbuds (8/10, WIRED Recommends) are a great way to experience quiet luxury. They have 10 hours of battery life with noise canceling engaged, and they have some of the best-sounding drivers for vocals I’ve heard in any earbuds.
Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds for $298: Sony’s fifth-generation flagship earbuds (7/10, WIRED Recommends) slim down while stepping up. These buds are smaller and slicker (maybe too slick when it comes to grabbing them) than the previous XM4 buds. As before, they provide great sound and noise canceling that outduels plenty of options, with a cost to match. In true Sony style, they serve up a truckload of adaptive features and EQ controls while retaining a solid eight hours of playback time per charge with ANC and 12 hours without it. —Ryan Waniata
Soundcore Life Q30 for $60-85: Anker’s Soundcore line is nothing if not value-conscious, and the Life Q30 provide an embarrassing list of extras for their bargain-basement pricing. You’ll get clear and warm sound, great features, tons of battery life, and noise canceling that gets the job done even on a long flight, though it can’t keep up with flagship pairs. It’s hard to complain when they cost hundreds less, especially with sale pricing that sometimes drops to around $50.
Sony WH-1000XM4 for $250-350: Sony’s WH-1000X lineup has produced some of the best noise-canceling headphones for nearly a decade, and the aging WH-1000XM4 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) are no exception. They periodically go on sale for under $300, but it’s getting harder to find them below full price, which is tough for a five-year-old model.
Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 Earbuds for $400: Bowers & Wilkins’ Pi8 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) offer a sleek, comfortable design, solid (albeit not Bose-beating) noise canceling, and great sound. Call quality is also excellent, which makes these perhaps the perfect business-class earbuds, though their hefty price won’t appeal to everyone.
Bowers and Wilkins PX7 S2e for $400: The Px7 S2e feature upgraded audio quality for fantastic sound in stylish and sophisticated design. They’re also among the most comfortable headphones we’ve tested, but their noise canceling doesn’t rise to the level of the top players for the money.
Beyerdynamic Aventho 300 for $400: These over-ears from Beyerdynamic (7/10, WIRED Recommends) have the brand’s classic studio sound, with a tight crisp high range and punchy lows. The downside is that they don’t cancel noise quite as well as models from Sony, Bose, and others above. Still, they sound great and are worth considering, especially if you can snag them on sale.
Soundcore Space A40 for $60: Another top value buy from Anker’s Soundcore brand, the Space A40 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) are some of our favorite cheap earbuds, especially as their price continues to fall. You’ll find a classy design, lots of features, quality sound, and great noise canceling for their class.
Apple Beats Fit Pro for $199: The Beats Fit Pro are an aging but still knockout pair of wireless buds, with great sound, easy-access physical buttons, and solid noise canceling to boot. Add to that six hours of battery life, spatial audio compatibility with Apple Music and other services, and you’ve got one of the best pairs of earbuds ever “designed in California.”
Epos/Sennheiser Adapt 660 for $210: Want excellent sound, a comfortable fit, and high-quality noise-canceling tech for less than what you’d pay for Sony or Bose headphones? Check out this collaboration between Epos and Sennheiser. The Epos/Sennheiser Adapt 660 (8/10, WIRED Recommends) sound fantastic and are some of the lightest noise-canceling headphones I’ve ever worn. They also feature excellent microphones for great silence on calls and Zooms.
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Source: Wired.

Applying serious pressure with the latest from Matroda: ‘House x Pressure’. 🔥 Subscribe and enable alerts (🔔) for a new track upload daily! Spotify playlist ▶︎ https://spoti.fi/2XkCG4O 🫵 DJ & producer recommendations: »» 20% discount on all sample packs (use code NYX20) ➡ https://techhousemarket.com »» 20% discount on all vocal packs (use code NYX20) ➡ https://vocalfy.com »» Support the artist and buy records ➡ https://beatport.com/?a_aid=67bedae00dabb »» Fresh new tech house samples & loops ➡ https://loopcloud.com/?a_aid=67bedae00dabb Connect with NYX: »» https://instagram.com/themythofnyx »» https://soundcloud.com/themythofnyx »» https://twitter.com/themythofnyx »» https://facebook.com/themythofnyx Connect with Matroda: »» https://facebook.com/matrodamusic »» https://soundcloud.com/matrodamusic »» https://twitter.com/matrodamusic »» https://instagram.com/matrodamusic Tags: #matroda #housexpressure #techhouse #extendedmix #themythofnyx
Source: YouTube.


We’re in the heart of summer fun, but it’s already time for back-to-school planning, especially if that involves buying a new laptop.
The dizzying number of different laptops and configurations can feel overwhelming, especially if you want something that doesn’t cost too much but will still last a long time. My general guidelines are to first pick the operating system you need (based on personal preference or class requirements), and then get the best specs you can afford. If your school has specific requirements or recommendations, they are likely found on the school website. A quality laptop should also have a good screen, keyboard, and trackpad — and preferably enough ports and some decent speakers.
Unless you’re buying a Chromebook, aim for an M4 processor (for Macs) or an Intel Core Ultra 5 or 7, an AMD Ryzen AI 300 series, or a Qualcomm Snapdragon X processor on a Windows machine, especially if you want your laptop to last at least four years. Aim for at least 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. If your budget allows for more RAM or storage then go for it, especially if neither is user-replaceable — it’ll help with performance and longevity. If you have to choose based on budget, prioritize RAM, since external storage is easily available.
Taking much of that into account, here are our top picks among current laptops.

| Pros | Cons |
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Unless you’re going into a field involving lots of graphics rendering or video editing, a MacBook Air should be more than enough computer to last through the student years. The Air is our top laptop recommendation for most people, and that includes students — particularly students in high school or starting college. Nothing else offers quite the same balance of performance, build quality, and battery life as Apple’s entry-level laptop. It’s a speedy little machine that can even handle some heftier content creation work. Its battery can easily get you through a packed day of classes. And it has the best trackpad around. The only major downside with an Air (as with all modern MacBooks) is that you can’t upgrade the storage or memory after you buy it.
Now that MacBooks start with 16GB of RAM, even the base $999 13-inch model is excellent, if a little short on storage space at 256GB. So you may want to consider the $1,199 model with 512GB of storage. For the same price you can get the larger 15-inch model with roomier screen real estate and even better speakers, but then you’re once again starting with 256GB.

| Pros | Cons |
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The original M1 MacBook Air can still be bought new from Walmart for $649 or less. Even at five years old, it remains a very good machine for those on tighter budgets, but it’s worth hunting for a deal on an M2 MacBook Air or newer if you can. That lingering M1 only has 8GB of RAM, and newer M2 and M3 versions have MagSafe chargers, better keyboards, and markedly better screens. You can often find one with 16GB of RAM for just a bit more than the M1, and it’ll be better for the long haul.

| Pros | Cons |
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MacBook Pros have long been a staple on college campuses for students in creative fields, and the latest base version is one of the best laptops Apple has cooked up in years. Apple’s base model 14-inch MacBook Pro is a step up from the MacBook Air, with the same M4 chip. Its starting price of $1,599 is a significant jump from a $999 Air, but you get better performance and a bunch of worthwhile upgrades. The Pro has more ports than the Air, including an SD card reader and HDMI 2.1. Its screen is a nicer Mini LED panel with higher resolution and faster refresh rate. It’s got more ports, including an SD card reader and HDMI 2.1. It starts with 512GB of storage. And its battery lasts even longer.
These upgrades go a long way in making the MacBook Pro better and more futureproof for heavier creative tasks. Especially since it has a fan to cool its chip, allowing you to use content creation apps like the Adobe Creative Cloud suite for longer — the passively cooled Air starts off fast in these apps, but slows down considerably once its chip starts getting too hot.
Apple has two higher-end MacBook Pros: the 14- and 16-inch models running M4 Pro and M4 Max chips. They’re fantastic laptops with even more processing power than the base M4, plus upgrades like Thunderbolt 5 ports, but they start at $1,999 and $3,199, respectively. An M4 Pro model is a more futureproof option, but these are better fit for a working professional than a student.

| Pros | Cons |
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The Framework Laptop 13 and 2-in-1 Laptop 12 are notebooks that can grow and change with you. They’re easily repairable, and even years down the road you should be able to upgrade the RAM, storage, ports, and the entire mainboard and processor. They even have optional DIY editions, requiring some easy assembly — which I assure you is a joyously nerdy way to familiarize yourself with the inner workings of your laptop. There’s nothing else like them, and if you or your kid are the tinkering types it’s a fun experience for running either Windows or Linux.
But you don’t have to be going for a computer engineering degree. Even a newcomer can appreciate how Framework allows you to choose modular ports and swap them out at will. You can go all USB-C like a MacBook Air, or you can get funky by mixing and matching USB-A, DisplayPort, HDMI, SD / microSD card readers, and even an ethernet port.
You just have to be willing to pay extra for the Frameworks’ modularity, upgradeability, and easy repairability, as they cost more than equivalent or better-specced laptops from other manufacturers. The newer Laptop 12 isn’t as good a choice for most people because of its price and older Intel chips, but its shock-resistant chassis and convertible tablet form factor make it even more uniquely appealing for younger kids.

| Pros | Cons |
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| Pros | Cons |
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The latest, lower-cost Surfaces from Microsoft are great machines with excellent battery life, great standby times when left asleep, and solid performance. They’re Arm-based, which is what gives them that excellent battery life, but can lead to some app compatibility issues. Most common programs run fine, either natively or native-like via emulation. Just do your homework; if certain classes require specific apps, check to make sure they’ll run.
The 12-inch Surface Pro (starting at $799.99) and 13-inch Laptop (starting at $899.99) are well constructed, ultra-portable machines that feel very nice to use. Despite being the cheaper Windows laptops in this list, neither feels like a diminished experience (save for some odd design choices, like a lack of face unlock in the Laptop).
You can look at it as simply picking your preferred form factor: a traditional clamshell laptop or a convertible tablet with keyboard cover. The Laptop is the better buy, because the Surface Pro’s must-buy keyboard cover is an extra $150 (or $250 bundled with the stylus) — meaning its true starting price is around $850.

| Pros | Cons |
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| Pros | Cons |
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If you need or prefer a Chromebook for school and favor a traditional clamshell laptop, the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 is the best one. It’s a great Chromebook for older students, and a solid machine for just about anyone who wants a no-nonsense everyday computer. For $750 you get a fantastic touchscreen OLED display with deep contrast and vivid colors, a great keyboard, and marathon battery life. It’s a package that’s well built and totally silent thanks to a fanless design.
The Arm-based MediaTek processor is what gives the Lenovo its zippy performance and battery stretching into a second day of use. It can also lead to some small compatibility issues if you venture into using Linux apps (they need to be Arm compatible), but that’s unlikely to affect most users.
The Chromebook Plus 14 has some other small flaws, like lackluster 5Gbps data speeds on its USB ports and an only-okay trackpad, but it nails most everything else. And, again, paying only $750 for a 14-inch OLED panel this nice is a rare treat.

| Pros | Cons |
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If you want a 2-in-1 convertible Chromebook, the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714 is your bag. The 2024 Acer may now be getting outclassed by the freshly launched Lenovo, but it’s still one of our top picks since it’s so versatile.
The Chromebook Spin 714 and its Intel processor offers a great balance of performance, battery life, and specs for the money. It has speedy Thunderbolt 4 ports, and its x86 architecture allows for free rein to install and tinker with Linux apps.
Now that this latest version of the Spin is a year old (though still current), it can occasionally be had for $200 off. So if you want a top-flight Chromebook you can find for a decent discount, the Spin is a great choice.

| Pros | Cons |
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If you’re shopping for a younger student and don’t want to spend a ton, but also don’t want to risk buying something crappy, the 14-inch Asus Chromebook Plus CX34 is a safe bet. It’s one of the cheapest Chromebooks with the Plus designation, which means it meets a certain level of performance, battery life, and quality. Chromebook Plus laptops have better-than-average screens, and they should be able to last through a school day without needing a charge.
The CX34 normally costs $600 these days, but it sometimes sells for under $400. That’s the sweet spot, getting you excellent build quality, a nice screen, and a sleek design for an affordable price.
The CX34’s 1920 x 1080 / 250-nit display may feel a little cramped and dim compared to the 16:10 screens on the Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714 and Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14, but it offers a sharp picture with minimal glare. It’s got a great keyboard that Asus claims to have tested as spill-resistant, giving a bit more peace of mind when entrusting it to a child. The Asus remains a go-to choice for something you can have younger students use that lasts some years.

| Pros | Cons |
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Sometimes bigger is better, and the Asus Zenbook S 16 is a total treat of a Windows thin-and-light laptop. It’s got AMD Strix Point processors that are powerful enough for even some light gaming, and the star of the show is its 2880 x 1800 16-inch OLED touchscreen capable of a smooth 120Hz refresh rate.
The Zenbook S 16 is one of the pricier options we have here, with a standard price of $1,799.99, but it sometimes goes on sale for as much as $500 off. This is a very capable option for high school or college students who need to run Windows and prefer a big screen for easier multitasking. And its thinness makes it very portable for a 16-inch machine, making it less of a hassle to tote a large laptop around campus. Asus also makes a 14-inch version — we expect it to be similar, but we haven’t tested the smaller model.
The downside of the Zenbook’s powerful chip and thin chassis is that it’s not the battery champ some of the other options here are. It’s still enough to get through an average day of classes, but it’s going to need a charge in the late afternoon if you have a lengthy sprint of back-to-back lectures or you’re cramming late into the night.

| Pros | Cons |
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Treating your kid to a gaming laptop may seem like you’re inviting them to slack off, but if you want to splurge on one device for both schoolwork and play you can’t go wrong with Asus’ ROG Zephyrus G14. The G14 is as “normal” as gaming laptops get, with a design that doesn’t scream cringe-gamer too much (aside from some small ROG branding). Unlike many other gaming laptops, the Zephyrus has solid battery life that can get you through your day’s classes — assuming you save the gaming for when you plug in at the end of the day.
The $1,799.99 base model uses a capable AMD Ryzen 9 270 processor and discrete Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060, which is enough power to play just about any game, even the latest big-budget ones, albeit not at the highest settings.
An important part of what makes the G14 special is how good the rest of the laptop is. It’s got a crisp and lovely 14-inch OLED with 2880 x 1800 resolution and 120Hz refresh, a great keyboard, and a very good trackpad. It offers a bunch of ports, and it doesn’t run overly loud or hot when tackling the basic productivity stuff.
You’d be spoiling your kid a bit (maybe a lot of bit) with a laptop like this, but you can meet their school needs while also treating them to the world of PC gaming.
Source: The Verge.

surprising if a plate of chicken lababdar tastes delicious. The dish is among my favorite North Indian gravies, a slightly edgier cousin of butter chicken that’s a bit spicier and tangier but just as creamy.
What was surprising was that this particular chicken had arrived in the mail. Specifically, it came in a microwaveable tray from CookUnity meal delivery service that looked a little like a white-label TV dinner—packed up earlier that morning in Seattle, then driven down to me in Portland, Oregon.
The world of prepared meal delivery is erupting in popularity as of late, and pretty much every major meal kit service is getting in on the game. I have nonetheless learned to temper my expectations when testing ready-to-eat meals. It’s not easy to make pre-assembled meals taste good, even if they were good when they started. The problem is moisture. And the problem is the microwave. In many cases, the results have been OK to subpar.
But so far, CookUnity looks to be a big exception. CookUnity is a somewhat new model of prepared meal delivery service, something like a cross between a meal service and Doordash. Rather than make recipes in a top-down corporate kitchen, CookUnity is regional. The service enlists local and national chefs, and promises to bring restaurant-quality meals to the home—prepared according to recipes from occasionally quite big names. (Hello, Jose Garces.)
My chicken lababdar in particular was a lovely success. The saffron-tinged basmati rice maintained its moisture. My bits of thigh were plump and still juicy. The sauce was lightly tangy, a little fiery, with most of its sweetness coming from the natural sugars of tomato and puree. Quite frankly, it tasted a lot better than the chicken dishes I could get from the (admittedly not great) Punjabi restaurant down the street from my house. And yet prep was just a matter of popping my tray in the toaster oven for 12 minutes, or in the microwave for three.
Not every dish from CookUnity was as good as the lababdar from Seattle chef Gaurav Raj. More on that later. But in its ambition, its pool of culinary talent, and its diversity of dishes—Haitian! Indonesian! Filipino!—CookUnity is the best ready-to-eat meal delivery service I’ve yet tested or tasted.
Here’s the rundown, and the important caveats.
So first, the bad news: CookUnity isn’t available everywhere. The meal service is run out of eight regional commissary hubs around the United States and Canada: Seattle, LA, Austin, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Miami, and Toronto. This leaves out West Virginia, and a good swath of the Plains states.
But otherwise, if your zip code is covered, it goes like this: You sign up for a certain number of single-serve meals per week, which arrive in heatable trays in a big, cold-packed box. A representative menu for each region is available here, but you won’t see any given week’s menu where you live till you’ve entered your zip code and handed out your email address. (I know, I don’t love this either.)
Like any prepared meal service, CookUnity saves you a lot of effort. And while it costs less than a restaurant delivery, each meal generally costs more than it would take to buy the ingredients for batched meals at a store. (Though with far-flung dishes, this math can get complicated in a hurry: Largely because of spices and sauces, meal-kit meals can often be hard to replicate in a home kitchen without spending a lot of money.)
Discounts on your first week of orders from CookUnity are substantial, often as much as 60 percent off. But after you settle in, expect these single-serving meals to cost from $11 to $14 apiece depending on how many you order, plus maybe $15 per weekly box in service and delivery fees. Those who want to lock in a monthly subscription can avoid shipping costs and get discounts on some meals by paying $24 a month. Over the course of a month, this would lower your costs significantly—but also your flexibility when pausing or canceling delivery, which is otherwise pretty seamless.
What won me over with CookUnity is the quality of the meals—and the delivery service’s unique structure that puts individual chefs to the forefront.
Each meal has two heating options: a “fast,” usually microwaved option, or a “chef-recommended” option whose preparation still isn’t ever very complicated. Usually this means a toaster oven, or a pot for soup.
Unlike many prepared meal kits or ready-to-eat dinners, the meals tend to be substantial: 650 to 1,000 calories, meaning a single serving is usually a full and filling meal. And while the dishes are hardly health food, they’re also not the fat and salt bombs that often plague the format.
CookUnity calls itself a “chef collective.” In practice, this means it enlists restaurant chefs, including an interesting preponderance of Iron Chef alumni, to design recipes and run teams of cooks in any of the eight regional commissary kitchens.
Ingredients are sourced for the chefs by CookUnity in a shared kitchen. CookUnity handles the delivery. It also handles the packaging technology, which, through the magic of modified atmosphere packaging, can be stored at fridge temps for four to seven days.
But this said, each chef runs their own team of cooks within the commissary kitchen, just as if it were a restaurant. The net effect is that you find yourself ordering from individual chef operators, not quite from CookUnity itself—and the selection of chefs and dishes will be quite different from city to city and region to region. Some chefs might have operations in multiple cities. Some chefs will be quite local. It’s a smart system, when it works.
And so that chicken lababdar from Seattle was indeed packed and sent out the same day to Portland. It arrived the same day and was about as good as a delivery meal from DoorDash, but at a lower cost. Among other standout dishes, the Seattle kitchen run by Austin Haitian-Creole chef Nahika Hillery served up a sweet-sauced barbecue chicken herbed up with Haitian epis, alongside a fun, lightly spicy, beet-accented potato salad dotted with peas—a side that somehow felt Russian, African, and French all at once.
Other high points included a shrimp-topped udon soup from celebuchef Esther Choi, a shrimp and nopales plate from Seattle chef Santos Jiménez, and a well-designed walnut-feta-mint-farro-chicken salad from Los Angeles’ Dustin Taylor.
There were a couple misses, of course, including a lackluster lemon caper chicken fettuccine bearing the name of a Michelin-recognized chef, Kevin Meehan, out of Los Angeles. The sauce had clearly separated, leading to oily results. I also didn’t get along with a somewhat dull green curry tray from Los Angeles Filipina chef Stacy Bareng—mostly a twiggy profusion of bamboo shoot and bell pepper—but I enjoyed the fun Filipino-Mexican fusion of her pork adobo tacos.
But the thing is, just like DoorDash, you get to choose which chefs you order from and which ones you don’t choose again. And so if I stuck with the Seattle hub, I’d be hanging a lot with the good gravies from Chef Raj. But note that Seattle is one of the smallest hubs with just 13 chefs. People in the Northeast get to choose among more like 50 chefs.
But CookUnity’s regional strengths can also be regional weaknesses.
I had a terrific experience getting my meals from Seattle, about a three-hour drive away from my home. The ice pack stayed cold and the meals stayed in the safe temperature range. But I’ve seen other reports online from people in warmer regions, or who might live farther from their commissary kitchen.
But also, my experience with a given recipe in Seattle may not be yours at a different hub—even with the same chef’s name and face on your meal box. Some chefs operate four or five kitchens at different hubs. Different kitchens may have different results, even with the same recipes. I can only speak to my own good experience, and the good experience of my colleague Louryn Strampe, who ordered out of the Chicago hub. The quality of the meals she got straight up blew her mind, Strampe wrote—and she’s not always as kind to prepared meals.
Other quibbles? Maybe there are too few veggies in some dishes, perhaps because diners are more likely to complain when you skimp on the meat. Most meals are filled out in their calorie counts with starches like rice or noodles, an old saw well known to any and all restaurant chefs. That said, I’d rather they do this than leave me hungry. The meals remain substantial.
Mostly, I like the business model. Each chef making prepared meals is, essentially, a competing food business within the same big commissary kitchen. Their name is on each box, and a good number of the chefs have restaurants and reputations to protect. There are many incentives to make each meal interesting, and delicious. The results bear this out.
Source: Wired.


When it comes to defending Donald Trump from the worst accusations, the MAGA influencer-industrial complex, whether out of loyalty or self-preservation, often defaults to whataboutism, arguing that the Democrats are just as guilty as Trump, or (ideally) worse. This principle has held true with the current Jeffrey Epstein saga, and as their audience’s anger against the Trump administration skyrockets, the MAGA influencer world is trying a new tack: blame the Democrats, not Trump, for keeping the “Epstein Files” under lock and key.
Trump, the person who could feasibly order the release of said documents, has spent the past few weeks trying to …
Read the full story at The Verge.
Source: The Verge.
Coronary artery calcium testing can reveal plaque in arteries, offering a more precise estimate of a patient’s risk. Yet the test remains underused.
Source: NYT > Well.
Proton VPN stands out for two main reasons: it’s one of the only virtual private networks (VPNs) to include a free plan with no data limits, and it’s one of the few services majority-owned by a nonprofit. It’s the best VPN in both of those categories, and it makes a strong case for being the best overall.
Even if you don’t care about the work of the Proton Foundation, Proton VPN is a service worth using. It’s easy to install and manage, runs like the wind and meets high standards for security and privacy. It has more IP locations in Africa than any of its competitors. It’s even looking toward the future by working toward full IPv6 support.
In short, Proton VPN gets our enthusiastic recommendation, especially for torrenting (which it supports on almost every server). It’s not perfect — the apps for Apple systems lag behind their Windows and Android counterparts, and the free servers can be noticeably sluggish — but the cons pale in comparison to the pros. We’ll get into it all below.
Editor’s note (7/25/25): We’re in the process of revamping our VPN coverage to provide more in-depth, actionable information and buying guides. Our recommendations, and all the info on this page, are subject to change as the update continues. Check out our revamped ExpressVPN review and NordVPN review to see the new direction, or learn more about how we test VPNs.
The table summarizes what we found while reviewing Proton VPN, both good and bad. Keep it open in a tab while you comparison shop for a VPN.
|
Category |
Notes |
|
Installation and UI |
Windows has the best interface, but all apps are smooth Android users get unique preset protocols Browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox can be used for split tunneling on Mac and iOS |
|
Speed |
Retains 88 percent of download speeds and 98 percent of upload speeds Global latency average stays under 300 ms, with 52 ms on the fastest server |
|
Security |
No DNS leaks or WebRTC leaks on any servers Full IPv6 support is available on Android, Linux and browser extensions; Mac, Windows and iOS still block IPv6 to prevent leaks WireShark test showed active packet encryption |
|
Pricing |
Best plan costs $81.36 for two years ($3.39 per month) Free plan includes unlimited data and critical security features, but you can’t choose your server |
|
Bundles |
Proton Unlimited saves money if you want two or more Proton products |
|
Privacy policy |
General Proton policy prevents collection of IP addresses unless a user has violated the terms of service (such as by using a Proton VPN server to abuse another site) No third parties are allowed to handle personally identifiable information Confirmed by Securitum audit in 2024 |
|
Virtual location change |
Unblocked Netflix repeatedly in all five testing locations, with new content proving a successful location change A free server in Romania got into Netflix but had trouble loading the library |
|
Server network |
154 locations in 117 countries More servers in Africa than any other VPN, plus many others across the globe About two-thirds of server locations are virtual |
|
Features |
NetShield can block just malware, or all malware, ads and trackers Kill switch on all platformsSplit tunneling on Windows, Android and browser extensions only Secure Core servers route VPN through two locations, one of which is physically secured in Iceland, Sweden or Switzerland Almost all paid servers are P2P-enabled Tor over VPN servers in six countries let you access dark web sites from any browser Profiles saves time when you repeatedly need specific connection settings |
|
Customer support |
Most articles in the online help center, while well-written, are invisible unless you use the search function Live chat is only for paying customers, and is unavailable from midnight to 9 AM CET |
|
Background check |
Launched in 2017 by the same company that developed ProtonMail Majority owned by the Proton Foundation, whose board includes the company founders and can resist takeover attempts While ProtonMail has worked with Swiss authorities in the past, Proton VPN is not governed by the same laws that compelled this Claims of a vulnerability in WireGuard’s memory don’t hold water |
This section explains how it feels to run Proton VPN on the various platforms it supports. As a rule, it’s not difficult. Proton VPN has more features than ExpressVPN, and a couple of them might trip up new users, but you’d have to really scrounge to find an actual inconvenience to complain about.
Proton VPN installs easily on Windows — you’ll need to grant it permission to make changes, but that’s it. Once you’ve signed in on the app, you’ll reach one of the best interfaces we’ve tried on a VPN. The server network is immediately visible as both a list and map, and the location search bar, connect button and major features are all laid out around the same window.
It’s honestly amazing how much you can reach from the launch window without anything feeling cluttered. They even squeezed in keyboard shortcuts for the search field. We also love that settings open in the same window, since dealing with both the main VPN app and a separate preferences panel can get annoying. Our only real gripe is that there should be an easier way to adjust the size of the map.
The desktop app for Mac isn’t quite as deftly laid out as the Windows app. You can reach most of the important features from the main window, including Profiles, NetShield, Secure Core servers and the kill switch. However, there’s no longer a way to filter out a list of the P2P or Tor servers, except by digging through the Profile controls. On the plus side, you can adjust the size of the map, so it’s now a viable alternative to the server list.
The other preferences are hidden in the menu bar — go to Proton VPN > Settings to reach them. They’re laid out in four tabs, and shouldn’t take more than a minute to go through at setup.
The Android app takes the same design cues as the Windows app, and works as well. Four tabs along the bottom switch between the home screen, the country list, Profiles and all other settings. You can search the list of countries by tapping the magnifying glass at the top-right. In another nice touch, tapping the dots by any virtual location will tell you where the server is physically located.
Android users get some nifty exclusive Profiles, including “anti-censorship,” which automatically connects to the fastest country except for the one you’re in. The Settings tab is a single menu with subheadings and no unnecessary complication.
Proton VPN for iPhone and iPad looks almost the same as it does on Windows and Android, but with some of the same drawbacks found on Mac. The server list is more cluttered, and once again there’s no easy way to sift out the P2P and Tor locations.
The Settings tab puts all the feature descriptions in the open, which makes it look denser than it is. But these are minor quibbles — this is still a VPN that’s very easy to activate and forget about.
Proton VPN has browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. These serve as de facto split tunneling, as connecting through the extension protects only browser traffic; everything else goes unprotected. You can split the tunnel further by setting the VPN to not work on certain URLs (unlike the other apps, you don’t need to know the IPs of those sites).
We used Ookla’s Speedtest app to determine how much Proton VPN drags on a user’s latency, measured in milliseconds (ms), and download and upload speeds, measured in megabits per second (Mbps). Together, these three stats show whether a VPN will noticeably slow down your internet, especially during demanding tasks.
We had high hopes for Proton here because of its VPN Accelerator technology, which runs VPN communications across several parallel tracks to process everything faster. It didn’t disappoint — for the most part. Although download speeds didn’t reach the heights we saw from ExpressVPN, Proton VPN’s browsing performance still looks excellent nearly across the board.
To choose our locations for the test, we checked Proton VPN’s list of smart routing servers, which use servers in one country to simulate IP addresses in another. Almost all the smart routing servers are based in five cities: Miami, London, Marseille, Bucharest and Singapore. We ran these tests on a Mac using the automatic protocol setting.
| Server Location | Latency (ms) | Increase factor | Download speed (Mbps) | Percentage drop | Upload speed (Mbps) | Percentage drop |
| Portland, OR, USA (unprotected) | 16 | — | 58.93 | — | 5.82 | — |
| San Jose, CA, USA (best server) | 52 | 3.3x | 55.82 | 5 | 5.58 | 4 |
| Miami, FL, USA | 160 | 10x | 54.33 | 8 | 5.49 | 6 |
| London, UK | 332 | 20.8x | 52.55 | 11 | 5.72 | 2 |
| Marseille, France | 309 | 19.3x | 45.42 | 23 | 5.59 | 4 |
| Bucharest, Romania | 408 | 25.5x | 52.51 | 11 | 5.57 | 4 |
| Singapore, Singapore | 394 | 24.6x | 52.26 | 11 | 5.50 | 5 |
| Average | 276 | 17.3x | 52.15 | 12 | 5.58 | 4 |
Proton VPN looks very good in that table. Its average download speed was 88 percent of our unprotected speeds. To put that in perspective, if you started with 30 Mbps down (about half what we get) and connected to any Proton VPN server, you’d almost certainly still have a fast enough connection to stream in 4K.
Note the “almost” — Proton VPN did drop noticeably on its French server in Marseille. It’s not uncommon for one of a VPN’s data centers to have trouble while the others work fine, and you can usually fix the problem by just disconnecting and reconnecting. Just note that while drops to about 75 percent of your download speed are rare, they’re not inconceivable.
When we talk about VPN security, we’re really talking about reliability. Can this VPN establish an encrypted tunnel and transmit all your information through it, every time, without leaks or failures? With Proton VPN, we’re happy to say the answer is yes; we probed its security and found no cracks to speak of. Read the section below for specifics.
Proton VPN uses four VPN protocols to communicate between your devices, its servers and the internet. Three of them (WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2) are common choices with no serious flaws as long as they’re implemented thoughtfully. The fourth, Stealth, is an obfuscation protocol you should only use if the other three are blocked.
OpenVPN is the most secure option. Without getting too technical, OpenVPN encrypts its backend functions as well as the data itself, which leaves it with no obvious vulnerabilities. It can also communicate using the same ports as common HTTPS traffic, so it’s hard to block.
WireGuard is more efficient than OpenVPN, both in its source code and the cryptography it uses. It normally requires an exchange of fixed IP addresses, but the Proton VPN implementation overwrites those IPs with randomized addresses, cutting the security risk.
IKEv2 is a safe choice that’s occasionally faster than either OpenVPN or WireGuard. You probably won’t use it unless it happens to come up while you’ve set the protocol to Smart. As such, it’s on the way to being phased out of Proton VPN.
Stealth is unique to Proton VPN, though its function is not. It’s got the same architecture as WireGuard, but adds another TLS tunnel to evade network blocks that catch VPN traffic. That extra encryption slows it down, so we don’t recommend using it unless the other three protocols don’t work.
The first option on the app, called “Smart,” is not a protocol — it means your VPN client selects the protocol that will give you the best speeds on your current server. Since all four protocols are safe, there’s no downside to using the Smart setting most of the time.
We used AirVPN’s IP leak tool to check all four of Proton VPN’s protocols for DNS and WebRTC leaks. Proton VPN uses its own DNS servers to reduce the risk of sending unencrypted requests, but since leaks are still possible, we tested using a simple method: checking our visible IP address before and after connecting to the VPN.
Despite testing several locations over three days, we never saw our real IP address show up on the tool. This held true even outside the Secure Core server list, where data centers might have been managed by third parties. It’s not perfect proof, but it’s a very good sign that Proton VPN enforces a consistent security regime on all its servers.
We also used BrowserLeaks to check for WebRTC leaks. These are mainly an issue on the browser side, but a VPN is doubly important if your browser happens to be leaking. We enabled WebRTC on our browser and tested the same set of Proton VPN servers without springing any WebRTC leaks.
Proton is working on making its entire VPN compatible with IPv6 addresses. If a VPN that’s only configured for IPv4 has to resolve an IPv6 address, it can cause a leak — that’s why most VPNs, even the best ones, block IPv6 altogether. That said, the whole internet will run on IPv6 one day, so it’s nice to see Proton VPN leading the pack.
So far, IPv6 is automatically enabled on Proton VPN’s Linux apps and browser extensions, and can be optionally activated on its Android app. The Proton VPN apps for all other platforms still block IPv6 traffic, but this should hopefully change soon.
Even if a VPN’s protocol choices are solid, it’s possible for individual implementations of those protocols to fail. We used WireShark, a packet inspector app, to test whether Proton VPN’s encryption worked no matter what settings were in place. We’re happy to say we never saw plaintext once.
To get full access to Proton VPN, you’ll need a Plus subscription, which costs $9.99 per month. You can knock off half that price by subscribing for a full year and paying a lump sum of $59.88, working out to $4.99 per month. A Plus account with Proton VPN also gives you free access to every other Proton app.
You can also pay $107.76 in advance to subscribe for two years, an average of $4.49 per month — perhaps more convenient, but it doesn’t save you much. The one-year plan is the best value, though it’s also nice that you don’t have to pay through the nose for only one month. There’s a 30-day, money-back guarantee on all plans.
Proton VPN is currently offering Engadget readers an exclusive deal that offers a 12-month plan for $47.88 ($3.99 per month) and a 24-month plan for $81.36 ($3.39 per month). Learn more about it here. One final option is the Proton Unlimited subscription, discussed in the “side apps and bundles” section below.”
Proton VPN is one of the best free VPNs on the market right now. No other VPN backed by as much experience and good judgment has a free plan with no data limits. Instead of capping how much data you can use per month, Proton VPN restricts which servers free users can access, limiting them to five countries: the United States, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.
The frustrating part is that you can’t choose which of these servers you use; Proton VPN just auto-connects to whichever one is the least burdened. A Proton representative told us that this change goes along with improvements to the selection algorithm, better load balancing and the addition of the Poland and Romania locations. It is also possible to try for a better connection by clicking “change server.”
The fact remains, though, that a free Proton VPN plan is useless for unblocking content in specific locations — but this may be by design. The free plan seems more aimed toward privacy and anonymity than streaming, and the placement of the free locations near Russia and China reflects that. Free Proton VPN plans don’t sacrifice any essential security features.
Proton VPN’s main bundle is Proton Unlimited, which gets you all six Proton products in one package: VPN, Mail, Drive, Calendar, Wallet and Pass. This costs $12.99 for a month, $119.88 for a year ($9.99 per month) and $191.76 for two years ($7.99 per month). We won’t be going in-depth on any of them in this review, but here’s a quick rundown of each.
Proton Mail: An end-to-end encrypted email service. Proton can still see a Mail user’s real IP address, but can’t read any of their messages.
Proton Drive: Encrypted cloud storage. As with Mail, Proton can identify users, but can’t read any of the content they store.
Proton Calendar: An encrypted scheduling app with events and reminders.
Proton Wallet: A self-custody wallet for storing Bitcoin unconnected to any exchange.
Proton Pass: A password manager that generates, stores and autofills passwords for online accounts.
Even if you only need two of the six, Proton Unlimited saves you money. Separate monthly subscriptions to Proton VPN and Proton Mail would cost a total of $14.98, so you’ve already knocked off $2 per month. That increases if you’re able to commit to a year in advance.
Proton’s privacy policy comes in two parts: the general Proton policy and the shorter policy specific to Proton VPN. We’ll cover them in that order.
Proton tracks user activity on its product websites using its own marketing tools; the data set collected does not include IP addresses. It retains an email address connected to each user’s account, but it’s not allowed to connect IP addresses (and thus identities and locations) to those emails unless the user breaches the terms of service.
You may rightly ask how Proton would know a user is abusing one of their services if they don’t keep activity logs. The answer is that logs aren’t needed; most forms of abuse can be detected in other ways and observed in real time. For example, if someone used a Proton VPN server to launch a DDoS attack, the team could inspect that server and find the hacker while the attack was still ongoing.
The policy goes on to list the five third-party data processors Proton uses (Zendesk, PayPal, Chargebee, Atlassian and Stripe), none of whom are allowed to store customer activity data. Proton cautions that it will share what data it does have in response to unblockable requests from the Swiss government, but not “until all legal or other remedies have been exhausted.” This is standard for a VPN that wants to remain in business, and the transparency report shows the company does indeed fight court orders when it can.
Proton’s VPN-specific privacy policy is quite short. It states that Proton cannot log user activities or identifiable characteristics of devices connected to the VPN, cannot throttle internet connections and must extend full privacy and security to free users.
In one sense, a privacy policy requires you to take the VPN provider at their word, but it’s dangerous for a company to make promises they don’t intend to keep. The policy is legally binding, and breaking it is grounds for a lawsuit. Proton VPN’s succinct no-logs policy is therefore a great sign. It’s also been confirmed several times by a third-party audit, most recently in July 2024.
Testing a VPN’s ability to mask a user’s location isn’t complex — all you need is a streaming subscription. We connected to five test locations and tried to unblock Netflix with each one. If we managed to access the site, and saw different shows than those on the American library, we concluded that the location had masked us successfully.
| Server location | Unblocked Netflix? | Library changed? |
| Canada | Y | Y |
| Romania | Y | Y |
| Ghana | Y | Y |
| Japan | Y | Y |
| New Zealand | Y | Y |
Proton VPN passed the test every time in all five locations. The only hiccup came in Romania, which we chose because it’s one of the free locations. The app connected us to a free server, which was too slow to load Netflix; when we chose a paid server, the problem disappeared.
Proton VPN’s free plan includes servers in five locations: the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, the United States and Japan. When you connect as a free user, you’ll be automatically connected to whichever location is fastest.
A paid plan opens up the full network of 154 servers in 117 countries and territories. The menu includes a huge selection of African locations, more than any VPN we’ve tested in some time. The Middle East, along with central and southern Asia, are also well represented, and U.S. users will find 20 different locations to choose from.
Keep in mind that about two-thirds of these server locations are virtual, meaning they’re not physically located where they claim to be. This includes all the African servers except South Africa and Nigeria; all the South American servers except Brazil, Colombia and Argentina; and all the Middle Eastern servers except Turkey, Israel and the UAE. A majority of the locations in Asia are also virtual, including South Korea, India, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.
To be clear, virtual locations can hide your IP address just as well as physical ones. It’s only a problem if you’re expecting the kind of performance, particularly in terms of latency, that you get from a nearby server. Luckily, Proton VPN gives you fast enough download and upload speeds that distance shouldn’t be a problem.
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None
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Countries | Virtual Locations | Cities |
| North America | 6 | 3 | 25 |
| South America | 7 | 4 | 7 |
| Europe | 42 | 6 | 51 |
| Africa | 25 | 23 | 26 |
| Middle East | 13 | 10 | 14 |
| Asia | 22 | 16 | 25 |
| Oceania | 2 | 0 | 6 |
| TOTAL | 117 | 62 | 154 |
Proton VPN has a number of extra features that go beyond standard VPN functionality. We’ve already mentioned the Stealth protocol and IPv6 support. In this section, we’ll cover an additional five features that might be of interest.
Proton VPN’s built-in ad blocker is known as NetShield. It’s available on the main UI page, and has two settings: one that blocks only malware sites, and one that blocks sites connected with malware, ads and trackers. The stronger feature is on by default.
NetShield works by checking any DNS requests against a database of web servers known to host malware, inject ads or attach cross-site trackers to your browsing session. The DNS-blocking approach means it’s not capable of blocking ads served from the same domain that hosts them — so no blocking YouTube video ads. On the positive side, it means NetShield works across your entire device, not just on your browser.
NetShield also displays a running total of how many of each form of interference it’s blocked. It catches most banner ads, but since you can’t customize the blocklist in any way, it’s best when combined with another browser-level ad blocker.
Here’s an interesting one. Secure Core is a form of a common feature known as double VPN or multi-hop VPN, in which a connection runs through two VPN servers before being decrypted. If one server fails or gets compromised, the other server keeps your connection private.
Proton VPN takes this a step further. When you activate Secure Core, your connection will still end at your chosen server location — but before that, it will travel through a designated server in Iceland, Sweden or Switzerland. A few touches make Secure Core servers more reliable than the average VPN node:
All three countries are safe jurisdictions, with consumer-friendly privacy laws and courts sympathetic to privacy claims.
Secure Core data centers are locked down physically; for example, the Iceland location is a refitted military base, and the Sweden location is literally underground.
Proton owns and operates all Secure Core locations itself, with no rentals or third-party managers.
Almost no other VPNs pay as much attention to physical security as Proton VPN does with this feature. The second hop makes Secure Core connections slower on average, but it’s worth it if you have something especially sensitive to do online.
Proton VPN includes a kill switch, a standard feature. When active, a kill switch cuts off your internet whenever your connection to the VPN drops. This means you’re never in danger of leaking your real identity or location, even for a second. It also protects you against the TunnelVision exploit, which requires the hacker to make a fake VPN server.
Split tunneling is included on the Windows and Android apps, but users on other devices can access it through the browser extension. With split tunneling, some apps or websites get online through the VPN, while others stay unprotected.
Proton VPN allows split tunneling by both app and IP address. This grants you a precise level of control over your split, as long as you know the IP of each website you’re placing on the list (you can find that out using DNS checker).
Proton VPN is one of the best VPNs for torrenting. It restricts torrenting to P2P servers, but nearly every server on the list is a P2P server — only Secure Core servers and some free servers don’t permit torrenting. Combine that with the fact that it maintains 96 percent of your upload speeds on average, and you should have few problems using a torrenting client.
It also has some support for port forwarding, which can improve torrenting speed. Windows and Linux users can enable it with a simple toggle, which provides an active port number for configuring private servers. Mac users can set up port forwarding through manual OpenVPN or WireGuard configurations.
A handful of Proton VPN servers route you directly to the Tor network after encrypting your connection. While connected to one of these Tor over VPN servers, which are marked with TOR in their names and an onion symbol, you’ll be able to open .onion links on a normal browser.
This is more than just convenient — Tor over VPN is the safest way to access the dark web. With the VPN as an intermediary, you’re never connecting to Tor with your own IP address, so malicious node operators can’t see your real identity. For maximum privacy, use Tor Browser to create your Proton VPN account, so you’re never exposed at any point in the process.
Proton VPN has Tor servers in six countries (the U.S., France, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany and Hong Kong). Each just has one Tor server, except the United States, which gets two. Tor over VPN is supported on all platforms, but it won’t work on Mac or iOS unless you have the kill switch enabled.
A “profile” on Proton VPN is a group of pre-established settings you can use to quickly configure the VPN for a particular task. Two profiles are available from the start: Fastest, which connects to the fastest server, and Random, which always connects to a different server. You can create more profiles by toggling four settings:
Feature: The type of server used. Choose from Standard, Secure Core, P2P or Tor over VPN.
Country: The country to which the profile connects.
Server: A server within that country. You can also select “fastest” or “random.”
Protocol: Which VPN protocol the profile will use. “Smart” can be selected.
As an example, say you want to watch a TV series that’s only available on Netflix in Canada. You could create a profile called “Netflix Canada” that connects to the fastest Canadian server with just one click. We’d call profiles situationally useful, but they can save a lot of time if you regularly perform the same action on your VPN.
We went to Proton VPN’s FAQ pages with two questions that came up while researching other sections: which of Proton VPN’s servers are managed by third parties, and why do certain server locations (like Marseilles) run slow despite the app showing a light load?
You can access the help center through any of Proton VPN’s apps, or by going directly to the website. Articles appear to be organized into six categories. Oddly, clicking any category button only shows you a handful of the articles in that section — for example, the Troubleshooting category looks like it only has five articles. If you type “troubleshooting” into the search bar, though, you’ll see dozens pop up. There are even some sections, like Billing, that don’t appear on the main page at all.
It has the feel of a website update that wasn’t adequately brought in line with the bulk of the support content. Until Proton fixes it, just use the search bar for everything. The articles themselves are well-written, give or take some stilted English.
We couldn’t find written answers to our questions about ownership and server load, so we turned to live chat. Free users should keep in mind that live chat support is only available on paid accounts, but there’s a fairly active subreddit at r/protonvpn where Proton staff frequently post.
Live chat is not intuitively located on protonvpn.com. We finally found it by scrolling all the way to the bottom of the main page, only to be told nobody was online to help at the moment — live chat is only accessible from 9 AM to midnight Central European Time (CET). We submitted our question about the Marseille servers as an email ticket instead.
This part was easy, at least, as the form helpfully populated our system information. We also got a prompt response within 24 hours. We ended the interaction there, as we weren’t able to reproduce the sluggish behavior on the French server locations, but it’s nice to know the team will answer quickly.
Proton VPN launched in 2017, but its team’s experience goes back much farther. The founders of its parent company, Proton AG, met while working at CERN in Switzerland, and the company remains under Swiss jurisdiction.
Their first product, Proton Mail, went live in 2014 after a successful crowdfunding campaign, and claims to have 100 million users today. Proton VPN was Proton AG’s second project. Like Proton Mail, it consists of a free plan supplemented by paid upgrades.
Since then, Proton has introduced several more products: Proton Calendar in 2020, Proton Drive cloud storage in 2022 and the Proton Pass password manager in 2023, each designed around using end-to-end encryption to make user data inaccessible.
Proton announced in 2024 that the majority of its shares had been acquired by the Proton Foundation, a nonprofit whose only purpose is to control Proton stock. Among other benefits, this prevents it from being purchased by anyone who disagrees with its mission. To sell to an objectionable parent company, the entire board of trustees would have to agree, which feels unlikely based on Proton’s track record.
Throughout Proton’s history, we only found two incidents serious enough to comment on, and only one of them concerned Proton VPN. We’ll cover them both below.
On the page that hosts its annual transparency report, Proton states openly that it “may be legally compelled to disclose certain user information to Swiss authorities” (see the Privacy Policy section of this article for more on precisely what information that describes). In 2021, the company admitted it had given Swiss police (acting on a French warrant) a ProtonMail user’s IP address and device logs. The police arrested the user, a French environmental activist.
While that’s unnerving for privacy-minded users, there are some important contextual issues to consider. Most importantly, ProtonMail is not governed by the same policy as Proton VPN. At the time the case unfolded, Swiss law obliged all email companies to comply with court orders from Swiss authorities to hand over data. VPNs aren’t subject to those retention requirements.
Today, Swiss email companies have been reclassified so they’re also exempt from data retention requirements, thanks in part to a policy change Proton fought for. A representative from Proton confirmed that “under Swiss law, we are not obligated to save any user connection logs.” It’s also reassuring that, despite complying with the subpoena, Proton wasn’t able to turn over the contents of any emails.
In January 2025, researchers at Venak Security alleged that Proton VPN lacks memory protection for keys generated under the WireGuard protocol, which might let hackers scrape the keys and decrypt intercepted communications. Proton responded to Venak in a blog post, which a Proton representative confirmed remains their official response to the allegations.
In short: the Venak article only demonstrates that it’s possible to view public keys, not private ones. This isn’t much of a bombshell, given that “public” is right there in the name. But asymmetric encryption — the kind used by VPN protocols like WireGuard — requires both keys to decrypt any messages. Even if a hacker were able to get ahold of a private key, they likely wouldn’t be able to use it for anything. WireGuard incorporates perfect forward secrecy by default, changing session keys often enough that any given key is obsolete by the time it’s stolen.
In short, we’re prepared to recommend Proton VPN to almost anybody. Whether you’re mainly concerned with security, streaming or something else, chances are good that you’ll be satisfied. The only serious downsides are that the long-term plans are overpriced and that it’s hard to get live tech support if you live outside of Europe.
It’s also our unqualified pick for the best free VPN, but with the caveat that it’s a bad choice for anyone who needs to choose specific server locations. If all you care about is staying hidden from your ISP and advertisers, Proton should be your first choice.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/vpn/proton-vpn-review-2025-a-nonprofit-service-with-premium-performance-153046073.html?src=rss

vertical mouse is a hard sell. Having to change how you use a mouse completely can be an intimidating task, especially with how unnatural the new hand position feels at first—you’re going entirely against the muscle memory you’ve spent years building up.
One of the largest challenges to the switch is the initial loss of pointer accuracy. If you’re in an office setting, you may find yourself wandering around a bit or struggling to move your new mouse as quickly as you did before. But in a slow-paced setting like that, all you struggle with is a few mis-clicks or slightly slower navigation. If you try to make this transition with gaming, it’s far more jarring, and the consequences are much more immediately noticeable.
But even if it’s difficult to adapt to, could vertical mice be the future of gaming? Razer’s new Pro Click V2 Vertical Edition is a hybrid productivity and gaming vertical mouse. Vertical mice typically cater to office workers, but the focus on gaming performance makes the $120 Pro Click V2 one of a kind.
The Pro Click V2 Vertical looks, more than anything else, like a modern gaming mouse. It has the textured exterior, metallic highlights, and slightly organic, H.R. Giger-esque curvature typical of Razer’s design language. But everything has been shifted around. The curved, cutting thumb rest sits on top of the mouse instead of on the side. A flare juts out from the right side as a place to rest the underside of your hand. The gunmetal highlight sits at the peak of the mouse rather than between the two buttons. Even the USB port is vertical, a humorous attention to detail.
It’s intentionally designed as a gaming mouse that just happens to be vertical. Aesthetically, the only downside is the minimal RGB lighting. With only one section of lighting that runs along the bottom of the mouse, RGB lighting fans might feel disappointed. Still, it’s bright, reactive, and has great color accuracy. It’s more than enough for me, especially with how customizable it is with Razer’s Chroma software.
The Pro Click V2 Vertical has the same specs as the standard Pro Click V2, with a 1,000-Hz polling rate, a 2.4-GHz dongle that can be stored on the underside, Bluetooth multi-device connectivity, and a reprogrammable button on top. The only features lost are the mouse wheel’s horizontal scrolling and toggleable non-ratcheted rotation.
Source: Wired.


Point-and-click adventure games often tell silly, lighthearted stories. For me, the mishaps of the pirate Guybrush Threepwood in the Monkey Island series come to mind. The nature of the genre – wandering around, talking to people, and trying to solve puzzles – lends itself well to humor, as every interaction with a person or object offers an opportunity for a joke. The Drifter, a new point-and-click game from Powerhoof, cleverly uses the format to instead tell a dark, twist-filled thriller, and it sucked me in like a gripping novel.
In The Drifter, you play as Mick Carter, who you meet shortly after he hops aboard a train as a stowaway. Wit …
Read the full story at The Verge.
Source: The Verge.