Virus total comunity scores - should i care?


Checking if protonvpn free executable is safe on virustotal. Vendors dont flag as virus, but as you can see in image, some people say its malware. I wonder if those are fake reports from trolls… or should i be carefull about it?

I wanna make sure this vpn is safe, cause i will be using it to access emails and stuff, dont wanna get my info and passwords stolen…

Any insight is appreciated, thanks!

If you download it from the official site instead of search engine search result (which are usually ads or ai crap that lead to malware), then it should be fine.

FYI you don’t need a VPN just to “protect” your info, most traffic are already covered by TLS encryption, notice how your bank doesn’t even tell you to use a VPN (in fact, they often discourage it since it make it harder to detect stolen account). If your ISP is blocking sites with DNS filtering, enable secure/encrypted DNS with specific server in your browser (not the automatic mode), use Cloudflare WARP app if the ISP use SNI/IP blocking.

If you torrent and your ISP punish DMCA violators, your options are either a VPN (most free options either don’t support torrent or too slow for it) or seedbox (can be much cheaper in comparison, especially if you’re using private tracker and consider the electricity cost of leaving your PC on)

For the most part, community scores are submitted by bots that run extra automated analysis or announce that a sample has been included in a database of likely malware. The two on the left are examples of the former and special care should be taken to evaluate their meaning.

Sometimes it’s comments by humans, and human votes in either direction are a good reason to perk up.

When you’re dealing with well-known software, your biggest concern is when a new version suddenly shows detections. When a flagged update is safe, the big AV names will usually look into it and remove the detections within a few days. On the flip side, you might see blogs and articles within a few days shouting that whatever company has been breached.

Anyway, in this case, you don’t need to care about those.

community scoring is nowadays ran by 99% bots, therefore I would not take it as a trusted source

If you get proton VPN from protons website, then you’re typically safe. The VPN changes your network settings so it’s not a surprise if it gets flagged. I use it myself for over a year on multiple devices, without issue.

Note: The VPN or any VPN uses different networks. This means that you are utilizing unknown computers. Those computers could be compromised. There’s no way of knowing. Same like you’re ISP. So, if you’re traveling and use public networks, then yes use a VPN. If you’re traveling, the better solution is to use a hotspot from your phone or buy one specifically for it. If you’re using your home network then a VPN is typically not necessary.