When its really necesary use Secure Core?
Secure core is multi-hop. Your traffic enters the VPN at one node and exits at another. It’s sort of like Tor, except it’s a fixed path, so you get some similar benefit. An observer would to watch entry and exit points to observe. (It would be really cool for a VPN to internally use some sort of onion routing to prevent fixed routes through the network.)
To answer your question, you use secure core whenever you want a little extra trace difficulty. Personally, I always use it.
You could use Secure Core day in and day out except when using any streaming service since it may slow it down if you are on medium speed net.
While people say that Secure Core is really needed if you are a journalist or activist, it is something that everyone is able to and can use.
Personally, I use it because I feel since it is a Proton AG shipped server to different locations across the world, it would offer me greater peace of mind and now coupled with Netshield it makes the best sense to use secure core to protect your privacy.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but in some countries where Proton has servers, they are forced to hand over traffic logs according to that country’s laws don’t they? Secure core would mean they would give up encrypted garbage.
I have it on by default all the time. Don’t see a massive drop in speed at all. I just have it as a baseline.
We basically use it all the time. There’s a performance penalty, but for most internet activity, it is not really noticeable, so its better privacy without much noticeable downside. Of course, if you are doing bandwidth heavy activity, or things which are very latency sensitive, then you should turn it off.
I just wish ProtonVPN had an option to use secure core for some apps, and then non-secure core for others. But still through a VPN. An enhanced split-tunneling feature.
It’s also great for us bad guys 
Thanks, I am a “normal” person worried for my privacy and if I use secure core reduce my bandwidth, if its no necesesary I think that i will not activate it
perfect privacy vpn offers it, the neurorouting function, in addition to that vpn service they confiscated a server in Amsterdam, but since it runs in RAM they could not find out anything
You could VPN then proxy chains to get the same effect.
I see overall very decent throughput via Secure Core as well but the main issue is much higher latency in making new sessions.
Yeah, i had a bad patch with Secure Core i think I even moaned about on Reddit at some point…but magically after my speeds improved and the connection is a lot more stable. I used to get an issue where it would just drop connection and speed would be trash. I was so close to switching to NordVPN but thank god i kept Proton now i actually love it.
Also, NordVPN is annoying with their fake promo that’s always got 9 hours left on their page you log in 2 weeks later and it’s still 9 hours LOOOOL they marketing team is trash. They put me off for life with fake ass promos. I prefer you go do one and that’s it then put it up. Nord has been on sale for 5 years lol. Things like this make me stay with ProtonVPN.
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You mean using SecureCore with OpenVPN (direct login) vs using the App?
Thanks for the suggestion. Could you please share some more details about the use case behind this? We’ll be sure to share this with the product team to be evaluated.
Well the way I understand it is that the traffic logs have to be handed out in specific countries by default because of their laws while in other countries like Switzerland the court order is needed for that so some servers are more safe to use than others and secure core adds another security layer in those more unsafe in terms of privacy. I’m saying what makes sense to me though based on what I know about this topic and I’d recommend you maybe contact Proton directly in case you’re interested to know more about this. I don’t want to spread misinformation.
No I mean some things through secure core, and the rest of my data through a country that might have better speeds. (one hop versus two)
I think it wouldn’t be uncommon for people to want extra security for some things that might draw the attention of litigious companies… But just want basic anonymization (and better speed) offered by a single hop VPN for most data. This would also apply of course in some professions like journalism.
When connected via SC you can run a speed test and see the latency of your connection to the server in addition to the speed (throughput) itself. The latency indicates the time it takes to make a hop to the server (web site , etc ) you’re trying to connect to.
Makes sense, thank you for sharing this across.