Vivaldi bakes Proton VPN into browser to boost privacy Vivaldi has become the latest browser to include a virtual private network (VPN) option with its product, working with Proton VPN to up user privacy. Activating the VPN will, according to Vivaldi, provide "a truly private online experience with no surveillance, combining Proton VPN battle-tested security features and strict no …
Just upgraded and tried it out, and it's a fail for me already. It automatically connects me to a server in Houston and I haven't found any settings to override it. Thanks to the wonderful politicians in Texas, many sites that don't want to do age verification block you. Nothing like browsing Reddit, only to find that 3rd party images are blocked because they think you are in Texas (and many other Red states). Apparently you have to use a paid Proton account to select a country or server. Which makes it useless to me. If Vivaldi/Proton are concerned about privacy and freedom, they should be defaulting to servers in less restrictive states.
I personally am only interested in VPN to bypass stupid age verification, which my state does NOT require. But either two ISPs misidentify me as being in a neighboring state that does, or the websites themselves do.
It also would have been nice to only turn it on for certain windows, like private browsing.
Browsers should not be implementing system level services. I use more than a web browser. I have DNS client, no proxy, VPN, and more configured at the system level. I do not want any network capable application trying to override these settings. There should be only one system level certificate store, so dodgy root certificates can be blacklisted thoroughly in one location, not in each and every application.
Vivaldi uses the Chromium/Chrome ProtonVPN extension to provide the feature.
You can remove the VPN button in the toolbar by right clicking on it and selecting the relevant menu option and then remove the extension via "Tools" -> "Extensions" where you will find the Chromium extensions management page. Disable or remove the ProtonVPN extension as you wish.
Brave has Tor support in the browser, which may, strictly speaking, be the wrong place for it, but it's very convenient. Is it even possible to set a separate Tor client up so that only selected Windows in my browser use it and everything else uses the default network connection? If it is then it's going to be a great deal more work than selecting "New private window with Tor" from the menu and require a level of technical knowledge that will put it beyond most people.
Browsers should not be implementing system level services.
I don't want to run all my traffic through a VPN and bottleneck bandwidth. I only want to VPN specific connections leaving my home network. My current use case is only specific web sites, so being implemented via the browser isn't a limitation. It's also nice to be able to tell the browser to log in, connect, and be up and going. I don't need to worry about certificate expirations or maintaining software releases. When I do want full protection, I have OpenVPN.
Here is one reason. I have an elderly relative in the UK who has definite religious views. One of their favourite news and prayer websites is based in the Balkans. Their broadband provider in the UK, Vodaphone introduced a "save the children" type content blocker last year supposedly to make using the internet safer.
For some reason the Vodaphone content blocker made it very hard to access the news and prayer site favoured by my relative. Load times for each page went up from a couple of seconds to several minutes. Here in my bit of Scandinavia the pages still loaded as normal. Another relative in the UK tested the site on a phone first without VPN and then using their VPN connection. Without VPN the site loaded very slowly. With VPN active the site loaded quickly.
So the solution would be to install something like the ProtonVPN client and set them up a free account. However, this means that the solution has to be supported. For example should the client barf, as happened to me a couple of times in the past it could take down the device's network/internet connection. So with no internet connection on my elderly relative's device in the UK I could not use TeamViewer/Skype with screen sharing to troubleshoot the problem at a distance.
Using ProtonVPN in Vivaldi means that should something go wrong with the VPN connection it a) will not kill all networking and b) access to the internet will still be possible using say LibreWolf or Chromium even if Vivaldi refused to work.
Based on its features shown on the website, I'd really like to install the new Vivaldi (the poor quality of all the rest of the browser world...which only continues to get worse with every iteration (of every) one, is certainly a very powerful motivating force, also.)
However...
When I try to download from the program, it (Vivaldi 7.2 for Linux Deb) will not install because Package Installer gives this message:
“Error: Dependency is not satisfiable: libnss3(>=2:3.35)”
I'll try later, when time's not at a premium.
"... I want flexibility, I don't want to be tied, and it's so goddamn cheap generally for a VPN,. Nobody should dictate what I should use."
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No one is "dictating" what you should use; this feature is an option. Not to put too fine a point on this, but "option" means, "If you don't want it, DON'T USE IT."
From
"Free Proton VPN is Now Included in Vivaldi Web Browser"
( https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2025/03/vivaldi-browser-now-includes-built-in-proton-vpn ) ---
"...To enable it:
Click the VPN button in the toolbar
Log in with your Vivaldi account
Click ‘Connect’ to enable the VPN...
"If you don’t want or plan to use Proton VPN for Vivaldi (because you don’t need a VPN, don’t trust Proton, or use a different provider) you can “remove” the feature easily enough: right-click the VPN button in the toolbar and click ‘remove’...
"...Whilst using a proper VPN client or setup will be more secure than relying on a browser-based VPN, this is far less fuss: it’s already there, free, and easy to enable – IF YOU WANT TO, of course."
You can read the full article here.
...and get back on those meds. Now.
You miss my actual point, which I didn't make clear.
Like a previous commenter said, this is functionality that nobody needs. Jo Bloggs wouldn't care. The techies that do care will happily pay for their VPN subs.
I and many others would rather the browser devs improve the browser in every other way except that.
I could tell my Dad what it helps do, but I can guarantee that he'll listen but never understand what it does, and he'll never switch it on.
