French Pornhub users rushed to ProtonVPN this week after the grownup set up blocked bag admission to from France in insist of present government-mandated age verification rules, the firm acknowledged, claiming that signups for the provider surged 1,000% in only 30 minutes.
ProtonVPN is portion of a sequence of privacy tools developed by Proton AG, a Switzerland-based totally mostly firm finest known for its encrypted electronic mail provider, ProtonMail.
While ProtonVPN reported a 1,000% surge in French signups this week, it didn’t picture the necessity of users it had in the country sooner than the spike, making the figure advanced to elaborate.
5PM – PornHub blocks France from having access to its web vow
5.30PM – @ProtonVPN registrations develop by 1,000%
For context, here is bigger than when TikTok blocked Individuals. pic.twitter.com/gVZynD5hPS
— Proton VPN (@ProtonVPN) June 4, 2025
Gentle, ProtonVPN ranks amongst the extra widely weak VPNs worldwide.
Per Appfigures, it develop into downloaded 3 million instances on Google Play in May perhaps presumably well presumably, with an estimated 620,000 extra downloads by capability of the Apple App Retailer.
By comparability, NordVPN saw about 1.7 million downloads all over both platforms, and ExpressVPN totaled around 690,000.
Proton acknowledged the surge and voiced wretchedness relating to the broader implications of worthy age verification criminal solutions—and the unintended solutions virtual non-public networks, higher is known as VPNs, are being weak to bypass them.
“We constructed Proton VPN to encourage other folks in authoritarian countries bypass online censorship. An bag admission to gateway for porn develop into obviously now not what we had in mind,” a Proton spokesperson told Decrypt. “But VPNs also can simply additionally be weak this arrangement, and signups from France own briefly elevated by a component of ten.”
Digital non-public networks encrypt cyber web traffic and masks IP addresses, allowing users to browse privately and bag admission to identify-restricted vow material.
The decision to dam bag admission to to Pornhub adopted a French law enacted in May perhaps presumably well presumably 2024, requiring grownup websites to verify users’ ages—a measure Pornhub’s mother or father firm, Aylo, criticized as futile.
The firm argued that the foundations made French voters extra at possibility of knowledge theft and illicit vow material, whereas failing to give protection to kids, a sentiment echoed by Proton.
“We mediate the age verification capability is now not the precise arrangement of restricting kid’s bag admission to to illicit vow material,” the Proton spokesperson wrote. “There might maybe be no such component as age verification for teenagers handiest; it be age verification for all people.”
Proton acknowledged that allowing offshore porn websites or utterly different third occasions to amass IDs from adults creates a central repository of aloof knowledge, which carries serious risks of blackmail and knowledge misuse.
Attempting to bag admission to Pornhub from France, users had been met with a declaration from the firm lambasting the French government’s actions.
In desire to web vow-stage age verification, Aylo and Proton give a take to tool-stage verification as a extra effective solution.
“All it requires is that the government assign into place regulations on three companies–Apple, Google, and Microsoft–the three working machine producers requiring age verification at the tool stage sooner than having access to grownup vow material,” Aylo acknowledged in a assertion.
Digital restrictions own continually pushed users to adopt alternative applied sciences.
In December 2020, predominant credit rating card companies—along side Mastercard, Visa and Look—blocked payments to Pornhub after a Current York Occasions investigation alleged the set up hosted illegal vow material, along side child abuse and nonconsensual movies.
Mastercard completely ended its relationship with the platform, whereas Visa suspended payments pending extra evaluate. In response to its price products and services being in the reduce price of, Pornhub started accepting cryptocurrency for its top price subscription provider.
The surge in VPN signups marked one other front in the ongoing war over anonymous bag admission to to grownup vow material.
Lawmakers are extra and extra turning to age verification criminal solutions to protect kids from divulge field subject.
Various countries enacting these measures comprise the United Kingdom and Germany. Within the U.S., 19 states—along side Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, and Texas own enacted age-verification measures in present years.
Edited by Josh Quittner and Sebastian Sinclair
