- Signups for Proton VPN Free in Jordan spiked after Discord went offline
- Government-imposed bans are causing increasing spikes in VPN registrations
- Jordan Discord users have found a privacy-friendly workaround in Proton VPN Free
Proton VPN has reported a significant increase in Jordanian subscriptions to its free VPN, coinciding with the recent Discord outage in the country.
Signups on Proton VPN Free, one of the best free VPNs on the market, increased since October 6, 2025, before peaking two days later on October 8. New registrations remained double the daily average until October 13, when Proton VPN published a blog post revealing the trend.
A surge in Proton VPN downloads in Jordan comes amid reports on social media that Discord has stopped working in the country.
Although there are concerns that the government is blocking the instant messaging and VoIP platform, no official confirmation has emerged at the time of writing.
Discord users in Jordan are likely to turn to the best VPN services, including Proton VPN, not only to avoid potential internet censorship but also to protect their privacy in a country that Freedom House describes as having limited internet freedom.
Global state censorship drives VPN adoption
Social media reports suggested that the Discord outage in Jordan may not simply be a technical issue but rather a deliberate block imposed by the government. The app has previously been blocked in Russia and Türkiye, and recently suffered a data breach as well.
Discord is a popular communication platform, so when users started seeing the service go down, they quickly looked for ways to restore access. Proton VPN’s reputation for strong privacy protection made it a natural choice.
Jordan’s Discord outage appears to be part of a larger pattern: Every time a popular communication or social media platform goes offline, Proton VPN consistently records dramatic increases in registrations and active usage.
This is evidenced by recent reports from TechRadar’s Chiara Castro, who highlighted the 35,000% increase in Proton VPN usage in Afghanistan in the wake of the social media ban, as well as an 8,000% increase in Nepal, also due to social media restrictions.
Censorship causes a rapid migration to VPNs, particularly free VPNs like Proton VPN Free, which provide a convenient and free way to safely bypass blocks. However, some internet users may turn to obscure free VPNs that lack proper encryption, sell user data, or even hand over identification logs directly to authorities, putting them at serious legal and privacy risk.
How the right VPN can help bypass censorship
A virtual private network (VPN) bypasses censorship by encrypting your Internet traffic so your Internet Service Provider (ISP) can’t see what you’re doing online.
Connecting to a server outside of Jordan allows you to browse within the country’s internet restrictions and browse normally, making you appear as if you are in another country entirely.
Proton VPN provides a convenient, privacy-first solution for anyone looking to bypass censorship at no cost. It operates under Switzerland’s strict privacy laws and has proven to keep no logs in a recent independent audit.
While Proton VPN Free is one of the few free VPN services that offers unlimited bandwidth (and it should be more than enough to bypass these types of internet restrictions), you’ll need to upgrade to a premium plan to benefit from its full power.
In Proton’s case, this includes access to one of the largest server networks of any VPN (over 15,000 servers in 126 countries), advanced security features, and other benefits like streaming unblocking.
