Proton VPN stands out for two main reasons: it’s one of the only virtual private networks (VPNs) to include a free plan with no data limits, and it’s one of the few services majority-owned by a nonprofit. It’s the best VPN in both of those categories, and it makes a strong case for being the best overall.

Even if you don’t care about the work of the Proton Foundation, Proton VPN is a service worth using. It’s easy to install and manage, runs like the wind and meets high standards for security and privacy. It has more IP locations in Africa than any of its competitors. It’s even looking toward the future by working toward full IPv6 support.

In short, Proton VPN gets our enthusiastic recommendation, especially for torrenting (which it supports on almost every server). It’s not perfect — the apps for Apple systems lag behind their Windows and Android counterparts, and the free servers can be noticeably sluggish — but the cons pale in comparison to the pros. We’ll get into it all below.

Editor’s note (7/25/25): We’re in the process of revamping our VPN coverage to provide more in-depth, actionable information and buying guides. Our recommendations, and all the info on this page, are subject to change as the update continues. Check out our revamped ExpressVPN review and NordVPN review to see the new direction, or learn more about how we test VPNs.

Proton

Proton VPN is a superlative service that’s proven itself willing to fight for your privacy — plus, it unblocks Netflix and keeps your internet fast.

Pros

• Keeps internet speeds fast
• Physically secured data centers
• Free plan with unlimited data

Cons

• High proportion of virtual server locations
• Live chat support only for paid users

$3 at Proton VPN

Table of contents

Findings at a glance

The table summarizes what we found while reviewing Proton VPN, both good and bad. Keep it open in a tab while you comparison shop for a VPN.

Installing, configuring and using Proton VPN

This section explains how it feels to run Proton VPN on the various platforms it supports. As a rule, it’s not difficult. Proton VPN has more features than ExpressVPN, and a couple of them might trip up new users, but you’d have to really scrounge to find an actual inconvenience to complain about.

Windows

Proton VPN installs easily on Windows — you’ll need to grant it permission to make changes, but that’s it. Once you’ve signed in on the app, you’ll reach one of the best interfaces we’ve tried on a VPN. The server network is immediately visible as both a list and map, and the location search bar, connect button and major features are all laid out around the same window.

It’s honestly amazing how much you can reach from the launch window without anything feeling cluttered. They even squeezed in keyboard shortcuts for the search field. We also love that settings open in the same window, since dealing with both the main VPN app and a separate preferences panel can get annoying. Our only real gripe is that there should be an easier way to adjust the size of the map.

Mac

The desktop app for Mac isn’t quite as deftly laid out as the Windows app. You can reach most of the important features from the main window, including Profiles, NetShield, Secure Core servers and the kill switch. However, there’s no longer a way to filter out a list of the P2P or Tor servers, except by digging through the Profile controls. On the plus side, you can adjust the size of the map, so it’s now a viable alternative to the server list.

The other preferences are hidden in the menu bar — go to Proton VPN > Settings to reach them. They’re laid out in four tabs, and shouldn’t take more than a minute to go through at setup.

Android

The Android app takes the same design cues as the Windows app, and works as well. Four tabs along the bottom switch between the home screen, the country list, Profiles and all other settings. You can search the list of countries by tapping the magnifying glass at the top-right. In another nice touch, tapping the dots by any virtual location will tell you where the server is physically located.

Android users get some nifty exclusive Profiles, including “anti-censorship,” which automatically connects to the fastest country except for the one you’re in. The Settings tab is a single menu with subheadings and no unnecessary complication.

iOS

Proton VPN for iPhone and iPad looks almost the same as it does on Windows and Android, but with some of the same drawbacks found on Mac. The server list is more cluttered, and once again there’s no easy way to sift out the P2P and Tor locations.

The Settings tab puts all the feature descriptions in the open, which makes it look denser than it is. But these are minor quibbles — this is still a VPN that’s very easy to activate and forget about.

Browser extensions

Proton VPN has browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. These serve as de facto split tunneling, as connecting through the extension protects only browser traffic; everything else goes unprotected. You can split the tunnel further by setting the VPN to not work on certain URLs (unlike the other apps, you don’t need to know the IPs of those sites).

Proton VPN speed test: Impacts of VPN Accelerator

We used Ookla’s Speedtest app to determine how much Proton VPN drags on a user’s latency, measured in milliseconds (ms), and download and upload speeds, measured in megabits per second (Mbps). Together, these three stats show whether a VPN will noticeably slow down your internet, especially during demanding tasks.

We had high hopes for Proton here because of its VPN Accelerator technology, which runs VPN communications across several parallel tracks to process everything faster. It didn’t disappoint — for the most part. Although download speeds didn’t reach the heights we saw from ExpressVPN, Proton VPN’s browsing performance still looks excellent nearly across the board.

To choose our locations for the test, we checked Proton VPN’s list of smart routing servers, which use servers in one country to simulate IP addresses in another. Almost all the smart routing servers are based in five cities: Miami, London, Marseille, Bucharest and Singapore. We ran these tests on a Mac using the automatic protocol setting.

Proton VPN looks very good in that table. Its average download speed was 88 percent of our unprotected speeds. To put that in perspective, if you started with 30 Mbps down (about half what we get) and connected to any Proton VPN server, you’d almost certainly still have a fast enough connection to stream in 4K.

Note the “almost” — Proton VPN did drop noticeably on its French server in Marseille. It’s not uncommon for one of a VPN’s data centers to have trouble while the others work fine, and you can usually fix the problem by just disconnecting and reconnecting. Just note that while drops to about 75 percent of your download speed are rare, they’re not inconceivable.

Proton VPN security test: Watertight protocols

When we talk about VPN security, we’re really talking about reliability. Can this VPN establish an encrypted tunnel and transmit all your information through it, every time, without leaks or failures? With Proton VPN, we’re happy to say the answer is yes; we probed its security and found no cracks to speak of. Read the section below for specifics.

Proton VPN protocols: WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2 and Stealth

Proton VPN uses four VPN protocols to communicate between your devices, its servers and the internet. Three of them (WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2) are common choices with no serious flaws as long as they’re implemented thoughtfully. The fourth, Stealth, is an obfuscation protocol you should only use if the other three are blocked.

• OpenVPN is the most secure option. Without getting too technical, OpenVPN encrypts its backend functions as well as the data itself, which leaves it with no obvious vulnerabilities. It can also communicate using the same ports as common HTTPS traffic, so it’s hard to block.

• WireGuard is more efficient than OpenVPN, both in its source code and the cryptography it uses. It normally requires an exchange of fixed IP addresses, but the Proton VPN implementation overwrites those IPs with randomized addresses, cutting the security risk.

• IKEv2 is a safe choice that’s occasionally faster than either OpenVPN or WireGuard. You probably won’t use it unless it happens to come up while you’ve set the protocol to Smart. As such, it’s on the way to being phased out of Proton VPN.

• Stealth is unique to Proton VPN, though its function is not. It’s got the same architecture as WireGuard, but adds another TLS tunnel to evade network blocks that catch VPN traffic. That extra encryption slows it down, so we don’t recommend using it unless the other three protocols don’t work.

The first option on the app, called “Smart,” is not a protocol — it means your VPN client selects the protocol that will give you the best speeds on your current server. Since all four protocols are safe, there’s no downside to using the Smart setting most of the time.

Leak test

We used AirVPN’s IP leak tool to check all four of Proton VPN’s protocols for DNS and WebRTC leaks. Proton VPN uses its own DNS servers to reduce the risk of sending unencrypted requests, but since leaks are still possible, we tested using a simple method: checking our visible IP address before and after connecting to the VPN.

Despite testing several locations over three days, we never saw our real IP address show up on the tool. This held true even outside the Secure Core server list, where data centers might have been managed by third parties. It’s not perfect proof, but it’s a very good sign that Proton VPN enforces a consistent security regime on all its servers.

We also used BrowserLeaks to check for WebRTC leaks. These are mainly an issue on the browser side, but a VPN is doubly important if your browser happens to be leaking. We enabled WebRTC on our browser and tested the same set of Proton VPN servers without springing any WebRTC leaks.

Proton VPN and IPv6

Proton is working on making its entire VPN compatible with IPv6 addresses. If a VPN that’s only configured for IPv4 has to resolve an IPv6 address, it can cause a leak — that’s why most VPNs, even the best ones, block IPv6 altogether. That said, the whole internet will run on IPv6 one day, so it’s nice to see Proton VPN leading the pack.

So far, IPv6 is automatically enabled on Proton VPN’s Linux apps and browser extensions, and can be optionally activated on its Android app. The Proton VPN apps for all other platforms still block IPv6 traffic, but this should hopefully change soon.

Encryption test

Even if a VPN’s protocol choices are solid, it’s possible for individual implementations of those protocols to fail. We used WireShark, a packet inspector app, to test whether Proton VPN’s encryption worked no matter what settings were in place. We’re happy to say we never saw plaintext once.

How much does Proton VPN cost?

To get full access to Proton VPN, you’ll need a Plus subscription, which costs $9.99 per month. You can knock off half that price by subscribing for a full year and paying a lump sum of $59.88, working out to $4.99 per month. A Plus account with Proton VPN also gives you free access to every other Proton app.

You can also pay $107.76 in advance to subscribe for two years, an average of $4.49 per month — perhaps more convenient, but it doesn’t save you much. The one-year plan is the best value, though it’s also nice that you don’t have to pay through the nose for only one month. There’s a 30-day, money-back guarantee on all plans.

Proton VPN is currently offering Engadget readers an exclusive deal that offers a 12-month plan for $47.88 ($3.99 per month) and a 24-month plan for $81.36 ($3.39 per month). Learn more about it here. One final option is the Proton Unlimited subscription, discussed in the “side apps and bundles” section below.”

The Proton VPN free plan

Proton VPN is one of the best free VPNs on the market right now. No other VPN backed by as much experience and good judgment has a free plan with no data limits. Instead of capping how much data you can use per month, Proton VPN restricts which servers free users can access, limiting them to five countries: the United States, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.

The frustrating part is that you can’t choose which of these servers you use; Proton VPN just auto-connects to whichever one is the least burdened. A Proton representative told us that this change goes along with improvements to the selection algorithm, better load balancing and the addition of the Poland and Romania locations. It is also possible to try for a better connection by clicking “change server.”

The fact remains, though, that a free Proton VPN plan is useless for unblocking content in specific locations — but this may be by design. The free plan seems more aimed toward privacy and anonymity than streaming, and the placement of the free locations near Russia and China reflects that. Free Proton VPN plans don’t sacrifice any essential security features.

Proton VPN side apps and bundles

Proton VPN’s main bundle is Proton Unlimited, which gets you all six Proton products in one package: VPN, Mail, Drive, Calendar, Wallet and Pass. This costs $12.99 for a month, $119.88 for a year ($9.99 per month) and $191.76 for two years ($7.99 per month). We won’t be going in-depth on any of them in this review, but here’s a quick rundown of each.

• Proton Mail: An end-to-end encrypted email service. Proton can still see a Mail user’s real IP address, but can’t read any of their messages.

• Proton Drive: Encrypted cloud storage. As with Mail, Proton can identify users, but can’t read any of the content they store.

• Proton Calendar: An encrypted scheduling app with events and reminders.

• Proton Wallet: A self-custody wallet for storing Bitcoin unconnected to any exchange.

• Proton Pass: A password manager that generates, stores and autofills passwords for online accounts.

Even if you only need two of the six, Proton Unlimited saves you money. Separate monthly subscriptions to Proton VPN and Proton Mail would cost a total of $14.98, so you’ve already knocked off $2 per month. That increases if you’re able to commit to a year in advance.

Close-reading Proton VPN’s privacy policy

Proton’s privacy policy comes in two parts: the general Proton policy and the shorter policy specific to Proton VPN. We’ll cover them in that order.

General Proton privacy policy

Proton tracks user activity on its product websites using its own marketing tools; the data set collected does not include IP addresses. It retains an email address connected to each user’s account, but it’s not allowed to connect IP addresses (and thus identities and locations) to those emails unless the user breaches the terms of service.

You may rightly ask how Proton would know a user is abusing one of their services if they don’t keep activity logs. The answer is that logs aren’t needed; most forms of abuse can be detected in other ways and observed in real time. For example, if someone used a Proton VPN server to launch a DDoS attack, the team could inspect that server and find the hacker while the attack was still ongoing.

The policy goes on to list the five third-party data processors Proton uses (Zendesk, PayPal, Chargebee, Atlassian and Stripe), none of whom are allowed to store customer activity data. Proton cautions that it will share what data it does have in response to unblockable requests from the Swiss government, but not “until all legal or other remedies have been exhausted.” This is standard for a VPN that wants to remain in business, and the transparency report shows the company does indeed fight court orders when it can.

Proton VPN privacy policy

Proton’s VPN-specific privacy policy is quite short. It states that Proton cannot log user activities or identifiable characteristics of devices connected to the VPN, cannot throttle internet connections and must extend full privacy and security to free users.

In one sense, a privacy policy requires you to take the VPN provider at their word, but it’s dangerous for a company to make promises they don’t intend to keep. The policy is legally binding, and breaking it is grounds for a lawsuit. Proton VPN’s succinct no-logs policy is therefore a great sign. It’s also been confirmed several times by a third-party audit, most recently in July 2024.

Can Proton VPN change your virtual location?

Testing a VPN’s ability to mask a user’s location isn’t complex — all you need is a streaming subscription. We connected to five test locations and tried to unblock Netflix with each one. If we managed to access the site, and saw different shows than those on the American library, we concluded that the location had masked us successfully.

Proton VPN passed the test every time in all five locations. The only hiccup came in Romania, which we chose because it’s one of the free locations. The app connected us to a free server, which was too slow to load Netflix; when we chose a paid server, the problem disappeared.

Investigating Proton VPN’s server network

Proton VPN’s free plan includes servers in five locations: the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, the United States and Japan. When you connect as a free user, you’ll be automatically connected to whichever location is fastest.

A paid plan opens up the full network of 154 servers in 117 countries and territories. The menu includes a huge selection of African locations, more than any VPN we’ve tested in some time. The Middle East, along with central and southern Asia, are also well represented, and U.S. users will find 20 different locations to choose from.

Keep in mind that about two-thirds of these server locations are virtual, meaning they’re not physically located where they claim to be. This includes all the African servers except South Africa and Nigeria; all the South American servers except Brazil, Colombia and Argentina; and all the Middle Eastern servers except Turkey, Israel and the UAE. A majority of the locations in Asia are also virtual, including South Korea, India, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.

To be clear, virtual locations can hide your IP address just as well as physical ones. It’s only a problem if you’re expecting the kind of performance, particularly in terms of latency, that you get from a nearby server. Luckily, Proton VPN gives you fast enough download and upload speeds that distance shouldn’t be a problem.

Features of Proton VPN

Proton VPN has a number of extra features that go beyond standard VPN functionality. We’ve already mentioned the Stealth protocol and IPv6 support. In this section, we’ll cover an additional five features that might be of interest.

NetShield ad blocker

Proton VPN’s built-in ad blocker is known as NetShield. It’s available on the main UI page, and has two settings: one that blocks only malware sites, and one that blocks sites connected with malware, ads and trackers. The stronger feature is on by default.

NetShield works by checking any DNS requests against a database of web servers known to host malware, inject ads or attach cross-site trackers to your browsing session. The DNS-blocking approach means it’s not capable of blocking ads served from the same domain that hosts them — so no blocking YouTube video ads. On the positive side, it means NetShield works across your entire device, not just on your browser.

NetShield also displays a running total of how many of each form of interference it’s blocked. It catches most banner ads, but since you can’t customize the blocklist in any way, it’s best when combined with another browser-level ad blocker.

Secure Core servers

Here’s an interesting one. Secure Core is a form of a common feature known as double VPN or multi-hop VPN, in which a connection runs through two VPN servers before being decrypted. If one server fails or gets compromised, the other server keeps your connection private.

Proton VPN takes this a step further. When you activate Secure Core, your connection will still end at your chosen server location — but before that, it will travel through a designated server in Iceland, Sweden or Switzerland. A few touches make Secure Core servers more reliable than the average VPN node:

• All three countries are safe jurisdictions, with consumer-friendly privacy laws and courts sympathetic to privacy claims.

• Secure Core data centers are locked down physically; for example, the Iceland location is a refitted military base, and the Sweden location is literally underground.

• Proton owns and operates all Secure Core locations itself, with no rentals or third-party managers.

Almost no other VPNs pay as much attention to physical security as Proton VPN does with this feature. The second hop makes Secure Core connections slower on average, but it’s worth it if you have something especially sensitive to do online.

Kill switch

Proton VPN includes a kill switch, a standard feature. When active, a kill switch cuts off your internet whenever your connection to the VPN drops. This means you’re never in danger of leaking your real identity or location, even for a second. It also protects you against the TunnelVision exploit, which requires the hacker to make a fake VPN server.

Split tunneling

Split tunneling is included on the Windows and Android apps, but users on other devices can access it through the browser extension. With split tunneling, some apps or websites get online through the VPN, while others stay unprotected.

Proton VPN allows split tunneling by both app and IP address. This grants you a precise level of control over your split, as long as you know the IP of each website you’re placing on the list (you can find that out using DNS checker).

Torrenting servers and port forwarding

Proton VPN is one of the best VPNs for torrenting. It restricts torrenting to P2P servers, but nearly every server on the list is a P2P server — only Secure Core servers and some free servers don’t permit torrenting. Combine that with the fact that it maintains 96 percent of your upload speeds on average, and you should have few problems using a torrenting client.

It also has some support for port forwarding, which can improve torrenting speed. Windows and Linux users can enable it with a simple toggle, which provides an active port number for configuring private servers. Mac users can set up port forwarding through manual OpenVPN or WireGuard configurations.

Tor over VPN

A handful of Proton VPN servers route you directly to the Tor network after encrypting your connection. While connected to one of these Tor over VPN servers, which are marked with TOR in their names and an onion symbol, you’ll be able to open .onion links on a normal browser.

This is more than just convenient — Tor over VPN is the safest way to access the dark web. With the VPN as an intermediary, you’re never connecting to Tor with your own IP address, so malicious node operators can’t see your real identity. For maximum privacy, use Tor Browser to create your Proton VPN account, so you’re never exposed at any point in the process.

Proton VPN has Tor servers in six countries (the U.S., France, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany and Hong Kong). Each just has one Tor server, except the United States, which gets two. Tor over VPN is supported on all platforms, but it won’t work on Mac or iOS unless you have the kill switch enabled.

Profiles

A “profile” on Proton VPN is a group of pre-established settings you can use to quickly configure the VPN for a particular task. Two profiles are available from the start: Fastest, which connects to the fastest server, and Random, which always connects to a different server. You can create more profiles by toggling four settings:

• Feature: The type of server used. Choose from Standard, Secure Core, P2P or Tor over VPN.

• Country: The country to which the profile connects.

• Server: A server within that country. You can also select “fastest” or “random.”

• Protocol: Which VPN protocol the profile will use. “Smart” can be selected.

As an example, say you want to watch a TV series that’s only available on Netflix in Canada. You could create a profile called “Netflix Canada” that connects to the fastest Canadian server with just one click. We’d call profiles situationally useful, but they can save a lot of time if you regularly perform the same action on your VPN.

Proton VPN customer support options

We went to Proton VPN’s FAQ pages with two questions that came up while researching other sections: which of Proton VPN’s servers are managed by third parties, and why do certain server locations (like Marseilles) run slow despite the app showing a light load?

You can access the help center through any of Proton VPN’s apps, or by going directly to the website. Articles appear to be organized into six categories. Oddly, clicking any category button only shows you a handful of the articles in that section — for example, the Troubleshooting category looks like it only has five articles. If you type “troubleshooting” into the search bar, though, you’ll see dozens pop up. There are even some sections, like Billing, that don’t appear on the main page at all.

It has the feel of a website update that wasn’t adequately brought in line with the bulk of the support content. Until Proton fixes it, just use the search bar for everything. The articles themselves are well-written, give or take some stilted English.

Getting quick help

We couldn’t find written answers to our questions about ownership and server load, so we turned to live chat. Free users should keep in mind that live chat support is only available on paid accounts, but there’s a fairly active subreddit at r/protonvpn where Proton staff frequently post.

Live chat is not intuitively located on protonvpn.com. We finally found it by scrolling all the way to the bottom of the main page, only to be told nobody was online to help at the moment — live chat is only accessible from 9 AM to midnight Central European Time (CET). We submitted our question about the Marseille servers as an email ticket instead.

This part was easy, at least, as the form helpfully populated our system information. We also got a prompt response within 24 hours. We ended the interaction there, as we weren’t able to reproduce the sluggish behavior on the French server locations, but it’s nice to know the team will answer quickly.

Proton VPN background check: The CERN origins of Proton AG

Proton VPN launched in 2017, but its team’s experience goes back much farther. The founders of its parent company, Proton AG, met while working at CERN in Switzerland, and the company remains under Swiss jurisdiction.

Their first product, Proton Mail, went live in 2014 after a successful crowdfunding campaign, and claims to have 100 million users today. Proton VPN was Proton AG’s second project. Like Proton Mail, it consists of a free plan supplemented by paid upgrades.

Since then, Proton has introduced several more products: Proton Calendar in 2020, Proton Drive cloud storage in 2022 and the Proton Pass password manager in 2023, each designed around using end-to-end encryption to make user data inaccessible.

The Proton Foundation

Proton announced in 2024 that the majority of its shares had been acquired by the Proton Foundation, a nonprofit whose only purpose is to control Proton stock. Among other benefits, this prevents it from being purchased by anyone who disagrees with its mission. To sell to an objectionable parent company, the entire board of trustees would have to agree, which feels unlikely based on Proton’s track record.

Throughout Proton’s history, we only found two incidents serious enough to comment on, and only one of them concerned Proton VPN. We’ll cover them both below.

ProtonMail law enforcement collaboration allegations

On the page that hosts its annual transparency report, Proton states openly that it “may be legally compelled to disclose certain user information to Swiss authorities” (see the Privacy Policy section of this article for more on precisely what information that describes). In 2021, the company admitted it had given Swiss police (acting on a French warrant) a ProtonMail user’s IP address and device logs. The police arrested the user, a French environmental activist.

While that’s unnerving for privacy-minded users, there are some important contextual issues to consider. Most importantly, ProtonMail is not governed by the same policy as Proton VPN. At the time the case unfolded, Swiss law obliged all email companies to comply with court orders from Swiss authorities to hand over data. VPNs aren’t subject to those retention requirements.

Today, Swiss email companies have been reclassified so they’re also exempt from data retention requirements, thanks in part to a policy change Proton fought for. A representative from Proton confirmed that “under Swiss law, we are not obligated to save any user connection logs.” It’s also reassuring that, despite complying with the subpoena, Proton wasn’t able to turn over the contents of any emails.

Alleged WireGuard memory vulnerability

In January 2025, researchers at Venak Security alleged that Proton VPN lacks memory protection for keys generated under the WireGuard protocol, which might let hackers scrape the keys and decrypt intercepted communications. Proton responded to Venak in a blog post, which a Proton representative confirmed remains their official response to the allegations.

In short: the Venak article only demonstrates that it’s possible to view public keys, not private ones. This isn’t much of a bombshell, given that “public” is right there in the name. But asymmetric encryption — the kind used by VPN protocols like WireGuard — requires both keys to decrypt any messages. Even if a hacker were able to get ahold of a private key, they likely wouldn’t be able to use it for anything. WireGuard incorporates perfect forward secrecy by default, changing session keys often enough that any given key is obsolete by the time it’s stolen.

Final verdict

In short, we’re prepared to recommend Proton VPN to almost anybody. Whether you’re mainly concerned with security, streaming or something else, chances are good that you’ll be satisfied. The only serious downsides are that the long-term plans are overpriced and that it’s hard to get live tech support if you live outside of Europe.

It’s also our unqualified pick for the best free VPN, but with the caveat that it’s a bad choice for anyone who needs to choose specific server locations. If all you care about is staying hidden from your ISP and advertisers, Proton should be your first choice.

Samsung has delivered a revamped DeX experience in One UI 8 based on Android 16’s new desktop mode and, while most functionality is there, you might find some little tidbits that are different.

Samsung has been building out DeX as a phone-powered desktop environment for the better part of a decade now, with the feature having debuted on 2017’s Galaxy S8 series. The feature has improved steadily with time, but One UI 8 is giving it a fresh coat of paint to go with its new engine under the hood, as Samsung DeX is now powered by Android 16’s desktop mode.

At Google I/O, it was finally announced that Android is getting proper baked-in desktop mode support starting with Android 16, using DeX as a foundation. The feature is live in beta right now and still pretty rough around the edges, but Samsung has taken it and built out a fresh DeX experience that debuts on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Flip 7.

The new experience, for the most part, feels near-identical to what came before. You’ll get some fresh UI elements in the Quick Panel, but things are pretty similar on the whole. Some notable changes we spotted include the removal of a dedicated DeX tab in the Settings when you’re connected to an external display (replaced with the “Connected display” menu), and the “Exit DeX” button is no longer in the app drawer. On the bright side, though, that app drawer now scrolls vertically. The taskbar also now mirrors the docked apps on your phone’s display. That’s one of the places we can see connective tissue between Google’s desktop mode in Android 16 QPR1 and Samsung’s updated DeX experience.

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The folks over at Android Authority found a few more changes such as the removal of some right-click options for the desktop and taskbar, UI elements are now visible when video apps are in fullscreen mode, the “Pin” app option has been removed from windows, and several other quality of life tweaks.

Compared to Android 16’s “stock” desktop mode, DeX feels far more complete despite having a few deficiencies from Samsung’s previous fully-custom solution. But, on the whole, the vast major of people using DeX – which is a niche in the market anyway – probably won’t notice any significant differences.

More on Android 16:

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It seems like LeBron James’ legal team has been trying to stop the spread of viral AI videos featuring the basketball star. As 404 Media , a law firm representing James has sent a cease and desist letter to a person behind an AI platform that allowed Discord users to make AI videos of James and other NBA stars.

As 404 noted, these videos have been circulating for awhile but it’s one particularly strange clip that seems to have gotten James’ lawyers involved. The video, which reportedly racked up millions of views on Instagram, shows a pregnant James being loaded into an ambulance after telling an AI Steph Curry to “come quick our baby is being born.”

404 reports that at least three Instagram accounts that had shared the clip have since been removed, though the video is available . The founder of the AI platform used to make the videos also posted about the cease and desist letter . It’s unclear what is in the letter, or if James’ lawyers were also in touch with Meta about the videos. We’ve reached out to the company for more info on its rules.

Of course, LeBron James is far from the only public figure to grapple with unwanted AI versions of themselves. Social media scammers routinely impersonate celebrities to promote sketchy products and other schemes. We’ve previously reported on such scams involving and Fox News personalities that have proliferated on Facebook. Jamie Lee Curtis also recently had to publicly plead with Mark Zuckerberg to take down of herself.

But the videos of James are a little different. They don’t feature fake endorsements and seem to be more of a prank meant to go viral in the way that lots of “AI slop” does. And James and other celebrities will likely continue to have a difficult time preventing these kinds of deepfakes from spreading. Some quick testing by Engadget showed that it’s relatively easy to get AI chatbots to create images and video of “pregnant LeBron James.”

We first asked ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot to make such a photo. All chatbots initially refused, saying that such an image could go against their guidelines. But when given an image of James and asked to “make this person eight months pregnant,” Google’s Gemini delivered a 7-second clip of the basketball star cradling a pregnant belly. (We’ve reached out to Google to clarify its rules around such content.)

Likewise, Meta AI seemingly had no reservations about producing images of “pregnant LeBron James” and promptly delivered many such variations. While these creations aren’t as detailed as the initial video that went viral, they do highlight how difficult it can be for AI companies to prevent people from circumventing whatever guardrails may exist.

Like on Android phones, Google Messages is testing a straightforward M3 Expressive redesign on Wear OS.

Overall, the changes are quite subtle, with the homescreen mostly the same. When you tap “Start chat” at the top and open the dialer, you see that the numbers are placed in pills. The Google Phone app will presumably go the same route.

There are more updates in the conversation view. The emoji, microphone, and keyboard buttons are now pills instead of circles, and placed in a container.

The suggested replies (Yes, No, OK) are grouped together instead of being standalone buttons. However, Call, View people, Delete conversation, and Open on phone are pills for a nice separation.

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Google Messages for Wear OS is making use of the new read receipts that place the checkmarks in a circle. This is not yet rolled out on phones.

We’re seeing this M3 Expressive redesign with the beta release of Google Messages for Wear OS. On phones, Google looks to have rolled back the M3E redesign of the conversation view for testers.

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