I can’t recommend this half-price Black Friday deal highly enough

You're skeptical of Black Friday deals. I know. I am too, and you're right to be. As someone who's been writing about them for 6 years, I've become quite cynical about the whole thing.

Is that 65-in OLED TV really a good deal, or is it just old stock that's conveniently timed to drop in price at this time of year in the never-ending cycle of consumerism?

Is that Black Friday offer really a discount or is the 70% off claim just a reference to some price that was inflated in the first place? It's not always easy to tell.

The tools I find most effective when figuring this out are PriceRunner and a little school mathematics. Sites like PriceRunner track the history of the price of any particular product. That way you can tell if the Black Friday discount you're looking at really is the lowest ever price or not.

And then there's the maths. Don't believe every percentage you read. Do your calculations and make sure total prices stack up with claims of discounts.

Work out the absolute value of what you're being asked to pay right now and see how that compares to the price it used to be.

Is that difference really 20% off, or is it compared to some historic price or some other semi-hidden valuation that no one ever has to pay anyway?

That's my 'expert' advice (though let's face it, we're all experts at shopping), and this is the best deal I've seen anywhere this Black Friday.

It's half-price, it's a great product, it's something anyone can use and, you know what, I'd even say it's important – for you, and maybe even society as a whole.

It's Proton Unlimited.

It's a 1-year subscription service. It's normally $12.99 per month but, right now, it's down 50% to $6.49 per month. So, instead of paying $155.88 for the year, you'll only have to give over $77.88.

In 6 years of writing about it I've rarely seen it on sale. So, to find it available at half-price makes it a genuine Black Friday 2025 bargain.

So, what is Proton Unlimited. Well, I'll try to keep it brief. Follow the linked text below for a deeper dive on it but the broad strokes are that it's a software suite for your phone, your laptop and many of your other devices too (tablets, Fire Sticks, TVs, routers, all sorts).

It's made up of Proton Mail, Proton VPN, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, Proton Pass, Proton Wallet and Proton Docs. So, that's your email, calendar, cloud storage, password manager, Bitcoin wallet and online documents all covered, plus full access to Proton VPN.

Now, you might be wondering why you should pay for all of that when you get it for free already from Google, Microsoft, Apple of another Big Tech company – and fair enough. The difference is that Proton cares about privacy.

Proton isn't going to take information from your emails and sell it to advertisers. It's not going to use the writing in your docs to train it's AI products. And you're not going to wake up one morning to find that your passwords have been leaked in a data breach.

Like the most private messaging services, Proton uses end-to-end encryption with all of its products so that you're the only one that can access your data. Proton won't track you and it certainly won't serve you ads.

I'm a Proton Unlimited user and I think it's great.

Now, the other thing you should be thinking is, "If this is so good, why is it half-price," and I don't claim to know for a fact but I can certainly have an educated guess.

I suspect that it's not easy to get people to switch from a free to a paid product when there's little difference to the features on offer. I suspect it's also very difficult to get people to move from a household name in this space, to a relative unknown.

Based on that, I would imagine that this is something of a loss leader for Proton – especially as the lowest price I've ever seen it advertised is $9.99 – but the company is confident that the more people it can get using its products, the more the good word will spread. And, if Proton can get companies to switch to its office products, then, well, it's gravy from there on in.

So, this really is a question of taking advantage of a good deal while it's available. And how is this a good deal for maybe even society as a whole? Yes, I did say that, didn't I.

Well, as the VPN world goes, Proton is one of the good guys. Proton opens up its VPN servers to citizens in countries in crisis. So, whether that's during times of political turmoil, authoritarian oppression or natural disasters, the company paves the way for free and open access to the internet.

Proton has said that its 2025 Black Friday profits will directly pay for expanding its server network across the world. It already has more servers across the developing world than any other VPN company and, if you give its deal a try, you'll be actively contributing to the company spreading its free access to those that need it even further.

How's that for a feeling of fuzzy warmth on a day that can otherwise feel pretty hollow?

I'll admit, the transition from Google to Proton isn't the easiest. I'm still caught between both password managers a bit. I think Proton needs to improve it's migration. But try Proton Mail and you won't look back.

Probably the best piece of value in it all is that you get access to Proton VPN included, and you might not be using a VPN already.

Like Proton's other products, a VPN uses end-to-end encryption, only, this time, it's end-to-end-encrypting your internet traffic. In other words, it keeps all the information you send back and forth between your devices and the internet super-private. Only you and the service you're accessing can see it.

So it's a good idea to use a VPN when you're doing your online banking, for example, because it means that even if someone could intercept your internet traffic, it would be encrypted and utterly unreadable.

For the same reason, VPNs are useful for doing your Black Friday shopping. Again, when you hand over your name, address, email and card details, only you and the shop involved could possibly be privy to that sensitive information.

Lastly, VPNs are handy for changing your apparent location. So, if you're on holiday and want to pretend to be back home so that you can access your news website or streaming streaming service like a local, then that becomes possible too.

And that's it. That's Proton Unlimited – what I think is a genuinely good Black Friday deal.

If you're not sure whether it's something you'd use or not, it's worth noting that it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee that really works. We've tried it to make sure. If you're not happy within that time, mail the Proton support team and request a refund.

It's definitely worth a try. Like all the best Black Friday deals, I doubt it's going to stick around for that long. I keep getting emails from Proton telling me that it won't. I'd guess you've got until the end of Cyber Monday at the latest.

Take a look at the details below and, go on, click through and see what you think.

Proton Unlimited: $155.88 $78.88 for 1 year
Mail, calendar, drive, password manager, docs and wallet, without the Big Tech bull, and a VPN on top – Proton Unlimited is half-price Black Friday deal with a heart. It comes with a 30-day cooling off period in case you change your mind. Features included as part of Proton Unlimited:

✅ Proton Mail: 3 custom domains, 15 email addresses

✅ Proton Drive: 500 GB of encrypted storage

✅ Proton VPN: 10 VPN connections,

✅ Proton Calendar: 25 custom, encrypted calendars

✅ Proton Pass: password manager, 2FA support

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