The recent statement from the Atlas VPN team underscores the presence of “unprecedented challenges,” citing intensified competition and escalating technological requirements.
“Despite our best efforts and the incredible support of our users, we’ve encountered insurmountable challenges. These include rapidly advancing technological demands, a highly competitive market, and the escalating costs of providing top-tier services. These factors have led us to conclude that continuing to operate Atlas VPN is not sustainable in the long term.”
Atlas VPN
Atlas VPN has previously gained attention for its data security research and notable initiatives. These include providing free premium VPNs to journalists in Ukraine and offering complimentary three-month subscriptions in March 2020 to combat pandemic misinformation.
However, as the costs of operating VPN services increase due to heightened cybersecurity concerns, it’s understandable that freemium VPN offerings would face challenges. They need to maintain affordability to remain competitive, yet this can strain a company’s profit margins.
The recent announcement of Atlas VPN’s shutdown may serve as further evidence of a longstanding belief in the tech community: investing a bit more for premium VPN services is worthwhile for enhanced security and performance.
What’s Changing for Existing Atlas VPN Users?
Depending on users plan, things will change differently.
Premium users will transfer to NordVPN premium plan without any additional cost. All other users will get equivalent plans from NordVPN. Free users will lose access to VPN, but NordVPND will offer them discounts up to 69% for the first two years.
Existing paid Atlas VPN user accounts will seamlessly transition to NordVPN on April 24th. The migration will involve minimal data transfer, focusing on retaining your subscription length and email address.
No auto-renewal
Your new NordVPN account, regardless of your previous settings, will have the autorenewal feature disabled by default. This decision by Atlas VPN is a proactive step, making opting for a recurring subscription with NordVPN a deliberate choice rather than an automatic one. However, this change may inconvenience some users as they will need to manually enable autorenewal in their new NordVPN account. Forgetting to do so could result in unexpected loss of VPN protection if your subscription happens to expire.
