on the surface they do a lot right. warrant canary, no logs, solid infrastructure, profitable.

for me, i really don't like the weird ways that they market. super misleading to imply that they make a person "anonymous" and/or greatly improve your privacy beyond you sending them your information instead of your isp. i also really dont like the lack of transparency, particularly with closed-source clients. i also really don't like the number of controversies that nord has been in, even insofar as getting hacked. i don't want my vpn provider to have any, let alone quite a few, of these controversies.

in terms of the model, proton is transitioning to a non-profit which reinforces why they are so well-regarded by the community. long history of doing right by consumers, where it matters most.

I'll just leave this here: https://www.techradar.com/computing/cyber-security/nordvpn-confirms-its-no-logs-claims-for-the-fourth-time-with-security-audit

The biggest thing that did it for me was who runs Nord? Not business entities but the people.

Protons leadership is out in the open with their names (fwiw their CEO is even on the Higgs paper, lol), but Nord has a very intransparent structure.