Unable to access certain websites when protonVPN is disabled or uninstalled

[SaintRod]

Please complete the following checklist (by adding [x]):

• [x] I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates
• [x] This isn't a feature request
• [x] This is not a report about my app not working as expected

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OS: Windows 11 Home Device: surface tablet Connection: WiFi Proton app downloaded via their website App version: 3.0.5

I've scoured the web about this issue. Most forum posts pertain to Linux distributions. Not much about this for Windows. BTW, yes... I've submitted a ticket with support. I'm just curious if others have faced similar issues.

When proton VPN is disabled I cannot access certain websites, such as google.com, duckduckgo.com, startpage.com, among others. But I can however access certain other websites, such as fast.com, speedtest.net, gmail.com, etc. I've tried Brave, Chrome, and even Edge. None work. I've uninstalled protonVPN via the remove programs utility and am still unable to access the afflicted websites. I've tried all/most of the suggestions for Linux, such as flush the DNS, reset the firewall, ... so many I forget all that I tried. And yet the issue persists.

What's strange is that when protonVPN is disabled/uninstalled, I can successfully ping google.com and can perform tracert google.com, however, I can't access google.com via any browser. Additionally, if I hardline to the router the issue(s) go away, which makes me think the problem is related to the WiFi adapter. I uninstalled the driver but to no avail. After HOURS I gave up and reinstalled protonVPN so that I could access all of the internet.

Has anyone faced a similar situation?

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Below are the results from ping and tracert when protonVPN is disabled.

C:\Windows\System32>ping google.com -n 5

Pinging google.com [142.251.40.78] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 142.251.40.78: bytes=32 time=15ms TTL=116
Reply from 142.251.40.78: bytes=32 time=19ms TTL=116
Reply from 142.251.40.78: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=116
Reply from 142.251.40.78: bytes=32 time=11ms TTL=116
Reply from 142.251.40.78: bytes=32 time=16ms TTL=116

Ping statistics for 142.251.40.78:
    Packets: Sent = 5, Received = 5, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
    Minimum = 11ms, Maximum = 19ms, Average = 14ms

C:\Windows\System32>tracert google.com

Tracing route to google.com [142.251.40.78]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     3 ms     2 ms     2 ms  192.168.1.1
  2    17 ms     9 ms     9 ms  142-254-131-069.inf.spectrum.com [142.254.131.69]
  3    33 ms    22 ms    31 ms  lag-61.dllltx1901h.netops.charter.com [24.28.88.228]
  4    35 ms    48 ms    12 ms  lag-34.mcr11crtntxjt.netops.charter.com [24.175.49.213]
  5    15 ms    13 ms    12 ms  lag-28.rcr01dllatx37.netops.charter.com [24.175.33.246]
  6    12 ms    11 ms    12 ms  142.250.170.122
  7    24 ms    22 ms    22 ms  108.170.231.48
  8    18 ms    13 ms    12 ms  142.250.62.205
  9    20 ms    16 ms    12 ms  dfw28s34-in-f14.1e100.net [142.251.40.78]

Trace complete.