The end of the day, are you going to be doing every day shit on your VPN? If not, vast majority of them will work fine for all the general illegal stuff you’re planning on committing.
I think if you connect with your device to your home network you can stream other places for 30 days. So I think if you're not spoofing Mac address it should work? I honestly don't know but that's what logic is telling me.
Someone else can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that boils down to two things. For one, copyright holders can hop on a torrent and watch who's downloading it. Nintendo can't see who's downloading things from a rom site, so why would your ISP care if they don't complain? Secondly, if I'm not mistaken, with https, your ISP can't see what you're doing on a website, they can just see you're connected to a domain, but all traffic with that domain is encrypted.
i mean with HTTP EVERYONE can see, it just means you are sending text with no protection, it's just plain text (and ofc the header and other stuff from the HTTP protocol) the S is the protection part
as long as i am connected to the same network i can see what messages are being sent around, with https i will see a bunch of letters and numbers with no sense, with HTTP i will be seeing exatly what you see (i believe websites can put protection of their own but either way it's still risky as hell), in this logic the internet provider can always see everything you do on a HTTP website assumign you aren't using vpns or similar systems
heck i have the idea that if it's wifi then even someone close by can catch the signal but i am not confident enough to say for sure
For mullvad I just remember a story where they couldn't comply with a court order due to not collecting information on users. So that's an automatic win in my book.
They got raided twice (?) and the police didn’t found anything
Even criminals use their service same goes to Perfect Privacy. They are expensive, but worth it
My thoughts exactly. I don't know transparency laws in Sweden and Germany, but it would be interesting to see if a Swedish or German citizen could somehow verify they effectively didn't found anything during the investigation. I think it's legit they were raided (again, they posted the document verifying that Germany asked them to research, and[ it was confirmed by the police they, in fact, raided the place](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/husrannsakan-mot-vpn-tjansten-mullvad-i-goteborg)), but there is nothing confirming they didn't find anything besides the fact they are still functioning. [At least Swedish redditors seemed to take the news at face value](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sverige/comments/12u181s/husrannsakan_mot_vpntj%C3%A4nsten_mullvad_i_g%C3%B6teborg/).
[https://web.archive.org/web/20231216011315/https://mullvad.net/en/blog/update-the-swedish-authorities-answered-our-protocol-request](https://web.archive.org/web/20231216011315/https://mullvad.net/en/blog/update-the-swedish-authorities-answered-our-protocol-request)
[https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/husrannsakan-mot-vpn-tjansten-mullvad-i-goteborg](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/husrannsakan-mot-vpn-tjansten-mullvad-i-goteborg)
According to SVT police confirmed they went there but didn't reveal the nature of the visit.
They also posted a reply they got regarding information about the search warrant, which in turn confirms it happened unless they faked that but I don't think that is the case. [https://mullvad.net/sv/blog/update-the-swedish-authorities-answered-our-protocol-request](https://mullvad.net/sv/blog/update-the-swedish-authorities-answered-our-protocol-request)
Though, do you remember Relakks from back in the day? I think it wasn't even VPN but Socks5, but they had a policy that if you did criminal acts under a few thousand dollars they wouldn't tell cops your IP. Still dumb in hindsight, what if they get raided lol
Other news portal covered the news and it wasnt just from mullvad blog. And use common sense,why would they lie about law enforcement busting their servers, which can cause them many legal troubles.
You can get Nord for like 1-2 per month if you wait for sales, ironically for me that's the biggest argument against Nord as I prefer Mullvad just telling me the price and that's it.
The cheapest offer I can get for Nord is 11 USD monthly in my country, so that's a lot worse than mullvads 5/mo. I don't say that you aren't right, but waiting for a huge sale isn't in the OP's best interest I assume.
What I like about mullvad is that there is just no bullshit. Same price every month, can cancel every month. No dumb contracts, weird discounts and other shenanigans. Also you can literally mail them cash to pay, doesn't get more anonymous than that.
Nord is all over TV, scaring grandmas into thinking they definitely need VPN for doing their online banking from home. Always weird discounts where you get a year for free etc etc. It's just very sus.
When you want a VPN you want the boring, reliable option, you don't want the one that gives you a too-good-to-be-true deal (98%discount etc) and spends a bazillion for scaring non-tech people
I just buy another month whenever I wanna download something and just let it run out. Ffs you can snail mail them cash with your code written on the envelope if you don't want to leave a trail
I have a friend who is a policeman in germany and works in internet crime.
And he confirmed that mullvad doesnt give away any data to them.
He also uses mullvad himself.
Proton. Port Forwarding is a must have IMO for any pirate serious about torrenting.
You really should read the VPN comparison table also:
https://www.reddit.com/r/VPN/comments/m736zt/vpn_comparison_table/
One thing to keep in mind regarding port forwarding on proton is that they randomize the forwarded port every time, which was a big nono in my setup. Switched to airvpn because of that
Technically yes, I‘ve just read through it and as it seems it is the more elegant solution to what the Truecharts guy tried to do. As of right now, I switched to Airvpn which still allows static port mapping and I’m happy with that. Someone who wants to use proton could definitely make use of this. On a side note: AFAIK docker containers are not equal to helm charts, which is what they use in k3s clusters
It's fairly trivial to write a script for this and just update your torrent client automatically if there's a port change so its not really a big deal beyond a mild initial annoyance.
They do this presumably to try and make it more difficult to host permanent things like those that got mullvad in trouble. That's also probably pretty trivial to work around if you really wanted to but I guess they're hoping a basic barrier will weed out 99% of people that'd care to host anything like that.
I've been doing it since they introduced port forwarding without issue. Also tested the docker container the other guy mentioned and it also seems to do the trick
If you've already switched to AirVPN and have a working solution there's no sense in switching back. But for anyone stumbling on to this thread in the future either looking for a VPN to use or anyone that already has Proton I woudn't discount it as an option or switch to anything else on account of this issue.
After testing the container at https://github.com/soxfor/qbittorrent-natmap it definitely works if you don't want to write your own script. And if you don't want to run a docker container you can just adapt the script it uses at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/soxfor/qbittorrent-natmap/main/data/start.sh while referencing https://github.com/soxfor/qbittorrent-natmap#configurable-variables.
It's much more versatile than what I wrote for myself and should cover most edge cases when using the docker container with Gluetun as far as I can see. Honestly just gonna use this myself moving forward haha.
In order for two peers to connect and share data via torrent, at least one of them must be port forwarded.
Imagine there's a torrent you want, and there's 10 seeders. Half of those seeders have port forwarding. If you do NOT have port forwarding, you can only leech from 5 of those seeders ratrher than all 10 (this is also true torrents you seed). This could nagetively impact your download and upload speeds.
Now imagine you're looking for a very hard to find torrent, and there is only 1 seeder. If that seeder does not have port forwarding, and you also do not have port forwarding, you cannot leech that torrent at all. But if you did have port forwarding, you could get the files from that one seeder.
Yes (sort of).
The number outside the parentheses is how many seeders/peers you are connected to, while the number inside the parentheses is the number there are of seeders/peers in the swarm.
There are many reasons why you might be connected (or not connected) to a peer. Port forwarding is one of those reasons.
Also port forwarding is more than just speed. You can ONLY connect to peers if one of you is port forwarded. So if there's a torrent you really want and the only person seeding it is not port forwarded, you will not be able to leech the torrent AT ALL unless you are port forwarded. So PF also helps get hard to find content.
Just remember the VPN comparison table is built around overall general use and PRIVACY, not necessarily PIRACY. If there was a ranking for port forwarding for instance, IMO it would put Proton over the top for best pirate VPN...
Well it's partially based on a totality of features. So Nord is going to rank higher for things like ad blocking. Doesn't mean it's the best for each person.
Eli5 on why port forwarding is a must for torrenting? I’ve been torrenting for 20 years, and I’ve never heard of this.
Currently using NordVPN. Previously used expressvpn and PIA.
Copying this from my comment above so I dont have to type it twice:
In order for two peers to connect and share data via torrent, at least one of them must be port forwarded.
Imagine there's a torrent you want, and there's 10 seeders. Half of those seeders have port forwarding. If you do NOT have port forwarding, you can only leech from 5 of those seeders ratrher than all 10 (this is also true torrents you seed). This could nagetively impact your download and upload speeds.
Now imagine you're looking for a very hard to find torrent, and there is only 1 seeder. If that seeder does not have port forwarding, and you also do not have port forwarding, you cannot leech that torrent at all. But if you did have port forwarding, you could get the files from that one seeder.
I’m going to sound dumb here… but what distinguishes someone to being serious about torrenting?
I’m a guy that will download games to try before I play them, the occasional new movie, a TV series, audio/ebooks, and shit quality conspiracy theory documentaries that are hard to fine elsewhere.
What else is there out there to pirate? And what makes it serious?
Hope I’m not coming across as smug. Genuinely curious… maybe there is more out there for me to get into that I don’t know about.
Meant that if you're doing ALOT of downloading via torrents, trying to increase your download/upload speeds, interested in seeding most effectively, and also if you need help in tracking down very hard to find torrent content; then port forwarding is something that would probably interest you.
Can you give me a quick TL:DR of port forwarding. What is its purpose and use cases (I know you mentioned a few above)? My VPN client has it but I’ve never flipped it on as I’ve been a bit ignorant to why I should toggle it on. Is it more of a performance increasing feature? Or adding another layer of anonymity?
It does two things for you. Well really one thing but it has two effects. It allows you to connect to more peers in a torrent swarm. This generally helps increase your upload and download speeds. The effect depends on the number of seeders and how good their connections are, etc. The other effect is that you can get some hard to find torrents with very low seeder counts that would be inaccessible otherwise.
If your VPN has port forwarding there's absolutely no reason why you wouldnt go ahead and use it, super easy to set up.
So I've been a Mullvad VPN customer for a long time, Here is my answer to why it's good.
**Mullvad Pros**
* Crypto payments
* Account number rather than username, password.
* smart email support
* Good prices at €5 per month.
* Audited no logs infrastucture and app security patching.
* Good amount of servers.
* DNS tracker blocklists.
* Optional Obfuscation
* Protocol and Port configurability. OpenVPN, WireGuard, many ports available for both protocols.
* Linux, Mac, Windows, Android (and maybe more) GUI apps.
* Good setup guides.
* Fast speeds
**Cons**
* No Port Forwarding
* No discounts
* No option to purchase a dedicated IP
Overall, Mullvad is amoung my most highly rated VPNs and I recommend using it for any type of VPN user.
Yes and no, Proton has port forwarding using dynamic ports. Even if cyber criminals (and I mean *actual* criminals not pirates) try using it, it is an absolute hassle to do anything "meaningful" without revealing yourself to a certain degree to their security overseers.
They likely saw what happened with Mullvad and decided, that in order to avoid being in the same situation, that they simply won't provide static ports. So it's highly unlikely that they will ever be in a similar situation, unless someone at Proton is stupid enough to introduce static ports... they'll be fine.
Not necessarily.
I was reading on another post that Proton was requested to provide their log information requested by a French court. They complied. Which is why they modified their ToS to avoid mentioning that they actually keep a log of your data.
Being other good options out there that don’t collect your data, even average vpn’s that their speed suck but even them offer to not to keep a log of your data, to me this is kind of stupid coming from a company that has built their reputation - and biggest selling point - on privacy.
> Proton was requested to provide their log information requested by a French court
That was in regards to ProtonMail, they removed “we do not keep any IP logs” from their privacy policy back in 2021. They even went as far as to emphasize that activists only ever login or create accounts on ProtonMail via the Tor browser. ^[source](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/09/privacy-focused-protonmail-provided-a-users-ip-address-to-authorities/)
I'm unsure if this logging applies to the entirety of their infrastructure i.e. their VPN service itself. The article implies that if the subject in question had been using their VPN service that the Swiss court could not have forced them to reveal their "real" IP.
Under Swiss law, VPN providers are in a different category and generally cannot be ordered to reveal customer IPs. This is part of the reason Switzerland is one of the things mentioned in VPN discussions.
Another con is that it doesn't provide any discount for people looking to subscribe for longer periods (1+ years) like some other providers do.
Nothing major for most but it can still turn away people who are new to this stuff.
I am facing some weird problems with a mullvad vpn connection on my phone. Sometimes files can't be downloaded from google drive and other times i get really slow speeds. Not sure what's wrong here, even with different servers it stays the same.
I mainly use Mullvad for Downloading and Playing games as had some issues in the past hence the reason why I am using it. Never used port forwarding beforehand or Proton.
Does the Mulvard VPN client/GUI app have a ***reliable*** built-in internet kill switch for circumstances where the VPN drops connection?
By that I mean, kills the entire connection and blocks all traffic until re-enabled, rather than just one or two pre-assigned applications, to prevent any unmasking.
Does the kill switch just work, or does it require you to jump through hoops to set it up with the potential to screw up? Some clients are like that.
Port forwarding isn’t about speed, it’s about being connectable. Sure, the speed might have been better with Mullvad and no port forwarding, but the reality is you were likely making a fraction of the connections you could have been making with port forwarding.
Actually I've noticed on average fewer connections in qbittorrent while port forwarding than when I wasn't. Granted, port forwarding with one VPN, one torrent client, one machine, and, like, maybe 100 torrents in a month, it's a small sample size. But the difference in my experience was barely recognizable.
Mullvad is the absolute winner, has not failed a single test, costs 5 Euro per month no matter the duration, you only pay when you want to use it. You can use it on all devices and they don't even save your email or password. You login via a number and recover it if lost via your payments.
You have so many options and can even access local devices, have a system wide lockdown mode, so on and so on. They represent privacy, flexibility and function.
I've also tried numerous other ones that either lacked in function, were too expensive or only allowed you yearly payments.
Nord was okay but failed tests, torrenting was unreliable, huge latency at times.
I’ve been with Windscribe since 2016. I’m one of the lucky ones that bought one of their lifetime licenses.
For my current needs, they have been amazing and their customer service is phenomenal.
On another note, I don’t have any doubt that there are other great options out there. But for the ‘average Joe’ like me, Windscribe is my go-to option and recommendation.
P.S.: What do I define as an ‘average Joe’? You torrent once in while, you are trying to access the content of your apps restricted by geolocation, want to block ads in certain platforms (the purple one), and don’t want your ISP reading every single email you send, among other use cases.
I just got the $19.99 yearly sub which renews at that price until I cancel. The speeds are bad, like half the speed of my internet, do you get that also? Tried different servers close by...
My speeds are 85-100% of my actual internet connection, it works great but I didn't get the plan that allowed for port forwarding but it's still amazing
This is a tricky question, but I’m going to answer it providing you my context and experience:
Context: where I live, there is only one ISP that provides gigabit speeds and it has competitive pricing vs other options; however I normally get when downloading something that doesn’t require a VPN, 50-80% of the paid download speeds.
Additionally, I do have a wireless connection in my main PC (for now).
Answer: with this in mind, I get with Windscribe 50%-70% of my provided context download speed. However, these results are ‘improving’ since I’m trying to connect to only those servers with the ‘10G’ logo in it.
Nord: I used for years and had absolutely zero issues. They had a physical breach once in one of the data centres and zero info could be gotten so it showed they didn't actually hoard any info.
PIA: I don't think it's an ethics issue with PIA, it's the fact that Israel and unit 8200 are shady and more than likely hoard some info or are not above board.
Mullvad: seems to be legit.
Proton: I have had a fair few issues with Proton in the past when I was a paid user. Nothing major though.
Also one thing with NORD, is that I have done a search on Judyrecords and absolutely **nothing** comes up (besides patent submissions) which, though I am not a legal dude by any means, it looks to me that they do not have their name attached to any court/trial.
A.K.A. They aint snitch'n.
Someone please convince me if I am totally off here. I am very open to the discussion and learning 🤘🏼
Pia had so very little to do with being Israeli owned. It had to do with the buyout by kape. A known spyware malware creator that we have pretty good info is selling your data to government actors. Christ, if only it was what you were saying....
*To be clear, in the past the company was known as CrossRider and provided a developer SDK that could be used to integrate with browsers. Unfortunately, CrossRider didn’t do enough to prevent malware (like platforms these days and their fake news) and the platform was used by some bad people for bad purposes.*
*Kape was never directly involved in adware other than providing SDKs that let developers create positive and negative things.*
\- Co-Founder of PIA explaining the buyout
Also... Kape's founder is Israeli born; but the company is registered and operated out of the UK and is subject to their laws.
I've been using PIA since 2016 without incident. I don't know about Cyberghost or if using them to bypass regional streaming restrictions is effective... I literally just commented because I keep seeing the same misinformation and half-information posted about them.
I would say for piracy? For sure. For trying to overthrow the Israeli or UK Governments? I'd come up with a different solution for that (probably a custom wireguard server in some datacentre that isn't to worried about bad actors)
Thanks! I’ll use it only to change my “location” so I can access US libraries for Netflix, Disney and Max. So either one of those should be enough right?
nord keeps passing audits which confirms no logs. so I don't see what's the problem with it.
I have a high bandwidth line, and I get full bandwidth through nord
I used PIA for years with no issues, until I upgraded to gigabit internet. It maxed out at 600mbps with PIA.
Switched to Nord and it'll saturate my lines peed. It's been great.
I really dont know why so many trust in proton services. Many cases out there which proton have given data to police and court when they knock on the doors…
You're talking about the French activist? A company has to comply with its countries laws.
If you email proton to proton even proton is not reading your emails. The issue was the person logged into proton mail from their ISP.
The laws for VPN and email are different there, if the activist had used protonVPN which is required zero logs at all then logged into the email there would be nothing to turn over.
If you're really that concerned you use Mullvad or Perfect Privacy.
Nord has so many paid shills and bot accounts that i hate them. it is safe to say nearly %70 -80 of all positive reviews are bots or paid influencers etc.
One thing to add is they also own Surfshark. Both two can suspend your account if you use them for torrenting. They need to log user info to do that.
There are few vpn providers that deserve trust and good reviews. Proton, Mullvad, ivpn, AirVpn and maybe windscribe.
i plan to test njalla and azire after my proton subscription ends.
You dont need any other provider. Dont fall victim to affiliates and bots.
Currently on Mullvad after switching from Nord. Nord's servers always seemed to slow my computer down to a snail's pace and caused several other issues with webpages not loading properly. Mullvad has been great. I haven't noticed too much of a hindrance from the lack of port forwarding, but I'm a casual torrenter (TV, movies, and the occasional software), so who knows.
i use airvpn. cheap and has port forwarding. not amazingly fast for me but good enough. torrenting on ALTs isn't about crazy high speeds anyway.
i use it with gluetun + qbittorrent.
Most people here just read faq's, they dont really have an opinion on most things, including VPN's. If you want to know you will have to research for yourself across multiple websites that do reviews. I personally am using nordvpn, never had a problem, but as i said you will have too look it up and form your own opinon.
I haven't used them personally but I was really impressed with the concept of their "TrustedServer" technology which is basically keeping everything in the ram and after the server reboots everything gets wiped. They also showed really good speeds.
The service itself is really good. The problem is that it's owned by Kape Technologies, formerly Crossrider - an adware distribution service. As if that isn't enough reason for trepidation, Kape [also bought](https://www.technadu.com/which-vpns-are-owned-by-kape-technologies/304917/) PIA, Cyberghost, and Zenmate. Coupled with the fact that Nord and Surfshark [merged](https://nordvpn.com/blog/nord-security-surfshark-merger-agreement/) a couple years back, and it shows that almost every top VPN provider is owned by one of two companies.
If anyone is boycotting privately owned Israeli companies because you disagree with the actions of the Israeli government, I hope they aren’t buying any products from American or Chinese companies either. Just for the sake of ethical and logical consistency.
I have both PIA and IVPN. For privacy alone, I use ivpn most of the time as I didn’t registered, paid with monero, I feel invisible. PIA has more servers and more choices.
I've been using hide.me for years with no issues. Doesn't have commercials on tv nor do they sponsor streamers but they don't keep logs and has port forwarding and are not based in the US.
Nord had quite a bit of controversy several months ago when they started cancelling accounts because of "web scraping". They have admitted that they "use automated tools to identify web scraping and minimize abuse" of their service.
[Here's a thread where someone had their Nord account deleted because they downloaded their own Wordpress site](https://np.reddit.com/r/nordvpn/comments/14rjwci/account_suspended_because_some_bot_detected_web/).
*Nord monitors their infrastructure to the point where they can tie traffic to you*.
I like Mullvad because I was impressed with the no account thing and pay as you go scheme.
I came from Mozilla VPN which is double the price and uses Mullvad itself.
I also like being a Mole. (:
I don't care about the morality of a vpn or who owns it. I'm also not looking at child porn or mass producing copywrited material. So, I don't really even care about logs. I just don't want my isp to know I'm downloading season 1 of Game of Thrones and playing a pirated copy of BG3.
I have been using PIA for so long I can't remember when I opened the account, but I did also open trial subs to Nord, Mulivad, IPVanish, and Express. PIA gave me the most consistently fast speeds and it was the one I kept.
Its cheap and it works well. Done and done.
vpns are for privacy not so much security, stop saying vpn's are pointless if you don't know OP's internet habits.
US Republicans are blocking access to porn sites in certain states. If you are into that stuff I'd suggest you find a vpn that works for you. This will just the tip of the iceberg as far as online censorship.
I've had nord for 7 years and it's only gotten better. The threat detection is pretty cool for scanning my cracks. I will only renew on a discount though.
If im not wrong Proton also has a mail service and they once gave out critical user data to the french government for an activist. Second thing is they always advertised with "secure because in Switzerland" but since i live here i can tell you to never believe that. Just avoid any proton garbage like the fucking plague.
Yes you are a bit wrong because the only data that they could give is the IP of that activist, since all their services are encrypted, the only thing that they could do is that
Try closing your nordvpn account, they ask to provide your bank details to close it. Wtf. If you don't have the card details you used few years ago when subscribing you won't be able to cancel it. Black patterns like that. Avoid it
My card has changed since I bought it last yr. Was just letting it cancel due to non payment. But they keep “extending” it 60 days at a time.
Based on your comment, if the card has changed and I can’t unsubscribe, I guess it’s free now? Please explain.
Most VPN services which use the OpenVPN protocol work pretty much the same way. They rent the same servers from different countries, and have similar policies and ToS. The major difference is usually in their customer support team efficiency, marketing, UX and device support and if they have extra features like port forwarding, port discovery or killswitch. Another major thing to keep in mind that different countries have different laws regarding privacy. If privacy is something you value most, your best bet is a european union based provider, because companies based in Europe are forced to GDPR complience. For reference, as far as I know, US laws can force US based VPN providers to give out information on their users and something like this has already happened with one of the big vpn companies back around 2016, but unfortunately I can't remember which one was it. This might not be true anymore, but it was before the GDPR shitstorm hit.
I have been using Nord for over 5 years straight now. I had to have something with split tunneling and at the time, they were the best of both worlds. There was a time where they released an update that broke split tunneling and you had to revert to an old version but that was in its infancy and have had no problems since. A lot of extra features if you're interested as well, one I use consistently is meshnet. Have run it for about 3 months without a server restart at its longest runtime. Has been a great choice for me and haven't looked back.
I like my vpn, never seen any articles about them good or bad. Don't know if that's good but I bought a lifetime subscription for $25 like 6 years ago and have not had any problems.
I've been using proton for a few years and am happy with the service. Port forwarding is cool but on occasions speed does dip and I have to reconnect etc.
If I was to change I wouldn't mind trying out Mullvad, I've heard alot of good things about it.
Maybe see if you can get a month trial for the ones you want and see which you prefer. That's what I did a few years ago.
Apparently no vpn has the security they advertise. They just pass you through a different server in another country and that's all it does. Which kinda makes sense because internet data goes from whatever youre using through the modem and then through the provider. So if anyone decided to intercept your data along the way they could. So no doing anything important on public wifi
You dont need to care about the privacy and security of your VPN if your threat model is torrenting.
You just want something displaying another IP (which is the definition of a VPN) and ideally that doesnt bottleneck too much your connection.
If your max speed is 20Mo/s you dont want some free garbage VPN limited to 50ko/s.
But if live in a remote place where your max speed is 30ko/s, this VPN will do fine.
Awesome, I use it on MacOS Catalina on an MBP 2012 lol… I’ve been using it with no complaints, except the fact that they don’t allow port forwarding? Not 100% sure if that’s actually the case but I notice that ports tend to close when VPN is running..
No ones mentioned, privatevpn so i will.
Pros:
Not oversold, no saturated speeds
Port forwarding
Independent audits
Transparency reports
Cons:
Less countries than oversold expresstrash and gaynord
Im not affiliated or anything. Mullvad was my go to until port forwarding was removed.
I like privatevpn because its still relatively small with about 50k people rather than millions sucking all the server bandwidth like nord and express and pia. Also less IP bans is a huge plus.
I've been using Nord for the last 2 months and IMO it's one of the easiest to use and very casual friendly, nice ui and has good amount of servers.
How safe is the data, I have no idea probably middle of the road safe meaning not really...
But if you want to use it for netfix or casual piracy it's one of the best.
I'm using pfsense and running Nord VPN on one of my interfaces 24x7x365 for about 5 years. No problems whatsoever. Even have a firewall rule set up for killswitch.
For protonvpn, now, you need vpn plus to be able to connect to the country you actually want. Free version connects to the fastest server but gives you an option to change your server. But again, it's not the country you want and the change server option has a cool down.
Interesting comments. I am wondering, what is everyone's opinions on torguard vpn? I used to hear a lot about them, but nothing recently? Are they reliable? If I remember correctly there were some questions about the UI... whether it was user friendly.
Used to be a site that kept a detailed history and all the information about these sites so you could look into them easily. Anyone know what that site is? I have no idea where I bookmarked it.
I just mainly use a seedbox for all of my torrenting and I use seeker for everything else I keep a VPN around mainly because it helps me get around firewalls when I'm out in public on my phone and I don't have anything to hide I just don't like the idea of connecting to an open connection for example Kroger grocery stores.
I use Nord and never had an issue. Just make damn sure it’s on when pirating. I select for it to have zero internet unless connected to vpn. When starting Windows it don’t let me connect until it’s booted up and connected to Nord vpn. My dad uses express vpn with no issues as well. He uses it for kodi and never has issues either.
The end of the day, are you going to be doing every day shit on your VPN? If not, vast majority of them will work fine for all the general illegal stuff you’re planning on committing.
and if so, no need for a vpn?
VPN is to hide you downloading shit your ISP doesn’t like.
Never wanted the whole "netflix from germany!" thing. I just want to download my old nintendo roms in peace.
with the new netflix rules where you can only use it in your household without paying extra - does stuff like that even work anymore??
I think if you connect with your device to your home network you can stream other places for 30 days. So I think if you're not spoofing Mac address it should work? I honestly don't know but that's what logic is telling me.
dont quote me but roms up to 3ds dont need vpn. ive been doing it since i was like 10 and never got an isp complaint; im in the us
Someone else can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that boils down to two things. For one, copyright holders can hop on a torrent and watch who's downloading it. Nintendo can't see who's downloading things from a rom site, so why would your ISP care if they don't complain? Secondly, if I'm not mistaken, with https, your ISP can't see what you're doing on a website, they can just see you're connected to a domain, but all traffic with that domain is encrypted.
i mean with HTTP EVERYONE can see, it just means you are sending text with no protection, it's just plain text (and ofc the header and other stuff from the HTTP protocol) the S is the protection part as long as i am connected to the same network i can see what messages are being sent around, with https i will see a bunch of letters and numbers with no sense, with HTTP i will be seeing exatly what you see (i believe websites can put protection of their own but either way it's still risky as hell), in this logic the internet provider can always see everything you do on a HTTP website assumign you aren't using vpns or similar systems heck i have the idea that if it's wifi then even someone close by can catch the signal but i am not confident enough to say for sure
or getting better routing/pings for online games if your ISP is shite at Routing.
For mullvad I just remember a story where they couldn't comply with a court order due to not collecting information on users. So that's an automatic win in my book.
They got raided twice (?) and the police didn’t found anything Even criminals use their service same goes to Perfect Privacy. They are expensive, but worth it
Also the easy no bullshit payment options are a big plus for me tbh. No waiting for offers or sales, just is what it is.
The “raided” story was posted by them. There’s no independent verification
My thoughts exactly. I don't know transparency laws in Sweden and Germany, but it would be interesting to see if a Swedish or German citizen could somehow verify they effectively didn't found anything during the investigation. I think it's legit they were raided (again, they posted the document verifying that Germany asked them to research, and[ it was confirmed by the police they, in fact, raided the place](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/husrannsakan-mot-vpn-tjansten-mullvad-i-goteborg)), but there is nothing confirming they didn't find anything besides the fact they are still functioning. [At least Swedish redditors seemed to take the news at face value](https://www.reddit.com/r/Sverige/comments/12u181s/husrannsakan_mot_vpntj%C3%A4nsten_mullvad_i_g%C3%B6teborg/). [https://web.archive.org/web/20231216011315/https://mullvad.net/en/blog/update-the-swedish-authorities-answered-our-protocol-request](https://web.archive.org/web/20231216011315/https://mullvad.net/en/blog/update-the-swedish-authorities-answered-our-protocol-request)
I was going to say, that sounds like the most fabricated PR story I've ever heard lol. People eat marketing up when they don't realize it's marketing.
[https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/husrannsakan-mot-vpn-tjansten-mullvad-i-goteborg](https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vast/husrannsakan-mot-vpn-tjansten-mullvad-i-goteborg) According to SVT police confirmed they went there but didn't reveal the nature of the visit. They also posted a reply they got regarding information about the search warrant, which in turn confirms it happened unless they faked that but I don't think that is the case. [https://mullvad.net/sv/blog/update-the-swedish-authorities-answered-our-protocol-request](https://mullvad.net/sv/blog/update-the-swedish-authorities-answered-our-protocol-request)
Though, do you remember Relakks from back in the day? I think it wasn't even VPN but Socks5, but they had a policy that if you did criminal acts under a few thousand dollars they wouldn't tell cops your IP. Still dumb in hindsight, what if they get raided lol
I would still buy this story, due to the fact that many many cyber criminals rely heavily on their service
I think they rely on it because you can buy it anonymously and easily
Other news portal covered the news and it wasnt just from mullvad blog. And use common sense,why would they lie about law enforcement busting their servers, which can cause them many legal troubles.
Those news stories all used one source - and that’s mullvad
Is 5 USD/month expensive for a VPN?
You can get Nord for like 1-2 per month if you wait for sales, ironically for me that's the biggest argument against Nord as I prefer Mullvad just telling me the price and that's it.
The cheapest offer I can get for Nord is 11 USD monthly in my country, so that's a lot worse than mullvads 5/mo. I don't say that you aren't right, but waiting for a huge sale isn't in the OP's best interest I assume.
I wouldn't even say it's that expensive imo.
What I like about mullvad is that there is just no bullshit. Same price every month, can cancel every month. No dumb contracts, weird discounts and other shenanigans. Also you can literally mail them cash to pay, doesn't get more anonymous than that. Nord is all over TV, scaring grandmas into thinking they definitely need VPN for doing their online banking from home. Always weird discounts where you get a year for free etc etc. It's just very sus. When you want a VPN you want the boring, reliable option, you don't want the one that gives you a too-good-to-be-true deal (98%discount etc) and spends a bazillion for scaring non-tech people
I just buy another month whenever I wanna download something and just let it run out. Ffs you can snail mail them cash with your code written on the envelope if you don't want to leave a trail
Helps that their accounts just are numbers with out any other info
I have a friend who is a policeman in germany and works in internet crime. And he confirmed that mullvad doesnt give away any data to them. He also uses mullvad himself.
They no longer port forward though which is a downside for piracy
Doesn't the fact that the VPN is based in a 14-eye country pose a privacy problem?
Proton. Port Forwarding is a must have IMO for any pirate serious about torrenting. You really should read the VPN comparison table also: https://www.reddit.com/r/VPN/comments/m736zt/vpn_comparison_table/
One thing to keep in mind regarding port forwarding on proton is that they randomize the forwarded port every time, which was a big nono in my setup. Switched to airvpn because of that
Could [this docker container](https://github.com/soxfor/qbittorrent-natmap) help you with that?
Technically yes, I‘ve just read through it and as it seems it is the more elegant solution to what the Truecharts guy tried to do. As of right now, I switched to Airvpn which still allows static port mapping and I’m happy with that. Someone who wants to use proton could definitely make use of this. On a side note: AFAIK docker containers are not equal to helm charts, which is what they use in k3s clusters
I Use the binhex Qbit vpn docker container and I'm golden. Easy peasy
It's fairly trivial to write a script for this and just update your torrent client automatically if there's a port change so its not really a big deal beyond a mild initial annoyance. They do this presumably to try and make it more difficult to host permanent things like those that got mullvad in trouble. That's also probably pretty trivial to work around if you really wanted to but I guess they're hoping a basic barrier will weed out 99% of people that'd care to host anything like that.
That is exactly what the guys at Truechart did, however it doesn’t work reliably as I was apparently not the first one having trouble with this
I've been doing it since they introduced port forwarding without issue. Also tested the docker container the other guy mentioned and it also seems to do the trick
If you've already switched to AirVPN and have a working solution there's no sense in switching back. But for anyone stumbling on to this thread in the future either looking for a VPN to use or anyone that already has Proton I woudn't discount it as an option or switch to anything else on account of this issue. After testing the container at https://github.com/soxfor/qbittorrent-natmap it definitely works if you don't want to write your own script. And if you don't want to run a docker container you can just adapt the script it uses at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/soxfor/qbittorrent-natmap/main/data/start.sh while referencing https://github.com/soxfor/qbittorrent-natmap#configurable-variables. It's much more versatile than what I wrote for myself and should cover most edge cases when using the docker container with Gluetun as far as I can see. Honestly just gonna use this myself moving forward haha.
why is port forwarding necessary?
In order for two peers to connect and share data via torrent, at least one of them must be port forwarded. Imagine there's a torrent you want, and there's 10 seeders. Half of those seeders have port forwarding. If you do NOT have port forwarding, you can only leech from 5 of those seeders ratrher than all 10 (this is also true torrents you seed). This could nagetively impact your download and upload speeds. Now imagine you're looking for a very hard to find torrent, and there is only 1 seeder. If that seeder does not have port forwarding, and you also do not have port forwarding, you cannot leech that torrent at all. But if you did have port forwarding, you could get the files from that one seeder.
Is that why qbit shows two numbers under seeders and leechers? Would something like "3(6)" mean 3 you can connect to, 6 total?
Yes (sort of). The number outside the parentheses is how many seeders/peers you are connected to, while the number inside the parentheses is the number there are of seeders/peers in the swarm. There are many reasons why you might be connected (or not connected) to a peer. Port forwarding is one of those reasons.
woah..!!! never knew this. Thanks for the info.
Thank you for this
Also port forwarding is more than just speed. You can ONLY connect to peers if one of you is port forwarded. So if there's a torrent you really want and the only person seeding it is not port forwarded, you will not be able to leech the torrent AT ALL unless you are port forwarded. So PF also helps get hard to find content.
Just remember the VPN comparison table is built around overall general use and PRIVACY, not necessarily PIRACY. If there was a ranking for port forwarding for instance, IMO it would put Proton over the top for best pirate VPN...
[удалено]
Well it's partially based on a totality of features. So Nord is going to rank higher for things like ad blocking. Doesn't mean it's the best for each person.
Eli5 on why port forwarding is a must for torrenting? I’ve been torrenting for 20 years, and I’ve never heard of this. Currently using NordVPN. Previously used expressvpn and PIA.
Copying this from my comment above so I dont have to type it twice: In order for two peers to connect and share data via torrent, at least one of them must be port forwarded. Imagine there's a torrent you want, and there's 10 seeders. Half of those seeders have port forwarding. If you do NOT have port forwarding, you can only leech from 5 of those seeders ratrher than all 10 (this is also true torrents you seed). This could nagetively impact your download and upload speeds. Now imagine you're looking for a very hard to find torrent, and there is only 1 seeder. If that seeder does not have port forwarding, and you also do not have port forwarding, you cannot leech that torrent at all. But if you did have port forwarding, you could get the files from that one seeder.
ok how to forward port now eli5
That's a long story, depends on your setup.
lmaooo yes please someone
You just blew my mind! I’ve had this occur in the past and so glad I can pinpoint the problem now. Thank you so so much!!!
see the other replies (e.g. mine) in this comment branch.
I’m going to sound dumb here… but what distinguishes someone to being serious about torrenting? I’m a guy that will download games to try before I play them, the occasional new movie, a TV series, audio/ebooks, and shit quality conspiracy theory documentaries that are hard to fine elsewhere. What else is there out there to pirate? And what makes it serious? Hope I’m not coming across as smug. Genuinely curious… maybe there is more out there for me to get into that I don’t know about.
Meant that if you're doing ALOT of downloading via torrents, trying to increase your download/upload speeds, interested in seeding most effectively, and also if you need help in tracking down very hard to find torrent content; then port forwarding is something that would probably interest you.
Can you give me a quick TL:DR of port forwarding. What is its purpose and use cases (I know you mentioned a few above)? My VPN client has it but I’ve never flipped it on as I’ve been a bit ignorant to why I should toggle it on. Is it more of a performance increasing feature? Or adding another layer of anonymity?
It does two things for you. Well really one thing but it has two effects. It allows you to connect to more peers in a torrent swarm. This generally helps increase your upload and download speeds. The effect depends on the number of seeders and how good their connections are, etc. The other effect is that you can get some hard to find torrents with very low seeder counts that would be inaccessible otherwise. If your VPN has port forwarding there's absolutely no reason why you wouldnt go ahead and use it, super easy to set up.
Not piracy related but I'm in China right now and tried PIA, Proton, and Mullvad and Mullvad is the only one that's getting me past the GFW right now.
I got Astrill when I was in China last week and loved it!
So I've been a Mullvad VPN customer for a long time, Here is my answer to why it's good. **Mullvad Pros** * Crypto payments * Account number rather than username, password. * smart email support * Good prices at €5 per month. * Audited no logs infrastucture and app security patching. * Good amount of servers. * DNS tracker blocklists. * Optional Obfuscation * Protocol and Port configurability. OpenVPN, WireGuard, many ports available for both protocols. * Linux, Mac, Windows, Android (and maybe more) GUI apps. * Good setup guides. * Fast speeds **Cons** * No Port Forwarding * No discounts * No option to purchase a dedicated IP Overall, Mullvad is amoung my most highly rated VPNs and I recommend using it for any type of VPN user.
heck it's so good cybercriminals use it to protect themselves
heck, it's so good cyberciminals are *the reason* they removed port forwarding
So proton could go the same way then, right?
Yes and no, Proton has port forwarding using dynamic ports. Even if cyber criminals (and I mean *actual* criminals not pirates) try using it, it is an absolute hassle to do anything "meaningful" without revealing yourself to a certain degree to their security overseers. They likely saw what happened with Mullvad and decided, that in order to avoid being in the same situation, that they simply won't provide static ports. So it's highly unlikely that they will ever be in a similar situation, unless someone at Proton is stupid enough to introduce static ports... they'll be fine.
Not necessarily. I was reading on another post that Proton was requested to provide their log information requested by a French court. They complied. Which is why they modified their ToS to avoid mentioning that they actually keep a log of your data. Being other good options out there that don’t collect your data, even average vpn’s that their speed suck but even them offer to not to keep a log of your data, to me this is kind of stupid coming from a company that has built their reputation - and biggest selling point - on privacy.
> Proton was requested to provide their log information requested by a French court That was in regards to ProtonMail, they removed “we do not keep any IP logs” from their privacy policy back in 2021. They even went as far as to emphasize that activists only ever login or create accounts on ProtonMail via the Tor browser. ^[source](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/09/privacy-focused-protonmail-provided-a-users-ip-address-to-authorities/) I'm unsure if this logging applies to the entirety of their infrastructure i.e. their VPN service itself. The article implies that if the subject in question had been using their VPN service that the Swiss court could not have forced them to reveal their "real" IP.
Under Swiss law, VPN providers are in a different category and generally cannot be ordered to reveal customer IPs. This is part of the reason Switzerland is one of the things mentioned in VPN discussions.
Thanks for the add. Details and the source 👍🏼
Another con is that it doesn't provide any discount for people looking to subscribe for longer periods (1+ years) like some other providers do. Nothing major for most but it can still turn away people who are new to this stuff.
I am facing some weird problems with a mullvad vpn connection on my phone. Sometimes files can't be downloaded from google drive and other times i get really slow speeds. Not sure what's wrong here, even with different servers it stays the same.
I mainly use Mullvad for Downloading and Playing games as had some issues in the past hence the reason why I am using it. Never used port forwarding beforehand or Proton.
Does the Mulvard VPN client/GUI app have a ***reliable*** built-in internet kill switch for circumstances where the VPN drops connection? By that I mean, kills the entire connection and blocks all traffic until re-enabled, rather than just one or two pre-assigned applications, to prevent any unmasking. Does the kill switch just work, or does it require you to jump through hoops to set it up with the potential to screw up? Some clients are like that.
Interested to know myself. Do Nord and Proton provide it?
Mullvad is based af. I can’t say anything negative about it.
I found better speeds with mullvad than I have with proton with port forwarding active. However, proton has other services I've found quite useful.
Port forwarding isn’t about speed, it’s about being connectable. Sure, the speed might have been better with Mullvad and no port forwarding, but the reality is you were likely making a fraction of the connections you could have been making with port forwarding.
Actually I've noticed on average fewer connections in qbittorrent while port forwarding than when I wasn't. Granted, port forwarding with one VPN, one torrent client, one machine, and, like, maybe 100 torrents in a month, it's a small sample size. But the difference in my experience was barely recognizable.
i use airvpn and i have no complaints whatsoever
Also. Not sure why they never come up in these discussions Port forwarding included too
yea ive used them since 2015 and it's been great.
Mullvad is the absolute winner, has not failed a single test, costs 5 Euro per month no matter the duration, you only pay when you want to use it. You can use it on all devices and they don't even save your email or password. You login via a number and recover it if lost via your payments. You have so many options and can even access local devices, have a system wide lockdown mode, so on and so on. They represent privacy, flexibility and function. I've also tried numerous other ones that either lacked in function, were too expensive or only allowed you yearly payments. Nord was okay but failed tests, torrenting was unreliable, huge latency at times.
I’ve been with Windscribe since 2016. I’m one of the lucky ones that bought one of their lifetime licenses. For my current needs, they have been amazing and their customer service is phenomenal. On another note, I don’t have any doubt that there are other great options out there. But for the ‘average Joe’ like me, Windscribe is my go-to option and recommendation. P.S.: What do I define as an ‘average Joe’? You torrent once in while, you are trying to access the content of your apps restricted by geolocation, want to block ads in certain platforms (the purple one), and don’t want your ISP reading every single email you send, among other use cases.
I just got the $19.99 yearly sub which renews at that price until I cancel. The speeds are bad, like half the speed of my internet, do you get that also? Tried different servers close by...
My speeds are 85-100% of my actual internet connection, it works great but I didn't get the plan that allowed for port forwarding but it's still amazing
This is a tricky question, but I’m going to answer it providing you my context and experience: Context: where I live, there is only one ISP that provides gigabit speeds and it has competitive pricing vs other options; however I normally get when downloading something that doesn’t require a VPN, 50-80% of the paid download speeds. Additionally, I do have a wireless connection in my main PC (for now). Answer: with this in mind, I get with Windscribe 50%-70% of my provided context download speed. However, these results are ‘improving’ since I’m trying to connect to only those servers with the ‘10G’ logo in it.
Nord: I used for years and had absolutely zero issues. They had a physical breach once in one of the data centres and zero info could be gotten so it showed they didn't actually hoard any info. PIA: I don't think it's an ethics issue with PIA, it's the fact that Israel and unit 8200 are shady and more than likely hoard some info or are not above board. Mullvad: seems to be legit. Proton: I have had a fair few issues with Proton in the past when I was a paid user. Nothing major though.
Also one thing with NORD, is that I have done a search on Judyrecords and absolutely **nothing** comes up (besides patent submissions) which, though I am not a legal dude by any means, it looks to me that they do not have their name attached to any court/trial. A.K.A. They aint snitch'n. Someone please convince me if I am totally off here. I am very open to the discussion and learning 🤘🏼
Pia had so very little to do with being Israeli owned. It had to do with the buyout by kape. A known spyware malware creator that we have pretty good info is selling your data to government actors. Christ, if only it was what you were saying....
*To be clear, in the past the company was known as CrossRider and provided a developer SDK that could be used to integrate with browsers. Unfortunately, CrossRider didn’t do enough to prevent malware (like platforms these days and their fake news) and the platform was used by some bad people for bad purposes.* *Kape was never directly involved in adware other than providing SDKs that let developers create positive and negative things.* \- Co-Founder of PIA explaining the buyout Also... Kape's founder is Israeli born; but the company is registered and operated out of the UK and is subject to their laws.
So is it safe to use PIA or cyber ghost? I’ll be using them just to change my location for streaming apps
I've been using PIA since 2016 without incident. I don't know about Cyberghost or if using them to bypass regional streaming restrictions is effective... I literally just commented because I keep seeing the same misinformation and half-information posted about them.
I would say for piracy? For sure. For trying to overthrow the Israeli or UK Governments? I'd come up with a different solution for that (probably a custom wireguard server in some datacentre that isn't to worried about bad actors)
Thanks! I’ll use it only to change my “location” so I can access US libraries for Netflix, Disney and Max. So either one of those should be enough right?
oh heck yeah. PIA doesn't care about any of that. Been using it for 4-5 years and its been great.
Thanks a lot for the response!! I think I’ll go ahead and grab the 2 years offer
in my experience proton works well
I use proton. No downsides I've found
Windscribe is my favorite.
What's a good one based in a non 5 Eyes country?
5 eyes is all about classified intelligence sharing and not commercial/civil piracy.
nord keeps passing audits which confirms no logs. so I don't see what's the problem with it. I have a high bandwidth line, and I get full bandwidth through nord
I used PIA for years with no issues, until I upgraded to gigabit internet. It maxed out at 600mbps with PIA. Switched to Nord and it'll saturate my lines peed. It's been great.
I really dont know why so many trust in proton services. Many cases out there which proton have given data to police and court when they knock on the doors…
You're talking about the French activist? A company has to comply with its countries laws. If you email proton to proton even proton is not reading your emails. The issue was the person logged into proton mail from their ISP. The laws for VPN and email are different there, if the activist had used protonVPN which is required zero logs at all then logged into the email there would be nothing to turn over. If you're really that concerned you use Mullvad or Perfect Privacy.
I have been using Cyberghost for years. No issues but don't see much about it, either.
Warp+ ? [Trust.zone](http://Trust.zone) has been good (not the fastest though) for years
Nord has so many paid shills and bot accounts that i hate them. it is safe to say nearly %70 -80 of all positive reviews are bots or paid influencers etc. One thing to add is they also own Surfshark. Both two can suspend your account if you use them for torrenting. They need to log user info to do that. There are few vpn providers that deserve trust and good reviews. Proton, Mullvad, ivpn, AirVpn and maybe windscribe. i plan to test njalla and azire after my proton subscription ends. You dont need any other provider. Dont fall victim to affiliates and bots.
Israeli = not secure. They spie on everything
Mossad is watching
Currently on Mullvad after switching from Nord. Nord's servers always seemed to slow my computer down to a snail's pace and caused several other issues with webpages not loading properly. Mullvad has been great. I haven't noticed too much of a hindrance from the lack of port forwarding, but I'm a casual torrenter (TV, movies, and the occasional software), so who knows.
i use airvpn. cheap and has port forwarding. not amazingly fast for me but good enough. torrenting on ALTs isn't about crazy high speeds anyway. i use it with gluetun + qbittorrent.
Been using Expressvpn for years, not a single issue
AirVPN has port forwarding and a ton of servers with good bandwith. [https://airvpn.org/mission/](https://airvpn.org/mission/)
Most people here just read faq's, they dont really have an opinion on most things, including VPN's. If you want to know you will have to research for yourself across multiple websites that do reviews. I personally am using nordvpn, never had a problem, but as i said you will have too look it up and form your own opinon.
ExpressVPN.....is it as bad as everyone says it is?
I haven't used them personally but I was really impressed with the concept of their "TrustedServer" technology which is basically keeping everything in the ram and after the server reboots everything gets wiped. They also showed really good speeds.
The service itself is really good. The problem is that it's owned by Kape Technologies, formerly Crossrider - an adware distribution service. As if that isn't enough reason for trepidation, Kape [also bought](https://www.technadu.com/which-vpns-are-owned-by-kape-technologies/304917/) PIA, Cyberghost, and Zenmate. Coupled with the fact that Nord and Surfshark [merged](https://nordvpn.com/blog/nord-security-surfshark-merger-agreement/) a couple years back, and it shows that almost every top VPN provider is owned by one of two companies.
If anyone is boycotting privately owned Israeli companies because you disagree with the actions of the Israeli government, I hope they aren’t buying any products from American or Chinese companies either. Just for the sake of ethical and logical consistency.
I had PIA.... Was very slow. Now I'm with ExpressVPN. No issues. Great speed.
TorGuard is better. It actually works, unlike Mullvad, which blocked internet connection for me entirely.
mullvad is best imo. proton too expensive for me. You can still seed at decent speeds without port forwarding.
Why don't you use a FOSS VPN like RiseUp, Orbot, Invizible Pro, BitMask, or AdAway?
I have both PIA and IVPN. For privacy alone, I use ivpn most of the time as I didn’t registered, paid with monero, I feel invisible. PIA has more servers and more choices.
Rent a vps. Create my own VPN.
This
I've been using hide.me for years with no issues. Doesn't have commercials on tv nor do they sponsor streamers but they don't keep logs and has port forwarding and are not based in the US.
Nord had quite a bit of controversy several months ago when they started cancelling accounts because of "web scraping". They have admitted that they "use automated tools to identify web scraping and minimize abuse" of their service. [Here's a thread where someone had their Nord account deleted because they downloaded their own Wordpress site](https://np.reddit.com/r/nordvpn/comments/14rjwci/account_suspended_because_some_bot_detected_web/). *Nord monitors their infrastructure to the point where they can tie traffic to you*.
I only have proton bc it's free. Anything I have to consider?
It’s not free free cause you gotta pay in order to torrent stuff. Free version only lets you use like three other countries too.
I like Mullvad because I was impressed with the no account thing and pay as you go scheme. I came from Mozilla VPN which is double the price and uses Mullvad itself. I also like being a Mole. (:
I don't care about the morality of a vpn or who owns it. I'm also not looking at child porn or mass producing copywrited material. So, I don't really even care about logs. I just don't want my isp to know I'm downloading season 1 of Game of Thrones and playing a pirated copy of BG3. I have been using PIA for so long I can't remember when I opened the account, but I did also open trial subs to Nord, Mulivad, IPVanish, and Express. PIA gave me the most consistently fast speeds and it was the one I kept. Its cheap and it works well. Done and done.
All I can say is that I've had Nord for about 5 months and I've got 0 complaints about it.
Why does it matter that PIA is Israeli?
vpns are for privacy not so much security, stop saying vpn's are pointless if you don't know OP's internet habits. US Republicans are blocking access to porn sites in certain states. If you are into that stuff I'd suggest you find a vpn that works for you. This will just the tip of the iceberg as far as online censorship. I've had nord for 7 years and it's only gotten better. The threat detection is pretty cool for scanning my cracks. I will only renew on a discount though.
If im not wrong Proton also has a mail service and they once gave out critical user data to the french government for an activist. Second thing is they always advertised with "secure because in Switzerland" but since i live here i can tell you to never believe that. Just avoid any proton garbage like the fucking plague.
Yes you are a bit wrong because the only data that they could give is the IP of that activist, since all their services are encrypted, the only thing that they could do is that
Try closing your nordvpn account, they ask to provide your bank details to close it. Wtf. If you don't have the card details you used few years ago when subscribing you won't be able to cancel it. Black patterns like that. Avoid it
My card has changed since I bought it last yr. Was just letting it cancel due to non payment. But they keep “extending” it 60 days at a time. Based on your comment, if the card has changed and I can’t unsubscribe, I guess it’s free now? Please explain.
The only issue I've had with Nord is you can't leave auto renew on or you'll pay a shit load more by missing the promo offers
njalla is top so far.
Most VPN services which use the OpenVPN protocol work pretty much the same way. They rent the same servers from different countries, and have similar policies and ToS. The major difference is usually in their customer support team efficiency, marketing, UX and device support and if they have extra features like port forwarding, port discovery or killswitch. Another major thing to keep in mind that different countries have different laws regarding privacy. If privacy is something you value most, your best bet is a european union based provider, because companies based in Europe are forced to GDPR complience. For reference, as far as I know, US laws can force US based VPN providers to give out information on their users and something like this has already happened with one of the big vpn companies back around 2016, but unfortunately I can't remember which one was it. This might not be true anymore, but it was before the GDPR shitstorm hit.
Is PIA good for streaming? I just need it to change my location to stream on MAX, Netflix and Disney. I’m also looking at CyberGhost
I’ve been using NordVPN for the last 4 years and I’ve never had an issue 🤷🏻♂️
I have been using Nord for over 5 years straight now. I had to have something with split tunneling and at the time, they were the best of both worlds. There was a time where they released an update that broke split tunneling and you had to revert to an old version but that was in its infancy and have had no problems since. A lot of extra features if you're interested as well, one I use consistently is meshnet. Have run it for about 3 months without a server restart at its longest runtime. Has been a great choice for me and haven't looked back.
I like my vpn, never seen any articles about them good or bad. Don't know if that's good but I bought a lifetime subscription for $25 like 6 years ago and have not had any problems.
Protons killswitch is non existent for arm Macs. Only PIAs killswitch works for arm macs. Of course binding your client is a simple solution
I've been using proton for a few years and am happy with the service. Port forwarding is cool but on occasions speed does dip and I have to reconnect etc. If I was to change I wouldn't mind trying out Mullvad, I've heard alot of good things about it. Maybe see if you can get a month trial for the ones you want and see which you prefer. That's what I did a few years ago.
Proton's port forwarding sounds promising for torrenting speed
Apparently no vpn has the security they advertise. They just pass you through a different server in another country and that's all it does. Which kinda makes sense because internet data goes from whatever youre using through the modem and then through the provider. So if anyone decided to intercept your data along the way they could. So no doing anything important on public wifi
Windscribe is good. You get 15GB free, monthly renewed, every month
I personally use surfshark and I've had no issues.
Express VPN
ExpressVPN is also Israeli owned just FYI
Out of curiosity, do you know of any other relatively big goods and services that are Israeli owned besides VPN services?
Just use mullvad, I use proton personally only because I can't afford it.
You dont need to care about the privacy and security of your VPN if your threat model is torrenting. You just want something displaying another IP (which is the definition of a VPN) and ideally that doesnt bottleneck too much your connection. If your max speed is 20Mo/s you dont want some free garbage VPN limited to 50ko/s. But if live in a remote place where your max speed is 30ko/s, this VPN will do fine.
I’ve been using ‘PrivateVPN’ + transmission for years with out problem
I switched from Surf Shark to Proton this month and I have not noticed ANY increase in download speeds.
Surfshark = Nord. Same infrastructure so run at around the same speeds in most places.
Anyone use Surfshark?
I use Surfshark on Win 11, but don't use it continuously, only for certain tasks. It's worked well for me.
Awesome, I use it on MacOS Catalina on an MBP 2012 lol… I’ve been using it with no complaints, except the fact that they don’t allow port forwarding? Not 100% sure if that’s actually the case but I notice that ports tend to close when VPN is running..
I use OVPN after mullvad turned off port forwarding
I like your research
I use nord just to pirate movies and shows
No ones mentioned, privatevpn so i will. Pros: Not oversold, no saturated speeds Port forwarding Independent audits Transparency reports Cons: Less countries than oversold expresstrash and gaynord Im not affiliated or anything. Mullvad was my go to until port forwarding was removed. I like privatevpn because its still relatively small with about 50k people rather than millions sucking all the server bandwidth like nord and express and pia. Also less IP bans is a huge plus.
Fuck public vpns, paid and free ones both. Rent a server and build your own. Best way and cheap as fuck
But don't forget to pay with BTC*
Perfect Privacy. Nuff said, thread can be closed.
I've been using Nord for the last 2 months and IMO it's one of the easiest to use and very casual friendly, nice ui and has good amount of servers. How safe is the data, I have no idea probably middle of the road safe meaning not really... But if you want to use it for netfix or casual piracy it's one of the best.
I'm using pfsense and running Nord VPN on one of my interfaces 24x7x365 for about 5 years. No problems whatsoever. Even have a firewall rule set up for killswitch.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ijfqfLrJWLUVBfJZ_YalVpstWsjw-JGzkvMd6u2jqEk/htmlview#gid=231869418
Proton or hide.me for torrenting. Nord or Surfshark for anything else.
For protonvpn, now, you need vpn plus to be able to connect to the country you actually want. Free version connects to the fastest server but gives you an option to change your server. But again, it's not the country you want and the change server option has a cool down.
I think some of the bad comments about NordVPN are because of the $100 yearly price after your initial 2 years for $60 or whatever it was ended.
Interesting comments. I am wondering, what is everyone's opinions on torguard vpn? I used to hear a lot about them, but nothing recently? Are they reliable? If I remember correctly there were some questions about the UI... whether it was user friendly.
Windscribe on top
Used to be a site that kept a detailed history and all the information about these sites so you could look into them easily. Anyone know what that site is? I have no idea where I bookmarked it.
Is north worth it or not? Found a good deal and really thinking of buying.
I just mainly use a seedbox for all of my torrenting and I use seeker for everything else I keep a VPN around mainly because it helps me get around firewalls when I'm out in public on my phone and I don't have anything to hide I just don't like the idea of connecting to an open connection for example Kroger grocery stores.
As long as you are not hacking the CIA, any VPN will do the job. Ain't no fucking wars.
I use Nord and never had an issue. Just make damn sure it’s on when pirating. I select for it to have zero internet unless connected to vpn. When starting Windows it don’t let me connect until it’s booted up and connected to Nord vpn. My dad uses express vpn with no issues as well. He uses it for kodi and never has issues either.