this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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I've used proton for a year or two now and it is fine. Great for use on my phone when I want to use public/airport wifi and it sort of kind of works with gluetun (the rotating port is annoying but it still is a forwarded port).

But I've increasingly been annoyed with Proton as a company and am looking to migrate my email/domain to fastmail in the very near future. I COULD continue to just pay for the vpn (60 USD a year is pretty reasonable) but also feel like this is a good opportunity to "shop around"

Checked the wiki and other FAQs (which all basically crib from said wiki) and they all basically boil down to proton or mullivad... except that mullivad apparently stopped allowing port forwarding which is a bit of an issue for any torrents and the like.

So are there any other good options?

Thanks

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

I'm with Azire, they have port forwarding and 10 gig servers. Note they were bought recently by malwarebytes, so it is possible things will change in the future. For the time being, things have been great. I moved from OVPN after myself and others started experiencing persistant failures.

I've been meaning to try out CryptoStorm. If anyone has experience with them please share.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I really like express VPN, and the app is open source.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Just throwing in another voice for PIA. Their corporate owners may be questionable, but I've been with them since before they sold out and have never heard a peep from my ISP for seeding terabytes of torrents. They don't keep logs, and they are audited to prove it regularly.

EDIT: They also have port forwarding, but not for every exit server.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I have been happy with PrivateVPN, but I can't get a read on them.

They say no-log, but many VPNs probably lie about that. Small, based in Sweden.

I just saw on the kumo app literally just now that they got bought out by Miss Group and are no longer independent like when I started with them in 2019.

They have no strikes against them besides the not-disclosed buyout. No idea if I should switch, but they have good prices and port forwarding.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

not-disclosed buyout

That alone would make me jump ship. VPNs need to be transparent about this kind of shit to their paying users.

Edit: FYI, this is in the works https://webhosting.today/2025/01/15/miss-group-prepares-for-sale-what-lies-ahead-for-the-nordic-hosting-giant/

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Why is NordVPN not mentioned ? I’m using it and happy so far. Should I switch to something else ?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

if you care about privacy , yes, you should

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Why ? Asking seriously because they got multiple certifications about their no-logs policy done by independent third parties.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What’s the relation with NordVPN ? Are other VPN providers I.e mullivad better ?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I'm guessing his/her point involves the location of its incorporation. Any company in the "five eyes" zone can be forced to release details about its users to any member state. One must evaluate whether NordVPN keeps anything more than a few hours - days tops - to decide if it is "safe enough". I was worried enough about this particular point that I chose a VPN that is not in any way beholden to five eyes or the fourteen eyes, which is a similar agreement.

Proton caught heat because of its release of information to the local law enforcement recently. While Switzerland is not part of the five eyes, it does have its own laws requiring a reveal in certain circumstances. I forgot the details, but I think they had an IP address that had not yet been wiped from cache, and that was enough to pinpoint the hackers being sought.

In truth, there's no sure way to be sure. One still must trust the organization is both honest and competent enough to properly wipe any residual information. No matter who it is, some amount of information has to be in cache for some time in order to be able to deliver the service, and there also needs something tracking the workings of the system to ensure it isn't overloaded or to find opportunities to improve it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I just want to mention that the forwarded port provided by the VPN must match the one configured in the torrent client. Buying a VPN which offers port forwarding is not enough.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Yeah it changes. I'm used to doing that in QBT

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago

Too much advertising, it just feels off.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I think a safe assumption is that anyone that runs over half of their budget in ads can't be trusted.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

I have no opinion of them, but I'm curious why advertising would imply untrustworthiness. Are you saying they're too eager or something? Spending money on ads is also consistent with a company that's making money by charging for a service — I'd be more suspicious of free VPNs.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

It is more than a bit of a fallacy, but the general idea is that any product worth using will distinguish itself. Whereas the products that spend vast amounts of money on advertisement "can't stand on their own".

Like I said, it is a fallacy that insists companies should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and ignores the reality of the landscape these days.

THAT said: nordvpn goes REALLY hard on the advertisements and is still one of the more popular/few remaining big sponsors for podcasts and influencers. And THAT gives me pause because it has generally been shown that those are horrible venues for "getting a product out there" and mostly exist to take advantage of parasocial relationships. And, based on the linus media group leaks and corroboration from various twitch streamers, the big outfits are asking for a LOT of money per sponsorship spot.

And considering there is no way to really vet a VPN and you are inherently trusting them to do what they say they do (or do the good version of what they don't even bother to talk about)...

[–] [email protected] -3 points 2 months ago

You’d probably be surprised that the companies that spend the most money on advertising are the biggest and most successful companies on the planet.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

The number of leads youtube/podcast advertising generates is not that impressive, the number of leads that become buyers is even less impressive. When a company spends too much on this type of advertising for a product that is not "premium"(meaning overpriced shit), it casts a shadow of doubt on where they get their revenue.

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