First off, sorry if this has been asked a million times in this community already, but the only post I found on this topic when I searched was over two years old.
I’ve been using PIA vpn for the past two years, but my subscription is ending soon and I was thinking about switching providers. I’m a fairly basic vpn user so I’m not overly concerned about advanced features and bells and whistles. I have a limited budget to work with, and I run Fedora os. Does anyone have any recommendations on what vpn I should be using?
I’ve seen Mullvad mentioned frequently, but it’s a touch expensive compared to others. I’ve heard some good things about Proton vpn too, but I know there was a controversy with their CEO not long ago. I’ve also just read something about IVPN and they look good, but I’d like opinions from more sources. I’m open too all other suggestions as well. Thanks for any and all thoughts!
You must log in or register to comment.
Just go with Mullvad
I tried airvpn, but found it confusing in some regards. ProtonVPN is easier to use and it has served me well, despite the recent controversy around it. The only real annoyance is that it randomly selects a new port to forward every time you connect, so you have to manually update that in your client. Quantum is a nifty tool that will read your ProtonVPN logs and automatically complete this step for you, if you use qBittorrent.
i use expressvpn with a dedicated uk server for streaming (as an anglophile) and mullvad wireguard on my gl ax1800 with port forwarding on the router for educational archival purposes and historical academic studies of long john silver and ive been happy.
i have been trying out windscribe paid but not sold on it
Mullvad. I don’t even think about alternatives.
Mullvad is the correct answer.
Mullvad doesn’t support port forwarding does it?
How important is port forwarding? I’ve never really bothered with it. I’m definitely still in the shallow end of the pool when it comes to using vpns.
The only realistic answer is “it depends”. Torrents require at least one side to have an open port. If your port isn’t open, you’ll only be able to connect to people who have opened theirs. If everyone had open ports, you wouldn’t need to worry about it. But the reality is that many people don’t bother with opening a port, so your connections will be limited.
The issue will be much more apparent on smaller/less popular torrents. With popular torrents and hundreds of seeders, chances are good that some people will have an open port. But your speeds may be limited, because you can only connect to a select few. Even worse, torrents may stall entirely if there are only a few seeders, (and none of them have open ports). It’s super frustrating looking at a torrent with 3 or 4 seeders, but seeing that it has stalled.
There are workarounds like pinholing, but those are bodges that require specific circumstances to work.
IIRC it’s good to get faster downloads on BitTorrent, but I’ve never stumbled upon a torrent that was slow anyway.
I haven’t even looked at port forwarding. I think maybe some ISPs in some countries might block traffic this way but others will know better. Everything just works with Mullvad on Fedora with Qbittorrent, so I’m happy.
It’s nothing to do with what ISPs blocking traffic it’s about being able to seed
I don’t think it does but I don’t care so far.
What is it about Mullvad that makes it superior to all other options? I’m open to it, I just need something to justify the higher price.
No information needs to even be provided to them. No login, you just get a number (16 digits I think?). You can pay with untraceable Monero, and use the VPN anywhere as long as you have that number.
If you want.
higher price
$5 is a low price for a service that I trust way more than the others. You should wonder why the alternatives are so cheap.
It’s about $8 CAD / month, which is noticeably more than Air vpn’s ~$5.25 CAD / month (if I signed up for two years). That being said I understand your point, assuming that they have that trust. As someone who isn’t familiar with them though I need to first know why they deserve it more than others. Other people do seem to speak highly of them though and have made some points that are in their favour.
Check their reddit for all the threads with pictures of cities plastered in Mullvad billboards. Then you know why others are cheaper.
That would be unfortunate to see. Can you maybe link examples so others can judgr for themselves? I use their service and often recommend and confirming your statement is important to me so I can adjust my opinion.
What is wrong with them buying billboards?
https://www.reddit.com/r/mullvadvpn/comments/1l6r7bw/billboard_spotted_in_california/
https://www.reddit.com/r/mullvadvpn/comments/1l1lpnz/mullvad_bus_spotted_in_central_london/
https://www.reddit.com/r/mullvadvpn/comments/1kugm61/found_in_the_wild/
https://www.reddit.com/r/mullvadvpn/comments/1kp8e92/a_good_reminder_of_free_speech_in_uk_is/
https://www.reddit.com/r/mullvadvpn/comments/1knp3jl/ad_on_broadway_nyc/
https://www.reddit.com/r/mullvadvpn/comments/1kefzu3/mullvad_going_mainstream_will_it_stay_safe_or/I can confirm I’ve seen their ads in person in multiple places in Los Angeles. North Hollywood had a billboard near the Noho gateway sign, and I think the red line? had a bunch of ads on the inside and outside of some of the trains a year or two ago.
Few good things:
- They don’t have ability to keep logs (even if they wanted)
- Their wireguard speeds can keep up with fiber (800mbps with 1gbps fiber)
- I’ve not seen any connection drops.
Downside: No port forwarding, this I’ve remedied with headscale server and tailscale clients. Port forwarding is needed if u want to access your home network from outside
Basically, Mullvad has a great track record, seems to legitimately care about privacy rather than just making money.
As for your mention on protonvpn, the founder did say some weird stuff last year, but so far the company itself hasn’t demonstrated any questionable behavior in regards to data, so it’s still considered safe.
You can pay them in cash, for me this is a great feature
If you aren’t concerned with flashy setups, AirVPN might be something to check into. In terms of cost, 3 months of AirVPN cost roughly about the same as 1 month of PIA.
AirVPN has served me well the past 13 years. Their config generator is great, as well as the port-forwarding.
I’ve been using ovpn.com for a few years. Port forwarding works perfectly for slskd and transmission/gluetun.
I’ve been happy with Windscribe, though I don’t really feel that knowledgeable. They had a case dismissed against them recently, that was suing them for evidence of a user’s activity. They couldn’t provide it because they didn’t keep logs, as advertised
you might as well assume that any traffic you send to an american vpn is routed directly to the NSA, FBI, etc. get something that physically resides in a GDPR country. as for price, it’s either that or just drop the P out of VPN
GDPR is not relevant to state monitoring. Article 23 provides the provisions to explicitly restrict data protection rights for the purpose of eavesdropping, detection, crime prevention, etc. Its wildly open ended to the point that it makes no difference in choosing a VPN: https://gdpr-info.eu/art-23-gdpr/
What you should also consider, do you need a VPN. If you just want to avoid region blocking, (any) will do. Just need to check if their IP range is blocked by the provider. For normal https traffic you don’t need one. Enable dns over https in your browser and your traffic is as secure and anonymous as with most commercial VPNs.
VPNs have their use cases but we now have a decade of scareware ads from VPNs that implied our traffic is as insecure as it was in 1980. but it isn’t, you’re paying for a lava insurance. And let me say this, you can still be tracked if you use a VPN. It’s just a bit harder, like marginallyDepending on your ISP and router you might be able to install WireGuard on it. More generally self-hosting a VPN is pretty straightforward.
