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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[–] matey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

What's going on with Proton the company?

Edit: ah fuck, thanks for the replies. Sigh.

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (11 children)

Just FYI, the majority of Proton AG (which includes all Proton services) is owned by a non-profit body called the "Proton Foundation". This are headed by a board of 5 members, including Andy (CEO) and Tim Berners-Lee (the literal father of the internet as we know it).

Proton is fine.

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[–] droolio@feddit.uk 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Still using Private Internet Access (PIA).

Honestly, dunno why they've fallen out of fashion due to the FUD about being owned by an unsavoury parent company, but the most important matter to me is if they keep logs, which they don't. One of the few VPN companies tested on this, in court, and in a recent audit. Plus still extremely cheap (if you go for 3yr+3mo).

Port forwarding works with with this docker NAS stack. Doesn't use gluetun, but there's a specialised docker-wireguard-pia container as part of the stack, with a script that handles port changes. Been flawless.

[–] marauding_gibberish142@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Can you link to their court hearing, specifically where they refused to provide logs?

Also, do they accept crypto?

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[–] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 1 points 6 months ago

Not a VPN, but you may also want to look into I2P.

https://i2pd.website/

https://proprivacy.com/privacy-service/guides/i2p-guide

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FNp0TRDG0BQ

Basically, a p2p protocol for the entire internet.

Its considerably more complicated to set up than most modern VPNs, where nowaday's its usually as simple as install an app with a GUI, verify some settings and you're good to go, and i2p is also quite slow...

... but its totally free, and you can torrent over it, and as far as I know, if you've set it up properly, it is basically undetectable by ISPs, due to how it uses 'garlic' routing: basically, a whole bunch of users net requests are encrypted, anonymized, and then smashed into a big packet... so an ISP would have to untangle all of that for every packet, and afaik, none of them have figured out how.

I2P would obviously be horrible for watching streaming content though, snail speed.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 1 points 6 months ago (2 children)

mullvad

[–] quack@lemmy.zip 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Good choice for privacy, not so much for piracy. They removed their port forwarding feature a while ago.

[–] TauZero@mander.xyz 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

IMHO if you don't have a globally-reachable address or forwarded port, you are not really a participant of the internet, you are just a receptacle xD

One service I never see mentioned is OVPN. They have a 1-to-1 feature parity with mullvad and were an easy drop-in replacement when mullvad closed their ports:

wireguard
port forwarding
no usernames/emails/registration, only account numbers
crypto payments/cash in the mail
same price as mullvad
multiple device keys
multihop
no bandwidth limits
setup guides
status dashboard

I used mullvad for years, sad to see them go, and all my scripts basically worked without any change other than the server addresses/public keys. Only downside is they don't have as many users so not as many servers. I wish more people would join up so I get more IPs to choose from :D

[–] yardratianSoma@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago

Damn, if this is all true, I'll switch once my credits run out with mullvad. If I don't like it, I can always switch back, but port forwarding is more than just something to help with seeding, tad shame mullvad pulled the plug on it.

[–] Eyro_Elloyn@lemmy.zip 0 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Mullvad is so great in a vacuum, but it seems like every other website has you writing out a captcha or blocking you outright exclusively because you're on mullvad.

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[–] Eyedust@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I love Mullvad, but if you need P2P its not the best option. If you just need a VPN, though, its amazing. Today I just switched to AirVPN and am running it on Arch through Eddie. Have my qbittorrent set up to only allow connections through Eddie and just forwarded my first port. I'm very happy with it.

I think the only downside is that I could get Mullvad for 5eur a month on a month by month basis. AirVPN is 7eur or 15eur for three months, so I have to lock into the three months to get the same price.

[–] Cgers@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 months ago

Worth noting that Italy (location of airvpn) hates vpns and is constantly fucking around with them, to the point air doesn't even actually operate in Italy to preserve users privacy. Right now, theres no immediate risk, but it' is worth keeping an eye on the political situation in Italy regarding VPN laws

[–] zedgeist@lemm.ee 0 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 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.

[–] redsand@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

PIA is such a weird one. They're massive and know what they're doing but ownership and jurisdiction have always been questionable. I have long suspected they cooperate with GHCQ but only on legitimate national security cases not piracy.

[–] DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Does anyone have a good reason to go with PIA when there are others that offer a comparable service without these problems?

[–] redsand@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 months ago

Slightly better pricing for more devices and lots of servers.

[–] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

If you want port forwarding the choice is between AirVPN, ProtonVPN and Njalla. Iirc PIA also supports port forwarding, but their ownerships reputation is no good.

Mullvad, IVPN and many other services don't support port forwarding.

[–] dzsimbo@lemm.ee 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Do you have any experience with Njalla? This would be my first time purchasing a VPN and I couldn't imagine a better provider on paper.

I just don't know anything practical about it besides it's founded by a member of the swedish pirate party.

[–] Chewy7324@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 6 months ago

I've never used them but I heard about them in the context of private DNS and VPS hosting. E.g. they act as a middleman to shield domain the shield the client from authorities (at least to some extent — they still have to follow the laws).

Given their focus on privacy I'd trust them for torrenting at least as much as the other options. As a first VPN I'd say it's great because of their flat 5€/m price. A few years ago I used Mullvad for that purpose — until they removed port forwarding.

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