Mullvad because they don't need your name, and you can pay by cash anonymously.
They also regularly have independent security audits
and their servers run everything on RAM meaning the second it loses power all data is lost.
Do they still not have port forwarding?
Nope. I'd argue that Mullvad is not for most pirates, unless you're actually worried about being jailed for your piracy (depends on what country you're in). If you just want to get the letters from your ISP to stop, there are much cheaper VPNs that can do that.
Mullvad is for actual privacy, which many VPNs don't really give you. If you gave them an email address and credit card, then it ain't private, kids!
Mullavad
I used Mullvad, found them great for everything and would be my only VPN if they were big enough to facilitate streaming via other countries. Due to smaller number of servers it isn't possible to use a lot of streaming services with them...I found this out when o/s and needing to VPN into my home country to access my geo-locked streaming service.
Proton VPN
Same. Since I am a paying Protonmail user I've switched to the Proton VPN. It has been fine.
AirVPN
Port forwarding, relatively cheap, runs a good Black Friday sale, and I think its log policy is decent from what I remember.
The airvpn client feels pretty outdated compared to something like mullvad. This might not be a big deal for everyone and there are ways around it but I always see airvpn recommended but noone ever mentions this
I use the native wireguard client on Linux
So.... at the risk of humiliating myself,
I've never once used a VPN in my entire life.
I pirated games, movies, shows, music, software... and the worst thing that happened to me was getting a letter from Telus once or twice saying "Hey. Don't do that."
That was 5 years ago
I know it's bad practice. But is a VPN 100% necessary? Even a free one?
I find incredible that it's absolutely illegal for anyone to read your letters and only the police can do that and only if a judge grant them the right to do that case by case, and a private telecommunications company can read absolutely all your digital communication with no judge involved and no one blinks an eye.
I'm gonna google "How to bomb Telus Headquarters and assassinate their board of directors" and see how fast they respond
Generally CnD letters are not generated by the ISPs themselves. ISPs don't care what you do unless legally obligated to. When you get a CnD letter, it's usually because someone working for a copyright holder was on a torrent and snagged your IP, then sent an infringement notice to your ISP, who in turn sends a CnD to the current holder of the IP, i.e. you.
At no point does your ISP have to read your digital communications themselves. Any one of your peers on a torrent can tell what your public IP address is, it's inherent to the BitTorrent protocol. Copyright holders take advantage of this to catch pirates.
While people sometimes suggest ignoring it because they say that your ISP is only sending you those notices because the laws compel them to and you downloaded something that was tracked, you may want to evaluate your risk.
Nothing has happened so far. Could something happen in the future?
Your ISP has built an entire portfolio of the things you’ve done online and which content you pirated. Who know how long your ISP retains that data, or which companies or regulatory bodies it shares this data with?
Laws may change.
Up to you on what you want to do with this information.
PIA, just because I’m lazy and it’s been fine for like a decade. If there is something better, happy to hear about it.
PIA was sold to Kape Technologies a few years back and they have somewhat questionable history and that made me switch to Mullvad. Not because I thought it's better VPN per-se, but because I wanted away from PIA and Mullvad seemed popular.
The issue is who he sold it to -- the notorious creator of some pernicious data-huffing ad-ware, Crossrider. The UK-based company was cofounded by an ex-Israeli surveillance agent and a billionaire previously convicted of insider trading who was later named in the Panama Papers. It produced software which previously allowed third-party developers to hijack users' browsers via malware injection, redirect traffic to advertisers and slurp up private data.
Currently proton its decent though I'm thinking of moving to mullvad even though they've removed portforwarding.
I've used both and much prefer Proton for sailing the seas. Connecting through France (highest speed + p2p) with port forwarding is the best torrent speed I've had on a VPN. The only slight annoyance is it switching the forwarded port every time it reconnects, but I run it 24/7 anyway.
Just skip the "official" client and run it through gluetun. It's a much better experience.
I did this and found it worked way better in terms of stability. Bonus is that Mullvad has a proper Linux client whereas Proton's is just a cobbled-together mess that's not worth using and is no where close to feature parity with the Windows client
Proton because I have their Unlimited plan.
ProtonVpn
AirVPN, limited on details for signing up, can pay in crypto and easy port forwarding.
Good config generator as well
You should add an option for Mullvad.
I love seeing these posts because I’ve been pirating for almost 20 years and never once have I paid for or used a VPN. I’ve never received a letter from my ISP about it. If you use a trustworthy private tracker you don’t fucking need it. Downvote me all you want but I’m not wrong.
I use PIA because it was the cheapest on their 3.3 year plan, and it has a good node geographically close to me with port forwarding. I only use it for torrenting, so I don't care if it's a CIA Honeypot or whatever.
Proton VPN since it's cheaper than ExpressVPN but apparently faster than other paid VPN options, while also having port forwarding to improve torrent connectivity.
Currently testing Windscribe because they had good offer for a yearly subscription and some interesting features like ad block (mostly useful for mobile). Their privacy level is sufficient for what I'm doing currently, but if I ever need I'll just Mullvad.
I use IVPN and I'm very happy with them. They allow you to make an account without giving out your Email address, you just get a random-generated Account ID (Mullvad does the same btw). They also allow you to pay with Monero, an anonymous crypto currency. I used Mullvad before, Proton VPN and AirVPN are great options as well.
Windscribe. Mainly because I scored a cheap lifetime deal many years ago. It works well enough. Got two ISP copyright strikes before using Windscribe. Have yet to get another since using Windscribe (knock on wood). But I also don't pirate as much as I used to.
AirVPN - privacy respecting (although their attitude towards audits is a bit off putting). They also had the best port forwarding offer at the time Mullvad announced it was ending its support.
If you are a pirate VPN is an essential tool
Lol naw. Private trackers only + small fiber isp that doesn't give af.
VPNs cost money. I'm a pirate.
You can always add this blocklist for extra protection: https://www.iblocklist.com/list?list=ydxerpxkpcfqjaybcssw
Mulllvad VPN on my Hardened Void Linux and GrapheneOS mainly to hide my real IP address plus I use NextDNS paid version too.
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