I'm deeply sorry, but I had to mention i2p torrenting, it might become more popular soon.
Sidenote: I2P torrenting doesn't require a vpn or port forwarding, and is indeed more private.
Can you elaborate on this, it's the first time I've heard of I2P torrenting
It seems to be a special torrent client that work similar to tor (guessing with less hops though) and bounce encrypted traffic on special "i2p routers". Not sure if they do the onion style encryption of thor.
I2P torrenting with a seedbox is the undeniable future. It will probably just take a year or so to reach critical mass. It's slow now because a lack of mass.
The main relevant difference between I2P and Tor is that Tor runs on donated bandwidth and therefore can't scale: the more it is used, the more volunteers are needed to donate bandwidth. Which is why they aren't happy with people torrenting.
I2P is P2P so the more people use it, the faster it becomes. Which is why they really want people to use it for torrenting.
ProtonVPN. It's an organization built around principles of privacy, so I use them a lot and support them as much as I can. I have their VPN on a docker container with gluetun.
I'm a proton unlimited subscriber and I love it. Simplelogin, e2ee emails, vpn, all amazing. Their tech support team is awesome and they have always been fast and helpful when assisting me with my computers.
E2ee emails is only between proton and proton btw, proton to gmail (or anyone else) is not emcrypted by default, you'd need to pgp it yourself for that.
I know that may sound obvious, but you'd be surprised how many people don't know that so I just wanted to drop a heads up just in case anyone reading was unaware.
+1 for Proton. I also have their mail for all my domains. Works wonders and feels trustworthy, for whatever that's worth.
AirVPN is a good one
This is what I switched to after Mullvad removed their port forwarding. It works fine so far. Interestingly, the Android app reminds me of a Geocities page circa 2002.
I've been using airvpn for years
I use Mullvad and do not need to forward any ports for torrenting.
You do if you want to seed or use private trackers otherwise you can make any incoming connections.
Air VPN as it supports port forwarding. PF isn't as important if you only download popular new content, as there are usually enough connectable seeders on popular torrents. But PF is absolutely crucial if you want to be able to obtain old or rare content or if you use private trackers.
I'm honestly baffled that so many are still recommending Mullvad after they made such a stunning reversal of their friendly policy towards p2p by removing port forwarding. I wouldn't trust them as far as I can throw them.
Switched to AirVPN. It's pretty good so far. Not great for general browsing because you get a ton of captchas.
Private Internet Access allows port forwarding
They used to be Denver-based, but got bought out by a shitty British mega corporation with shit policies, so I dropped them for Nord, which also sucked because their servers were slow.
I've had PIA for years. It has always worked so I haven't had a reason to try anything else. I think its like $2/mo paid yearly.
AirVPN customer since 7-8 years. If you want some flashy highly polished website and client which could win design awards, look elsewhere. Otherwise it’s top notch. They have an easy to use client and support for both native WireGuard and OpenVPN.
Just switched from Mullvad to AirVPN last weekend, and I agree with everything you said. So far, no issues.
i believe windscribe is good, but i havent done enough research to be confidwnt
I have been using PIA. They changed owners awhile back and there were some concerns about if they would continue to NOT keep logs. They have maintained that standard and I’ve had zero issues torrenting with them.
They sell even an antivirus, I don't think it's trustworthy company. In my personal opinion nowadays antivirus are a scam.
Why is everyone anti NordVPN again?
They had a data breach because they weren't careful and they're a bunch of liars that say the government hasn't sent data requests but they have.
I'm a protonvpn unlimited subscriber and I love it because the company has lawyers to fight tooth and nail against legal requests I can't say the same for Nord. The only controversy Proton has had is with Protonmail when an environmental activist used it and proton gave their IP address. There was lots of backlash from this but if you use the internet without a VPN (the activist did not use a VPN), then you should be expecting your IP address to be public, that's how the internet is able to work.
https://thevpn.guru/nordvpn-legal-data-request/https://www.pcmag.com/news/nordvpn-actually-we-do-comply-with-law-enforcement-data-requestshttps://techcrunch.com/2019/10/21/nordvpn-confirms-it-was-hacked/
Honesty the reason I never considered them is because they advertised so hard on YouTube and Podcasts that they annoyed me so I never considered them.
Jesus, felt like there was a time when halfway through any YouTube video it became “and I learned about this browsing the internet safely with Nord VPN…”
Because they're also a big corp, pop one.
Weeellll that and the data breaches, of course.
They don't offer port forwarding so it's kinda pointless to use for torrenting.
I'm new to vpns, what's port forwarding?
Port forwarding allows for a direct connection from one client to another. Effectively when a VPN let's you port forward if you go to the external IP address they assign + the port they assigned they will be able to directly connect to a port that a program/service is listening on.
Torrent sites are only telling your client who to connect to via the tracker, your client still needs to be able to connect to them. You can still download without this but it is generally slower (may be going through a relay) and you cannot seed torrents except for anyone that can directly connect to you on whatever VPN you are on.
*Likely some mistakes above. Keep me honest denizens of the web.
It forwarding opens a port direct to your system from the vpn ip.
So if your internet address at your router to your ISP is 1.1.1.1(which NATs it to your PC address on your lan) and the vpn exit address is say 10.10.10.10
Then when you port forward a port, say 443 (you wouldnt) then any request to 10.10.10:443 would then go to 1.1.1.1:443 and then to your pc on your lan.
In short it allows a direct connection through the vpn
Edit
Technically that's slightly incorrect,
packet goes on 10.10.10.10:443 but it goes to the PC directly through the vpn tunnel. The port it goes through the 1.1.1.1 router to the PC on could be anything, it won't necessarily be 443. It will be whatever the vpn is set to use
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