this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
46 points (84.8% liked)

Privacy

37124 readers
306 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Which VPN to choose and why

top 21 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] surph_ninja@lemmy.world 4 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

The issue is also that they’re all either run by Israel or intelligence agencies, or they comply with their backdoor access to everything.

If it was actually a good, private vpn free from government spying, the governments would shut it down.

[–] pineapple@lemmy.ml 1 points 23 hours ago

They support anonymous payments, including Bitcoin

This was talking about protonvpn Bitcoin is not at all anonymous all transactions are completely public for everyone to view.

[–] PragmaticOne@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Only mentioning Reddit to say that r/vpn has a spreadsheet you can DL to view VPNs and lists what they offer.

[–] PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 days ago (8 children)

I’ve used Mullvad for years, but the lack of port-forwarding is becoming a pain in the proverbial. I’d been considering OVPN, but does anyone have any experience with that, IVPN or Proton? What do you consider the better option?

[–] pineapple@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I don't understand why so many privacy respecting vpns just lack port forwarding. It's really frustrating and I don't know why mullvad would remove it.

[–] PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago

Something to do with it enabling nonces I think

[–] leraje@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 days ago

IVPN don't allow port forwarding either.

I realise port forwarding is something lots of people want but the reasons are nothing to do with privacy. Mullvad remains, in my opinion, the best solution for those whose priority is privacy.

[–] EisFrei@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

PIA is working quite well with this container.

https://github.com/haugene/docker-transmission-openvpn

[–] kent@feddit.dk 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I've been using OVPN with port forwarding for a couple of years, it works great for my use cases.

I haven't used other providers, so I can't really compare to others though.

[–] skankhunt42@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago

Same. I've used OVPN for years, port forwarding seems to work as I get the green check in rutorrent. I haven't tried others.

[–] poloqualle@feddit.org 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Protons port forwarding works fine for me. I use it mainly via gluetun as a vpn layer for some docker containers.

[–] PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Bear with me here, as I know sweet FA about docker containers, but am I right unthinking you only really use it in your container, as opposed to running it on whole devices, or your router? What’s the advantage of that?

[–] ftbd@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

AFAIK the selling point of gluetun is that the traffic from e.g. a qbittorrent container is guaranteed to go through the VPN - this is also what one would need port forwarding for

[–] PennyRoyal@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ah, so essentially, you’re achieving a similar result to port-forwarding while still using Mullvad by the container forcing all qbittorrent’s connection to go through Mullvad. That’s actually a pretty ideal situation for me, I’d much rather keep using Mullvad if possible, I’ll have to go learn how all this works. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction

[–] ftbd@feddit.org 2 points 23 hours ago

No, your VPN provider needs to offer port forwarding for that to work. You can still use qbittorrent without port forwarding, but it'll be harder to find peers which could lower your speeds

[–] Coleslaw4145@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

I'm using Mullvad at the moment as well and looking to change for the same reason. I've been looking at switching to AirVPN once all my credit runs out on Mullvad. They have a similar model to Mullvad, but they allow port forwarding.

[–] redrumBot@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

Windscribe Supports port-forwarding and they rank pretty well in privacy regards too but they are certainly rank a tier lower than IVPN and Mullvad. Guess it comes down to your priorities here

[–] RiQuY@lemm.ee 0 points 2 days ago