What VPN provider do you use?

VPN Forum
1

Hi! So I have had surfshark for a while and been generally quite satisfied. They do everything I need them to do this far with no fuss and bundle in some handy other services as well.

My annual plan expires in a couple of months and I’m curious what else is out there, as I only started SF because it was heavily discounted at the time. From a new provider, I just need privacy, the ability to torrent totally public domain content, and a static IP. Do you have any suggestions for other options worth considering? I just like to have options. Thanks in advance!

2

If your requirement for a public IP is to port forward to a service you’re running, then Mullvad won’t work as they discontinued the ability to port forward. Same for seeding torrents.

3

AirVPN. They let you port forward up to 20 ports, which is useful for various use cases (not just file sharing). If you want to seed torrents, port forwarding is an essential feature.

4

None, linode vps near my 5G upstream, running a wireguard node. Pihole + unbound, nginx and local DNS ftw. Route all traffic through the vps wireguard tunnel. YMMV, I’m rural so this setup works best for me.

Quectel 5G modem with 4x CA, waveform 4x mimo antenna on 30 foot pole, pointed at tower with best signal, calyx sim card, UDM-SE + 6E Enterprise AP.
Started out as a way to escape CGNAT, and port forward / bypass video bandwidth throttle on T-Mobile network, progressed into a unifi obsession / homelab.

5

PIA since Mullvad took away port forwarding.

6

Mullvad before port forwarding, ProtonVPN once Mullvad got rid of it

7

Windscribe.

They usually run a really good sale around Black Friday (US).

8

Mullvad, it’s extremely popular among privacy advocates

9

Oracle Cloud free tier… with Wireguard.

10

AirVPN since about 8 years. Highly recommended. If you want something flashy that wins design awards with its website and client, looks elsewhere :slight_smile: from a technical perspective they are absolutely top notch with every feature you could possibly wish for.
Native WireGuard support, Port forwarding, you name it.

11

Since Mullvad got rid of Port Forwarding, I use TorGuard for checking out LinuxISOs

But I still use Mullvad on my pc/phone, since its the best

12

The only vpn I use is a self-hosted reverse proxy over vpn so I can connect to my self-hosted services when on the move. This connectivity strategy also makes it easy to relocate services on demand. 3rd party VPN providers are to be avoided as a general rule of thumb, this is r/selhosted after all.

You can check it out: GitHub - hintjen/selfhosted-gateway: Self-hosted Docker native tunneling to localhost. Expose local docker containers to the public Internet via a simple docker compose interface.

13

Defintely not you asked, but have you considered switching from torrents for your linux ISOs to Real Debrid?

Made the switch last week, can’t be happier. It even comes with mega and usenet downloads for cheaper than a VPN. Doesn’t solve the static IP issue, but you might want to check it out.

14

I manily use Mysterium as I like having resedential IP addresses that are (usually) not detected for being a proxy but I also have Mullvad

15

Airvpn with 3 year plan, windscribe with discount link you can find on reddit or their newsletter discounts are both good value

16

Hmm, I use expressvpn but don’t see anyone here mentioning it. Is there something I should know about them?

17

For torrenting No vpn instead get a cheap vps service who don’t give a damn about copyright and install wireguard.

18

IMO, you are seeing the VPN service not in its intended way.

VPN is not supposed to provide you with publicly accessible, reliably static IP, it supposed to hides your traffic, obfuscate it along with the rest of their clients traffic so no one in the world knows which traffic belongs to who.

I would suggest that you do not use a static IP for torrenting, having a static IP that always associated to you all the time used for ‘torrenting’ would makes them put a crosshair on you, pretty fast and very confidently, and ultimately, viciously (because they now have a ground).

So what you can do ? I have a following example, this can be applicable both in PC and server environment. You have your static IP, not from the VPN. You also have your VPN. Attach your IP to your machine/VPS/VM, have it also run the VPN. Most known VPN protocols generate a virtual network interface for its ‘connection’. You can set your torrent client to bind to this interface, thus making it only send/receive data strictly through your VPN. Your VPN traffic of course will course along your static IP traffic, but worry not, since it is perfectly “tunnelled” through the VPN’s server first before actually ‘hits’ the internet.

Now, what’s the VPN to use ? if you are actually cares about torrenting, the least you can do if possible is ‘sharing’ back (well, this is where the VPN will always required). This is where you’ll need Port Forwarding.

Long story short, VPN with Port Forwarding feature allows you to seed but anonymously, so they won’t point their crosshair on you even more viciously (because now you are actively contributing in the ‘torrenting’ scene)

Azire, Proton and (probably) AirVPN are fews that i knows that have port forwarding.

Mullvad while great in speed, choices, and availability, and speed, they just sunsets their Port Forwarding feature.

You can download torrent just fine with any “privacy” oriented VPN, but not all allows you to seed.

19

PIA

Reason = Transmission

I am collecting Linux.iso :slight_smile:

20

I host my own VPN. All I need when I am out and about.