Is ProtonVPN worth it?

@piracy

Got reminded of this while reading about ProtonMail. The reason I haven’t gotten into proper #piracy is that I don’t have a VPN for torrenting, and the reason I don’t have a VPN is that I don’t #torrent. So it would be nice if I got a good VPN while #degoogling myself.

Will ProtonVPN rat me out to Comcast? I know some VPNs don’t hide what you’re downloading from your ISP, for reasons I don’t fully understand.

  • @[email protected]
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    32 years ago

    No, try this safing.io, unless you want VPN for mobile which ProtonVPN should be okay, but the Portmaster app has more control over what app is leaking requests.

    • Gazumi
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      12 years ago

      I feel sillyhearing about safing.io for the first time. Sounds very interesting, thanks

  • @[email protected]
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    12 years ago

    I know I’m really late to this thread:

    The 3 VPNs I’d recommend for privacy are Proton, AirVPN, and Mullvad.

    When it comes to torrenting, AirVPN is probably the best. It has port forwarding, a no logging policy, and general trust in the community. Proton is similar, but it’s port forwarding is not as good as AirVPN’s version.

    When it comes to privacy, Mullvad is the best imo. You can pay in cash. They removed port forwarding recently, but they’re in a privacy oriented country, and when authorities raided them, they had none of the users’ data (the raid being the reason for port forwarding to disappear).

    You don’t need port forwarding to torrent, but without it, you may have slower speeds and trouble downloading older/rarer torrents (it effects the number of seeders/peers you can connect to). I’ve been torrenting without port forwarding and have yet to run into a torrent I can’t download in a reasonable time. Highly overrated imo, but incredibly important if you want to seed (I’ve still had no problems, there might be a couple leeches, but the vast majority can be seeded to). Considering you have Comcast, however, I’m guessing you have a data cap, and with that seeding becomes rather difficult. If you really want to pass it on with the data cap, than a seedbox would be the easiest way. Without port forwarding or a seedbox, and especially with a datacap without either of those, you won’t be able to use private trackers (personally I don’t recommend them unless you can’t find content anywhere else, my advice running counter to many in the piracy community).

    You’re not going wrong with any of those 3 VPNs. Mullvad for privacy (torrents work just fine, don’t believe the people convincing you otherwise, and if you’re concerned with seeding, then a seedbox will take care of uploading for you). AirVPN if you want a good privacy reputation and port forwarding, or Proton if you prefer them (their privacy is fine, their port forwarding is inferior).

    I’ll also mention Windscribe, which is not as good as the above three, and I don’t know as much about. But it’s the only other one I can think of that might be worth it, though I strongly recommend one of the above 3 first.

    Stay away from (most VPNS pay for advertising or astroturf, so always be careful when selecting):

    PIA (yes, they were proven not to log… And then bought out by Kape (former name Crossrider), a spyware company. The parent company is not privacy oriented, no matter how much PIA simps want you to believe otherwise. Look into it yourself. I loved PIA before they were bought out!)

    NordVPN (lol, just stay away, trust me. You can always search for previous NordVPN incidents.).

  • @[email protected]
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    2 years ago

    I don’t know if this just got initially deleted or whatever, but I use wireguard with a “custom” plan on windscribe, and it’s like $1/month. IPs are shared among hundreds of users and they keep no identifying logs.

    I use a split tunnel on the vanilla wireguard client, so I’m not using anything from windscribe software-wise; and I set my torrent client to only use the ethernet device for the tunnel. So no need to worry about kill switches or leaking shit when the VPN drops.

    Also – I’ve tested the Wireguard connection on Windscribe and it easily handles 1gb upload/download.

    • Xilabar the Dice GoblinOP
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      32 years ago

      @thantik yeah that was me. I prefer to keep my Mastodon stuff and Lemmy stuff separate. What happened was that I initially posted this from Lemmy, realized I would rather post this from Mastodon, and deleted the first one so there wouldn’t be duplicates. I wasn’t trying to gaslight you and you didn’t do anything wrong.

  • @[email protected]
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    72 years ago

    I’ve been using it for torrenting and it works well. I have no complaints. I think it’s less if you buy by the year rather than monthly.

  • @[email protected]
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    62 years ago

    Proton VPN I found not good for streaming sites. Considering the forum we are on, I doubt that is a primary requirement here but it was unstable and regularly detected by the streaming sites. The stream kept getting buffering issues and the only way to fix it was a series of restarting and refreshing different things and trying different servers. Support just pushes you through a flowchart of settings questions when really their service should just work properly

    It was a pretty disappointing experience considering I actually forked out money for it (not the free tier)

  • @[email protected]
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    172 years ago

    If you are using Linux don’t use the GUI app. It will lock up and leak past a killswitch.

    The CLI app works ok. It annoyingly has issues reconnecting on reboot without disabling and renabling the killswitch. Sometimes it works, other times not.

    • Oscar
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      2 years ago

      What i found to work the best is to generate and download a config file, then import it into NetworkManager. There’s a plugin for wireguard here: https://github.com/max-moser/network-manager-wireguard

      This way, it’s easy to add routes, autostart, etc. But I don’t think a safe killswitch is possible.

      Edit: But since this is a piracy community, i should mention that qbittorrent has a setting for specifying the network interface, so it’s easy to force it to use the vpn connection only, in place of a killswitch.

    • @[email protected]
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      192 years ago

      You don’t have to use any software from Proton VPN, they will allow you to download openvpn and wireguard config files so you can set up your own client. Takes some more effort to do it right, yes, but its a good option if you’re up for it.

      • AphoticDev
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        22 years ago

        This is how I do it, but since I use KDE I just loaded up the configure file in the connection settings and pasted in my password. Took about 10 seconds.

      • @[email protected]
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        22 years ago

        Just make sure to either set the Wireguard profile’s IPv6 to Link-Local or disable IPv6 on your network connection, otherwise you’ll leak data and DNS entries over it. The reason is because Proton’s wireguard implementation does not support ipv6 yet.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 years ago

          That’s good information. I already had a setup for openvpn, so I just plugged in their ovpn files and kept going.

  • @[email protected]
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    22 years ago

    I’ve had ipvanish, proton, and now on expressvpn. Express is my favorite so far but it is expensive. You should look into mullvad vpn.

    • @[email protected]
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      12 years ago

      Be aware if you are trying to torrent you will want to use a service with port forwarding

    • Xilabar the Dice GoblinOP
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      52 years ago

      @starlord2014 wish Mullvad had an email service lol. I have looked into them previously and they do seem like the most trustworthy overall.
      But then i get to the checkout and have a moment where I think “why am I doing this? I don’t torrent!” And then I never go through with it, which means I don’t get into torrenting, etc. And the cycle goes on

      • @[email protected]
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        2 years ago

        There are reasons to use a VPN other than torrenting. It prevents your local ISP from selling your traffic data to advertisement companies. It prevents companies from giving you different prices based on your geographic location. It prevents search engines from keeping a log of everything you search for, as long as you don’t log in. It allows your ephemeral internet usage to really be ephemeral. It prevents local ISP, and country censorship. It prevents geoblocking for voice services.

        It’s good data hygiene.

  • @[email protected]
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    72 years ago

    I don’t really pirate anymore, but have been using ProtonMail, Proton Calendar and ProtonVPN for a few years on pure privacy grounds, and generally really like it. Their apps have gotten more stable over time and their bona fides are solid (actually fighting against subpoenas, etc).

    They are actively improving things like calendar invites and integration in their suite of apps. Between that and ente for photo storage I’ve mostly degoogled myself over the last couple years.

  • @[email protected]
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    42 years ago

    Works great and supports port forwarding. VPNs don’t rat you out to comcast, they’d lose all their customers.

  • @[email protected]
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    112 years ago

    Just putting out there that AirVPN has been perfect for me for several years now. No issues.

    • @[email protected]
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      22 years ago

      Without port forwarding, torrent clients can only connect to a fraction of the total number of seeders.

  • solitude
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    2 years ago

    For a long time, the main VPN that was recommended was Mullvad. iVPN, Proton and AirVPN were distant alternative recommendations. However, since Mullvad, iVPN, and some others removed port forwarding (for a good reason, you can read their blog post about it, but basically, human scum were using PF to allow others to connect with them while sharing child-based illegal material) many people had to make a choice revolving around PF.

    PF allows you and others to keep a healthy “swarm,” so it is a vital feature, particularly if you’re hoping to download files that aren’t recent & are no longer seeded by the original uploader. If the original seeder is gone, and everyone in the remaining swarm doesn’t have PF, you’re most likely not getting that file. Many people stayed with Mullvad, and some people switched to AirVPN or Proton, so that they could keep utilizing PF. If you’re only going to download recent releases, I’d suggest Mullvad. Otherwise, AirVPN or Proton should be fine. I have no experience with either one, other than using Proton’s free email service (I’m also testing Tutanota and Skiff, & liking Skiff the best out of all 3 so far).

    I would also suggest doing a search for “ProtonMail court order leads to the arrest of French climate activist” and see if that bothers you. Example: see Mullvad’s blog about “migration to RAM-only VPN infrastructure.” Meaning, all the internet traffic going through their VPN service is kept on RAM, so when they say they don’t have any logs, they don’t and can’t. Will Proton rat you out if they get a court order about you? I doubt it, but who am I to say. Although, email and VPN are not the same, but they are somewhat similar in regards to protecting your privacy. I believe AirVPN is also a trustworthy “no log” policy VPN with PF. Just do your own research and make an informed decision.

    Me? I switched to Usenet instead of torrenting for anything other than recent releases. The good thing is that you don’t need a VPN for Usenet (as long as you have the SSL connection enabled on SABnzbd in the server section, which should be enabled by default after installation). The bad thing is, it takes a little more research to understand how to best setup Usenet, but you’re pretty much guaranteed to obtain your files, even years old. I don’t need to keep Mullvad, but I have kept it for now, because it’s pretty inexpensive and it’s a great service, even without PF.

    Short version: use qBittorrent, manually start it each time after you’re VPN is active (do not have it start up with Windows or whatever you’re using), make sure to BIND your VPN to qBittorrent (do not rely on just a kill-switch, notoriously unreliable), and using Proton should be fine.

    EDIT: You may want to also research “nordvpn data breach” and “kape technologies malware” (Kape owns Private Internet Access) if one of those becomes an option for you. I’m not saying don’t use either of them, but you should be aware of those things and make your own decision. I switched from PIA to Mullvad when Kape bought PIA.

    EDIT2: Just in case people don’t know, I believe Mullvad is still the provider for the “Mozilla VPN,” just rebranded. And they have their own Mullvad browser (from Firefox), but I haven’t tried it.

      • solitude
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        82 years ago

        I’m assuming you didn’t read my post later in this part of the thread (responding just below here to “Giu176” - it’s lengthy, sorry, but start almost half way down into that post and read the rest for more detailed info and recommendations, beginning with the paragraph that starts: “With Usenet a VPN is not needed, because SABnzbd …” That info should provide a good guide on how to get started. Anymore than that and it can get overwhelming for some. I’m an analyst for work, so looking at all the available data, including many threads, and trying to make a decision was kind of daunting when I first started looking at it all.

        Otherwise, the Reddit wiki is unfortunately the only other source I’m aware of. Start here: https://www.reddit.com/r/usenet/wiki/index

        If you’re new (like I was) I’d stick to basics, like I outlined in the post I mentioned. But here is the part for choosing an indexer: https://www.reddit.com/r/usenet/wiki/indexers

        It’s my understanding (and it makes sense) that the “Free Membership Sites” are basically worthless. Pay most attention to the “Yearly Membership” section to get started, and look for “Open” in the “Registrations” column. The indexers I referenced (in the other post) are the main ones more experienced users mentioned. However, I believe some of it is marketing by owners/affiliates. Example: some say how great DOGnzb and NinjaCentral are, but I’m convinced it just self promotion. DOG is extremely expensive (see the pricing there, but you have to “buy” a shirt for a subscription, and if you actually want the shirt you “paid” for, you have to pay extra, so I deleted my account after getting an invite and registering). Ninja isn’t bad, they do have some rare things, but it’s very uncommon for me to find something on Ninja that isn’t already tracked by one of my other indexers. The problem is, you have to get an invite, and it can be rare that it opens for registrations or an invite is available (I think by design, you want the thing you can’t have). Not really worth it though.

        The sub for getting invites to other indexers that aren’t “open”: https://www.reddit.com/r/UsenetInvites/

        Don’t just make a post asking for an invite, unless you’ve already made a post offering an invite to somewhere else. I enabled notifications on this sub so that I knew when an indexer I wanted became available. Read here to understand better how it works: https://www.reddit.com/r/UsenetInvites/wiki/startingout

        That’s how I got DrunkenSlug (DS) and NzbPlanet (Planet), but Planet isn’t that good, imo. You should be able to use it for free though, on a limited basis.

        Next, providers: https://www.reddit.com/r/usenet/wiki/providers

        See the two recommendations I already made (I’d REALLY suggest just sticking with one of those), otherwise, understanding the differences can get rather confusing, but I’ll provide a brief explanation here. If you have trouble obtaining a file you’re indexer is saying is out there, but you have trouble getting it from the provider you have (I don’t have problems with Eweka, but just so I don’t look like a shill…), having access to another provider, specifically on a different backbone, can be helpful. Here is a link to the provider “Usenet Tree”: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Usenet_Providers_and_Backbones.svg -or- I THINK this is a direct link to a more up to date version, if I recall correctly: https://svgshare.com/i/iG8.svg -and- there is also this website, which kind of helps stopping you from getting overlapping providers (but again, see my two recommendations, and you can use this later if you ever have a problem, but you shouldn’t): https://whatsmyuse.net/

        Lastly, even though I don’t use all of this on a server, I installed all the “arrs” on my PC and enjoy having access through them (again, see my other post for an explanation and links to the “arrs”. I don’t like having the arrs reorder my files, and create their own subfolders, so I just use them to reference files I’m kind of following, if you will. So I disable the “download when available” option.

        With this post, and the other, it’s already getting kind of lengthy and convoluted. However, if there are any other questions, I’ll do my best to answer.

        Actually, one more item, when you get more familiar with Usenet and the arrs, you can reference this site for setting up “arrs” profiles if you want: https://trash-guides.info/

    • @[email protected]
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      142 years ago

      Yeah the footnote about PIA was truly disappointing when it happened. PIA was one of the better VPNs at the time (and in fact, they still allow port forwarding.) But the issues with Kape are hard to get past.

      • solitude
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        2 years ago

        Yeah, when I read who was buying PIA back then and did a little research I just said “nope.”

  • /home/pineapplelover
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    62 years ago

    I have proton unlimited and it’s well worth it imo. With it you get simplelogin premium for free and all the proton stuff with 500gb e2ee cloud storage (which I haven’t used too much). It’s just a really well put together ecosystem and I’m glad to support them. Also, black friday is coming up and iirc they usually do sales right about then.