Basically I started with mullvad then turned to proton but after they introduced AI and a crypto wallet I’m just looking for what peoples opinions are.
@Ste41th mullvad, definitely
Mullvad is very trusted by community generally they haven’t given any reason to mistrust for now that I know of. They don’t allow port forwarding anymore though so that’s something to keep in mind if you need that.
Mullvad
What was the reason for you to switch from Mullvad in the first place?
I’m using a combination of Astrill (paid) and Proton (free, as a backup) since they are the only ones that reliably work in China, but once I’m out of here and my subscriptions expire, I’ll be on Mullvad again.
Damn, Astrill is expensive though. Friend in China is currently happy with Mullvad + Shadowsocks. A few hiccups here and there, but it works pretty well and is fast enough for streaming, too.
They also have guides to a few more involved methods in case Shadowsocks is blocked.
Yep, the one issue with shadowsocks is that you can only install it on end devices, not on a router. That’s the big benefit of Astrill. But anyway, my days in China are numbered, so I’m soon not going to need that anymore.
To be fair the only reason I switched is because I couldn’t find out how to pay for a year instead of monthly, but I think I’ve figured it out now
You can pay in bulk. It just scales linearly/it’s a flat rate, so no kind of discount for buying a year vs buying a month.
Use Mullvad, unless you absolutely require port forwarding.
Thank you for your opinion
Or you already use Proton Mail / Drive etc and want to save a bit of money with Proton Unlimited at 9.99 EUR/USD / mo. That’s why I switched from Mullvad. I do agree that overall though Mullvad is the best in terms of trustworthiness (so far as we know anyway)
And if you need port forwarding use airvpn. Proton seems more and more sketch every day
Proton has port forwarding? Source?
God damn that’s complicated compared to PIA
Pia is owned by very sketchy Kape Technologies, just FYI.
Yeah but their stack is open source, with no evidence of wrongdoing, and proven no log track record. Their servers have no persistent storage. The threat model isn’t the fuckin NSA lol
While PIA Might not have done any wrong doing, Kape Technologies definitely has. Imo, it’s not worth funding.
I have a proton subscription but it’s not worth the effort to port forward until their app can do it
I dont know why that has you doing so much, I use port forwarding with proton vpn and all I did was press a button in the proton vpn app and it was on.
What OS?
Windows 11
Ah that’ll do it. Seems more effort has been put into the windows app
That’s the manual setup for use cases like on a server or whatever (a common place where you would need port forwarding)
This is the best answer.
Mullvad is cheaper, and probably a bit more trusted, but Proton has port forwarding. Currently I use Mullvad. I don’t like the Mullvad’s 5 device limit on Wireguard clients though. You can only have 5 devices added to the account, no matter if just 1 or all 5 are currently connected. And after using Wireguard once, I don’t want to use OpenVPN again where wg can fully replace it.
Both support cash payments, though Proton makes me feel like they expect it for larger sums of cash:We cannot be responsible for lost shipments, so we strongly recommend sending your payment using a service that provides a tracking number so you can track the shipment. It’s also helpful to notify us that you’re sending us cash in the mail, so we know to expect it.
While Mullvad asks you not to use registered mail nor send larger amounts of cash. I feel like the latter is implied by asking to notify them. I suppose “Hey, I am sending you 10 bucks via mail.” is not what’s expected here.
What I absolutely like is the fair pricing. It’s same price no matter how much time you buy, whether it’s 1 month, a year or two. Even their direct competitor IVPN does this crap (and so does Proton). I value that quite a bit.
So currently Mullvad is winning for me.
Mail is extremely insecure, it’s actually really nefarious for them to recommend it. I still use Mullvad sometimes because it’s just so cheap and fast. I know it’s some kind of high level NATO spyware though. Just look at where their servers are. I mean fucking come on now.
Just look at where their servers are.
Kind of… al around the place? What do you mean?
Also, in the mail you don’t send the account number, just a payment token. So the postman won’t be stealing your account, just your cash at most.
Vouchers are probably the safest, but I actually like sending mail, and this is basically my only opportunity to do so nowadays.
Oh does the 5 device limit not apply to OpenVPN? Interesting
It technologically can’t. With Wireguard, you need to upload each device’s public key to Mullvad, thus registering each device separately. With OpenVPN you login with username and password. Or in this case just the username.
Theoretically speaking, you could have the same private key on 2 devices that won’t be connected simultaneously though.
mullvad. I’ve been having issues with proton on windows, but its cheaper for me since I get cloud storage, aliases, and some other stuff with it
Huge fan of Mullvad for the work around respecting users privacy. They are implementing ways of skewing AI-guided traffic analysis. VPN encrypts your data but companies are starting to use AI to look at traffic patterns and help determine what that data is. I won’t pretend to understand it completely so I’d recommend reading their blog about it.
I’ve been eyeing PIA for it’s price and the inclusion of port forwarding but not sure if anyone has experience with PIA.
PIA for it’s price
PIA for its* price
I would recommend Windscribe over PIA. They’re open-source and rank highly on Techlore’s VPN toolkit.
PIA also has an open-source client. I think’d need to still purchase a static IP with Windscribe to enable port forwarding. PIA also gets regular audits if I remember correctly. I’m looking for cheap vpns with port forwarding but will consider Windscribe.
I personally use mullvad for all outgoing traffic and then airvpn for any let forwarding I require. Basically airvpn is exclusive to incoming traffic, like my self hosted services or game servers, and then anything I do on the internet routes through mullvad. All setup through opnsense since they both support wireguard.
I always had issues with proton’s port forwarding being reliable in the past. That being said, if you need things like video streaming services, mullvad seems to be having a hard time with these recently where as proton worked well for me back when I used it (unsure if that’s still true).
I watched 4k Olympics live for a long time yesterday on mulvad. Different continents for end to end.
I daily drive Proton mostly because of speed for gaming, but I keep a mullvad account handy for special occasions. I have zero interest in the full Proton stack, I don’t want to centralize my data like that. Especially once they joined the AI train, I’m glad I kept my VPN and email separate.
I host my own private git server and use Unix Pass for my password vault, FastMail for email, Syncthing and SMB for file sharing, don’t really use crypto so I couldn’t care less that they added a wallet. The VPN interface on mobile and Windows/Mac is fine. I’d love to see the Linux options improve, but I just use OpenVPN profiles and it works well enough.
Just curious: why do you use a vpn for gaming?
There’s some games that use peer to peer connection that can expose your IP if the person on the other end cares to do the digging. In some competitive games people that are trying and caring way to hard will use this to say DDoS people in order to win games. While I’m probably not good enough, or well known enough for people to be doing this, you’ll hear streamers mention it happening to them every now and then.
in what games does that happen? wasn’t aware…
Wow that is awful. I hope that never happens to you!
Experience wise i’ve had a better time with mullvad at every corner when it comes to vpns than proton.
Protons still a respectable company i’d say but there focus is gonna become spread more thin while mullvads gonna continue providing a stable and simple experience.
Plus mullvads never gonna confuse you when it comes to pricing unlike proton, no extra time spent finding the difference between a monthly and annual subscription.
Only reason to use proton is because you’re already paying for their email/drive/whatever.
Isn’t mullvad better and cheaper?
think I didn’t get it?
protonvpn is a few pennies cheaper when goin’ for 2 years and even much more when you wait for the black friday offers.
so if you can’t wait and don’t use a vpn on a daily basis, mullvad is 100% cheaper, so yes kinda.
I wouldn’t pay for 2 years for a privacy service. Eventually you’ll loose privacy. Better to create a new account at least every 6 months.
Mullvad/IVPN for their pay with cash policies
I believe proton also accepts cash payments. At least I’ve seen that in their mail service.
I’m not sure if Proton is the same, but with Mullvad you can be super anonymous with cash. You can get an a code from their site and literally just write it on a bit of paper, stuff it in an envelope with some cash and mail it to them with no other way of identifying you. I haven’t tried it personally but apparently it works lol.
Can I really pay with cash?
You bet, and please! Stay anonymous all the way. Just put your cash and payment token (randomly generated on our website) in an envelope and send it to us. We accept the following currencies: EUR, USD, GBP, SEK, NOK, CHF, CAD, AUD, NZD.
Yeah Mullvad’s system is better than Proton’s, since the latter asks you to place your username inside the envelope. Mullvad’s random token is better in that regard.
More info on Proton’s cash payments: https://proton.me/support/payment-options#cash
Disclaimer: I’ve never paid in cash on either of these services.
IMHO Mullvad
