Mullvad (Sweden)
edit: it doesn't support port forwarding, though.
this post was submitted on 01 May 2025
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Iโm looking at switching to them. I like their price plan.
Look for Mullvad gift cards. They usually come with 6 or 12 months or service and end up costing less then paying monthly. At least it is cheaper for me in Canada with the exchange rate. I grabbed a gift card off Amazon for only $75
Mullvad VPN ๐
No port forwarding unfortunately :(
Oh yes I see that now, I remember using port forwarding extensively before 2023, but I was not aware of its removal. What a shame /:
Mullvad
Unfortunately they don't support port forwarding
- AirVPN
- Proton VPN
Both of these support port forwarding, what are your experiences with them?
AirVPN looks a bit โoldโ, but it has better support on Linux afaik.
Protons support for linux for all their products is dogshit and thats how you know they don't actually give a shit about privacy. If they are happy pushing their customers to stay on windows spyware then obviously they don't really give a shit
If you think that, you obviously do not understand Proton's mission. I am a Linux user and I am a bit sour about their Linux support, but I chose them specifically knowing what I am getting into. They want the privacy to be available to as many people as possible. And you don't do that with targeting mainly Linux users who are already very privacy conscious. If you want to spread some idea, you don't go to a place where everybody already knows about it. And why do I use Proton then? Because its easy for my friends and family to use Proton. Its easier to show them the more private choices without compromise on their sides. And I am able to slowly push them further and further even beyond Proton.
So if you made a wrong, uninformed decision, don't take it out on Proton. That's on you.
Or I'm an informed consumer who tried proton's offering (among many others, over MANY hours of testing OP's exact use case), considered it critically, and came to the conclusion that: A) its not good for this use case B) there are too many red flags that they only care about privacy insofar as they can use it for marketing. Just cause you bought their marketing hook line and sinker doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about and you can dismiss my point without backing up yours.
We aren't talking about your grandma and grandpa who you want to "ease the transition for" in this thread, they asked for a P2P FRIENDLY VPN FOR LINUX and everyone comes in and name drops Proton and Mullvad without any justification or thought.
Proton's mission is to make money, fullstop.
- If you use windows over linux (or BSD): you do not care about your privacy. You can not have any form of privacy when your OS is spying on everything you do. Full stop. (Not hard to switch)
- Proton's entire ecosystem prioritises windows at this current time. Full stop.
- therefore if you buy into proton's ecosystem, lured in by the advertising of "privacy", you are incentivized to remain on Windows, because the experience you are paying for is better there, while thinking you have privacy. (This continues into what I meant by the honeypot comment, meant as a light dig at proton not really relevant to the OPs question, but since you dismissed that as invalid as well... Luring people into more and more products under the guise of "privacy", centralized under one company, who already supports an OS with backdoors, so its not outside the realm of possibility that they allow gov backdoors too if they are willing to compomise their privacy values for money)
That's why in my opinion, proton doesn't give a shit about their users privacy. If they did, they would do everything they could to ease the transition for their users away from ~~US government spyware~~ Windows. But they don't care, cause they rake in the money, they've said that's why themselves. ๐คทโโ๏ธ
But to the OP, if you wanna try proton on linux for P2P, be my guest, i'm done trying to help people in this thread.
Edit: fixed formatting error... and again to clarify wording and add a relevant link just to drive home that linux/bsd doesn't need to be scary techie stuff, its very mainstream, gaming pc compatible these days. Very low barrier to switch.
Final Edit: added mullvad in para 2
Really tending towards AirVPN for my setup
Why I recommend Proton is because it works well on Linux. Maybe the app is not as nice but it works well enough for me to recommend. But you are way too biased now to the point that you are claiming that proton is a honeypot. Anything you say after that means absolutely nothing.
Even despite of that I have read your angry post and man:
If you use windows over linux (or BSD): you do not care about your privacy.
Or you have to use it at work. Or you have some critical application that you can not run on linux. Or you are not technical enough to switch to linux (believe it or not, many people never installed an OS, even if its dead simple, for some people its different world).
Protonโs entire ecosystem prioritizes windows at this current time. Full stop.
So what. You know how much money development costs. Proton is fully funded by their users/customers. If they focus on Linux they die.
therefore if you buy into protonโs ecosystem, lured in by the advertising of โprivacyโ
Privacy is privacy. If its e2e encrypted including most viable metadata its private. There are no quotes around that. Privacy is also a scale, not all or nothing. Because some people tell you the latter, you have then a feeling like there is no point. Your statements are essentially indirectly causing people not wanting to do even a smallest improvement in their privacy.
you are incentivized to remain on Windows, because the experience you are paying for is better there, while thinking you have privacy
If you are thinking about privacy to the point of leaving gmail and using protonmail or using vpn there is a chance that eventually you switch to linux. And even if not. You increased your privacy. Users that are on windows might never think about privacy if the first step would be as huge as OS change.
honeypot
You obviously do not know what honeypot means.
Thatโs why in my opinion, proton doesnโt give a shit about their users privacy
Well everyone is entitled to an opinion, even if its a wrong opinion based on their own bias.
iโm done trying to help people in this thread
Dismissing valid options is not helping.
Airvpn is great. One of the last VPNs that doesn't throttle traffic for P2P. Allows port forwarding.
Proton is the most obvious honeypot I've ever seen
In what way a honeypot?
Iโm OOTL but someone suggests its CIA or something
I think he's just angry at Proton based on his other posts.
Replied to you other comment in regards to this dismissal. Good day.
For the record I'm not one of the downvotes ๐คทโโ๏ธ
Mullvad VPN is pretty great!
P2P enabled
Mullvad does not support port forwarding.
If you are torrenting without seeding (requires port forwarding) you are the reason free (community seeded) torrenting sucks now.
I seed all my torrents to a ratio of 1.10 and I'm on Mullvad, so clearly someone out there is benefitting.
Nah, I auto remove torrents when I seed to 3.0
Mullvad works for me because in my country the torrent sites are blocked, but not the protocol. I just need the vpn to get the magnet links and then I switch it off.
AirVPN. Only trustworthy VPN left that doesn't discriminate traffic and allows port forwarding. You know they're good cause they barely advertise at all.
I don't use Eddie, their client, but just import my config into network-manager on linux. Works with openvpn and wireguard (wg-tools installed on fedora).
I use WG Tunnel app from fdroid on android.
Thanks for the detailed description! Their speeds are good?
Yes its pretty fast in my experience. When I had a 1Gbps fibre connection I regularly saw speeds of 28MBps (MB not Mb, so like over 200Mbps) downloads on steam (so from a single source), I don't recall what my max was when torrenting multiple large files consecutively, but for example a 1080p movie took like 45 seconds. Their compatibility with my docker setup on my server was pleasantly good after many failed attempts with other VPNs.
Mullvad sounded like a good option to me, both pricewise and privacywise, but was a non-starter due to them folding to Hollywoods pressure and disallowing port forwarding. Anyone who torrents without port forwarding and sharing back what they get at least 1:1 is a scab IMO.
Unfortunately I only have a (somewhat tenuous) mobile 5G data connection these days, but here is a fresh speed test result showing about 60 Mbps (Mb this time, not MB) while connected to AirVPN. I ran a few and they averaged 30-60Mbps. Exact same speeds without it on, but with slightly lower ping, about 85-90 ping, but surprisngly higher jitter around the 85-90 too when not connected ๐คทโโ๏ธ. You'll have to take my word for it that its similar speed without it connected since I don't want to share my actual IP results.
I believe speeds depend on which server you connect to, but they don't implement any throttling on their end, exept an even reduction in allocated speed if a single server's connection becomes saturated. For example if everyone in one region decided to connect to one specific server, it may saturate its network connection and everyone's share of the total bandwidth would reduce. (I personally have not seen this happen, or anywhere near it on any of the servers I regularly connect to). I believe normies that use their default app (Eddie) have access to better features like automatic server switching so I imagine they prevent this from happening with some sort of load balancing.
Mullvad or Proton. I use Mullvad and am happy with it.
I tried both on Linux (for extended period of time) and both are a good choice.
https://european-alternatives.eu/category/vpn-virtual-private-network
Mullvad
Proton
F-Secure
Goose
Xeovo
Thanks, but in my post I mentioned I'm dissatisfied with Goose, so just wanted to get people's input. I read the page
Yep, but I was just posting them in order that they appear as preferable alternatives for that site.
Nord, express, surfshark and others after all owned by the same company, they have been accused of stuff in the past. They also own most of the VPN review sites so put their VPNs consistently in the top 5.
Mullvad would be the best at โฌ5 per month and as mentioned then proton.
Been running ProtonVPN on Fedora, Debian, and Android for almost a year with no problems.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I run Debian so I'm considering it
I use Proton VPN, it's a good service. If you like their other services it's honestly a no brainer.
Personally prefer the no bullshit payment options by mullvad but they no longer support port forwarding.
P2P enabled
Does this mean you need port forwarding?
Yes, this would be greatly preferred
Yes in order to "seed" the files you have downloaded you need to port forward your file sharing software's ports.
Basic torrenting etiquette is at least 1:1 ratio if we don't want free easy access to (free) torrents to degrade (too late honestly, we're already there). Pressure from Hollywood to block port forwarding contributes in this degredation.
(Paid) Private trackers have their own ratio rules and you will actually get booted if you don't follow them.
I only have experience with surfshark and nordvpn Surfshark: its fine? NordVPN: its not great, but very cheap with woolsocks's cashback
ivpn
P2P enabled
Double checked and ivpn no longer supports port forwarding. Anyone torrenting without seeding is why free (community seeded) torrenting fucking sucks now.
Thank you so much for sharing this link! I've clicked on other pages in the footer to find alternatives for other apps and I'm impressed with what I see.
Thanks. I have been working on it for a while. Always good to hear that it's useful.
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