If you are a pirate VPN is an essential tool. I am trying to ascertain the popularity of various VPNs in piracy community. In this excerise, I will list several Popular VPNs in the comment if you use one of them just upvote that comment and reply the reason. If you don't find your VPN listed add a comment with just their name. Reply the reason to it. This make it easier to understand the real life user cases.

P.S: I am only looking for paid VPNs please don't mention "free vpn".

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[–] 65 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Mullvad because they don't need your name, and you can pay by cash anonymously.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Do they still not have port forwarding?

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago*

    Nope. I'd argue that Mullvad is not for most pirates, unless you're actually worried about being jailed for your piracy (depends on what country you're in). If you just want to get the letters from your ISP to stop, there are much cheaper VPNs that can do that.

    Mullvad is for actual privacy, which many VPNs don't really give you. If you gave them an email address and credit card, then it ain't private, kids!

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  • [–] [S] 51 points 2 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    I used Mullvad, found them great for everything and would be my only VPN if they were big enough to facilitate streaming via other countries. Due to smaller number of servers it isn't possible to use a lot of streaming services with them...I found this out when o/s and needing to VPN into my home country to access my geo-locked streaming service.

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  • [–] 44 points 2 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] [S] 35 points 2 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago (3 children)
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    [–] 24 points 2 years ago* (7 children)

    So.... at the risk of humiliating myself,
    I've never once used a VPN in my entire life.

    I pirated games, movies, shows, music, software... and the worst thing that happened to me was getting a letter from Telus once or twice saying "Hey. Don't do that."

    That was 5 years ago

    I know it's bad practice. But is a VPN 100% necessary? Even a free one?

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago* (4 children)

    I find incredible that it's absolutely illegal for anyone to read your letters and only the police can do that and only if a judge grant them the right to do that case by case, and a private telecommunications company can read absolutely all your digital communication with no judge involved and no one blinks an eye.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    Generally CnD letters are not generated by the ISPs themselves. ISPs don't care what you do unless legally obligated to. When you get a CnD letter, it's usually because someone working for a copyright holder was on a torrent and snagged your IP, then sent an infringement notice to your ISP, who in turn sends a CnD to the current holder of the IP, i.e. you.

    At no point does your ISP have to read your digital communications themselves. Any one of your peers on a torrent can tell what your public IP address is, it's inherent to the BitTorrent protocol. Copyright holders take advantage of this to catch pirates.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

    While people sometimes suggest ignoring it because they say that your ISP is only sending you those notices because the laws compel them to and you downloaded something that was tracked, you may want to evaluate your risk.

    Nothing has happened so far. Could something happen in the future?

    Your ISP has built an entire portfolio of the things you’ve done online and which content you pirated. Who know how long your ISP retains that data, or which companies or regulatory bodies it shares this data with?

    Laws may change.

    Up to you on what you want to do with this information.

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    [–] 21 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    PIA, just because I’m lazy and it’s been fine for like a decade. If there is something better, happy to hear about it.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago

    PIA was sold to Kape Technologies a few years back and they have somewhat questionable history and that made me switch to Mullvad. Not because I thought it's better VPN per-se, but because I wanted away from PIA and Mullvad seemed popular.

    The issue is who he sold it to -- the notorious creator of some pernicious data-huffing ad-ware, Crossrider. The UK-based company was cofounded by an ex-Israeli surveillance agent and a billionaire previously convicted of insider trading who was later named in the Panama Papers. It produced software which previously allowed third-party developers to hijack users' browsers via malware injection, redirect traffic to advertisers and slurp up private data.

    Source

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  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    Currently proton its decent though I'm thinking of moving to mullvad even though they've removed portforwarding.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago

    I've used both and much prefer Proton for sailing the seas. Connecting through France (highest speed + p2p) with port forwarding is the best torrent speed I've had on a VPN. The only slight annoyance is it switching the forwarded port every time it reconnects, but I run it 24/7 anyway.

    Just skip the "official" client and run it through gluetun. It's a much better experience.

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    [–] 16 points 2 years ago

    Proton because I have their Unlimited plan.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    AirVPN because of port forwarding.

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    [–] 15 points 2 years ago
    [–] 14 points 2 years ago

    AirVPN, limited on details for signing up, can pay in crypto and easy port forwarding.

    Good config generator as well

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago

    You should add an option for Mullvad.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    I use PIA because it was the cheapest on their 3.3 year plan, and it has a good node geographically close to me with port forwarding. I only use it for torrenting, so I don't care if it's a CIA Honeypot or whatever.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    Currently testing Windscribe because they had good offer for a yearly subscription and some interesting features like ad block (mostly useful for mobile). Their privacy level is sufficient for what I'm doing currently, but if I ever need I'll just Mullvad.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    Proton VPN since it's cheaper than ExpressVPN but apparently faster than other paid VPN options, while also having port forwarding to improve torrent connectivity.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    If you are a pirate VPN is an essential tool

    Lol naw. Private trackers only + small fiber isp that doesn't give af.

    VPNs cost money. I'm a pirate.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (10 children)

    I love seeing these posts because I’ve been pirating for almost 20 years and never once have I paid for or used a VPN. I’ve never received a letter from my ISP about it. If you use a trustworthy private tracker you don’t fucking need it. Downvote me all you want but I’m not wrong.

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    [–] 8 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    I know you are asking for a VPN, but you could give a try i2p for bittorrent it is free and secure. And if you want just DDL, you have Tor.

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    [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Windscribe. Mainly because I scored a cheap lifetime deal many years ago. It works well enough. Got two ISP copyright strikes before using Windscribe. Have yet to get another since using Windscribe (knock on wood). But I also don't pirate as much as I used to.

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    [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I use IVPN and I'm very happy with them. They allow you to make an account without giving out your Email address, you just get a random-generated Account ID (Mullvad does the same btw). They also allow you to pay with Monero, an anonymous crypto currency. I used Mullvad before, Proton VPN and AirVPN are great options as well.

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    [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    AirVPN - privacy respecting (although their attitude towards audits is a bit off putting). They also had the best port forwarding offer at the time Mullvad announced it was ending its support.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    Mulllvad VPN on my Hardened Void Linux and GrapheneOS mainly to hide my real IP address plus I use NextDNS paid version too.

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