So what ARE the current "good" VPN services?

I've used proton for a year or two now and it is fine. Great for use on my phone when I want to use public/airport wifi and it sort of kind of works with gluetun (the rotating port is annoying but it still is a forwarded port).

But I've increasingly been annoyed with Proton as a company and am looking to migrate my email/domain to fastmail in the very near future. I COULD continue to just pay for the vpn (60 USD a year is pretty reasonable) but also feel like this is a good opportunity to "shop around"

Checked the wiki and other FAQs (which all basically crib from said wiki) and they all basically boil down to proton or mullivad... except that mullivad apparently stopped allowing port forwarding which is a bit of an issue for any torrents and the like.

So are there any other good options?

Thanks

111 comments

What's going on with Proton the company?
Edit: ah fuck, thanks for the replies. Sigh.
- Wow! Add me to that group. I need to cancel my annual family plan.
  
  The CEO doesn't own Proton, for what it's worth. He may have founded it, but he does not have complete and total control over anything that Proton offers, as some here may believe.
  
  For fucks sake. I just started to move to proton last year...
  
  https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e worth a read regarding that situation.
- The CEO said that Trump chose a great pick and sided with Republicans and there was a firestorm over it, he doubled down on his position through the official Proton channel.
  https://archive.ph/2yWGz
  
  Ffs I literally just got proton. Fuuuuuck that
  
  https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e worth a read regarding that situation.
- Like basically all tech companies, the leadership are libertarian tech bros. It sucks, but whatever. The problem is also that the CEO (?) has been making public statements to try and cozy up to the trump administration over the past few months
  Some of that still falls under the LTB effect (These policies benefit the company so fuck everyone else, etc) and it DOES make sense for a company to try and earn themselves an exception for the upcoming hellscape in a market that will REALLY want VPNs. But it still leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.
  Not in an "I MUST LEAVE PROTON NOW" state since I like the products because they tend to be pretty honest about what they will and won't do when the goons come a knocking and that mostly boils down to "cooperate. So do X Y and Z to protect yourself by preventing us from having the information they want"). But that, plus protonmail being kind of a shitshow if you want to keep offline copies of your emails, is motivation to shop around.
  
  I wouldn't exactly call Tim Berners-Lee a "libertarian tech bro".
  
  "libertarian"
- Just FYI, the majority of Proton AG (which includes all Proton services) is owned by a non-profit body called the "Proton Foundation". This are headed by a board of 5 members, including Andy (CEO) and Tim Berners-Lee (the literal father of the internet as we know it).
  Proton is fine.
  
  routing traffic through Israel is not fine.
- Proton recently closed their masterdon account because of the mutual hostility
  
  *Mastodon
- Andy yen praising trump is one thing and I kind of don’t care about that so much. What I do care about is how proton practices predatory sales to cash in on FOMO. Or if you subscribe for one month it’s an auto renewing subscription. Or that the best rates are if you sign up for a year. It’s weird for a not-for-profit structure to do billing like this
  Mullvad doesn’t play games. A flat price and you get what you pay for.
  
  Andy Yen may have praised one situation, but doesn't seem to support Trump overall. https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e
AirVPN, IVPN, Mullvad, Windscribe
- The requirement for port forwarding narrows that down to AirVPN and Windscribe, which is an unfortunately small set of choices.
- AirVPN
  I have been a happy customer with them. Not a fan of their GUI Client, but you're not required to use it. Very easy to share access with friends too whenever they need it.
Mullvad, IVPN and ~~Nym~~ (not tested with audits yet, do not trust as much as the other two).
For clearnet browsing. PIA, AirVPN and Windscribe for torrenting. Windscribe and PIA are probably good for either but this is my classification, take it as you will
- I agree on this with the exception of PIA.
  Marketing is BS like most VPN
  Company is based in the USA
  They do analytics
  You cannot register "anonymously"
  It's not the worst VPN you could choose but there is better options.
  
  Wait don't they take crypto? Just fake your details
- PIA user here. It gets the job done
- I would not put Nym in the same category as Mullvad and IVPN. It is a new and immature product. I have not heard that they have passed any sort of audit, their claims about non-log policy have not been tested yet.
  Their infrastructure is decentralized only in name. In fact, they have the same problem as session, the cost of maintaining a server discourages decentralization so much that no one does that. As a result it nullifies any advantages their mixnet might offer, as chances are all your hops are between the servers of the same owner.
  
  Yes, Nym is new. Their mixnet has a lot of similarities with TOR.
  What do you mean by "cost of maintaining a server"? I don't think resource requirements are any different from TOR relays or exits.
  It is possible in theory but I assumed they weren't lying when they said over 800 nodes exist in their network.
  Yeah maybe I should've put Nym as "of interest" rather than giving off the impression that it's at the same level of reputation as Mullvad and IVPN
Still using Private Internet Access (PIA).
Honestly, dunno why they've fallen out of fashion due to the FUD about being owned by an unsavoury parent company, but the most important matter to me is if they keep logs, which they don't. One of the few VPN companies tested on this, in court, and in a recent audit. Plus still extremely cheap (if you go for 3yr+3mo).
Port forwarding works with with this docker NAS stack. Doesn't use gluetun, but there's a specialised docker-wireguard-pia container as part of the stack, with a script that handles port changes. Been flawless.
- Can you link to their court hearing, specifically where they refused to provide logs?
  Also, do they accept crypto?
  
  https://torrentfreak.com/private-internet-access-no-logging-claims-proven-true-again-in-court-180606/
  Yes to crypto, via Bitpay.
- I'm using gluetun with PIA and it works like a charm. Gluetun even has a template on their GitHub.
Not a VPN, but you may also want to look into I2P.
https://i2pd.website/
https://proprivacy.com/privacy-service/guides/i2p-guide
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FNp0TRDG0BQ
Basically, a p2p protocol for the entire internet.
Its considerably more complicated to set up than most modern VPNs, where nowaday's its usually as simple as install an app with a GUI, verify some settings and you're good to go, and i2p is also quite slow...
... but its totally free, and you can torrent over it, and as far as I know, if you've set it up properly, it is basically undetectable by ISPs, due to how it uses 'garlic' routing: basically, a whole bunch of users net requests are encrypted, anonymized, and then smashed into a big packet... so an ISP would have to untangle all of that for every packet, and afaik, none of them have figured out how.
I2P would obviously be horrible for watching streaming content though, snail speed.
- Plus it's run by Swiss Nazis.
  
  Swiss nazis?
Just throwing in another voice for PIA. Their corporate owners may be questionable, but I've been with them since before they sold out and have never heard a peep from my ISP for seeding terabytes of torrents. They don't keep logs, and they are audited to prove it regularly.
EDIT: They also have port forwarding, but not for every exit server.
- PIA is such a weird one. They're massive and know what they're doing but ownership and jurisdiction have always been questionable. I have long suspected they cooperate with GHCQ but only on legitimate national security cases not piracy.
  
  Does anyone have a good reason to go with PIA when there are others that offer a comparable service without these problems?
I love Mullvad, but if you need P2P its not the best option. If you just need a VPN, though, its amazing. Today I just switched to AirVPN and am running it on Arch through Eddie. Have my qbittorrent set up to only allow connections through Eddie and just forwarded my first port. I'm very happy with it.
I think the only downside is that I could get Mullvad for 5eur a month on a month by month basis. AirVPN is 7eur or 15eur for three months, so I have to lock into the three months to get the same price.
- Worth noting that Italy (location of airvpn) hates vpns and is constantly fucking around with them, to the point air doesn't even actually operate in Italy to preserve users privacy. Right now, theres no immediate risk, but it' is worth keeping an eye on the political situation in Italy regarding VPN laws
  
  I did read this somewhere before. I just have to take my chances at the moment. My other option was Windscribe, but unless you're paying for a year+ their prices are astronomical.
- Other providers who know what they're doing include cryptostorm.is, PIA, and ipredator.se
  Or make your own with a VPS with openvpn or witeguard
I'd say the proven good ones are Proton, Mullvad, and IVPN.
Windscribe has really improved a lot and is worth considering. Still probably worth waiting for Freshscribe infrastructure before considering over the 3 I mentioned above.
Nym and Obscura are up and comers worth looking at. Nym is a decentralized VPN and Obscura has partnered with Mullvad to offer a true double hop (ie one in where both hops are not owned by the same entity).
- NYM is a next-generation mixnet with a VPN product built on top of it. Obscura is a VPN that provide a first hop then send traffic to a Mullvad hop.
If you want port forwarding the choice is between AirVPN, ProtonVPN and Njalla. Iirc PIA also supports port forwarding, but their ownerships reputation is no good.
Mullvad, IVPN and many other services don't support port forwarding.
- Why do we care about their ownership if it's proven that they don't log and let you forward ports?
  
  Given there're alternatives I'd rather choose an independent service instead.
  But that's a personal decision which is why I mentioned PIA with the disclaimer, instead of ignoring them.
- Do you have any experience with Njalla? This would be my first time purchasing a VPN and I couldn't imagine a better provider on paper.
  I just don't know anything practical about it besides it's founded by a member of the swedish pirate party.
  
  I've never used them but I heard about them in the context of private DNS and VPS hosting. E.g. they act as a middleman to shield domain the shield the client from authorities (at least to some extent — they still have to follow the laws).
  Given their focus on privacy I'd trust them for torrenting at least as much as the other options. As a first VPN I'd say it's great because of their flat 5€/m price. A few years ago I used Mullvad for that purpose — until they removed port forwarding.
Why is NordVPN not mentioned ? I’m using it and happy so far. Should I switch to something else ?
- Too much advertising, it just feels off.
- I think a safe assumption is that anyone that runs over half of their budget in ads can't be trusted.
  
  I have no opinion of them, but I'm curious why advertising would imply untrustworthiness. Are you saying they're too eager or something? Spending money on ads is also consistent with a company that's making money by charging for a service — I'd be more suspicious of free VPNs.
- if you care about privacy , yes, you should
  
  Why ? Asking seriously because they got multiple certifications about their no-logs policy done by independent third parties.
- No Port forwarding
  
  I just want to mention that the forwarded port provided by the VPN must match the one configured in the torrent client. Buying a VPN which offers port forwarding is not enough.
Great for use on my phone when I want to use public/airport wifi
If you just want the tunnel encryption you can try hosting a VPN on your own home network. It's what I do since I don't need to spoof my location.
You are asking in the piracy community so I'm assuming you're also using it to torrent (which a home VPN won't help with) but you didn't specifiy so I'm not sure
I use both Mullvad and Astrill in China. A lot of VPNs don’t work here so it’s a feather in the cap for these that do.
- Did you tried NymVPN ? I am curious if you can enter their mixnet from within China as they strongly advertise their product as censorship-resistant tech for freedom and activists.
  
  Never heard of it, I’ll try it and let you know. (I’m always on the hunt for good options as fallbacks and for research for clients)
  
  I’ve tried both their settings and can’t get it to connect, I’ll try from desktop tomorrow.
What’s wrong with NordVPN?
- Mostly misleading ads
I have been happy with PrivateVPN, but I can't get a read on them.
They say no-log, but many VPNs probably lie about that. Small, based in Sweden.
I just saw on the kumo app literally just now that they got bought out by Miss Group and are no longer independent like when I started with them in 2019.
They have no strikes against them besides the not-disclosed buyout. No idea if I should switch, but they have good prices and port forwarding.
- not-disclosed buyout
  That alone would make me jump ship. VPNs need to be transparent about this kind of shit to their paying users.
  Edit: FYI, this is in the works https://webhosting.today/2025/01/15/miss-group-prepares-for-sale-what-lies-ahead-for-the-nordic-hosting-giant/
I'll add another recommendation for Windscribe. I've had a lifetime subscription since 2017 and have never had issues. I use it for normal internet usage pretty much daily and the occasional torrenting.
I'm with Azire, they have port forwarding and 10 gig servers. Note they were bought recently by malwarebytes, so it is possible things will change in the future. For the time being, things have been great. I moved from OVPN after myself and others started experiencing persistant failures.
I've been meaning to try out CryptoStorm. If anyone has experience with them please share.
I've used AirVPN for this exact setup and it works great. The port forwarding is static and doesn't change once setup. I switched to proton because it was convenient, I was already paying for ProtonMail et all, so I dropped the extra VPN subscription when it renewed.
I really like express VPN, and the app is open source.
I thought about publishing a Terraform module one time that spins up a cheap VPS, installs OpenVPN and then gives you a config with a certificate. You could run it for just a few hours at a time, and use destroy when you're done. But then I got really bored because I have ADHD.

111 comments