Is ProtonVPN worth it?
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.
ProtonVPN is a no log VPN according to their privacy policy: https://protonvpn.com/privacy-policy
They have servers specifically for port forwarding and P2P traffic. I use them and I haven’t gotten a DMCA request yet so 🤷🏻♂️
They have servers specifically for port forwarding and P2P traffic
Sadly with Mullvad closing port forwarding, they are one of the only ones you can torrent with. In all honesty, if it’s torrenting setting up a seedbox is really the way to go.
Air vpn too. I had a bit of back and forth swapping between proton and air vpn after Mullvad closing port forwarding. Protons spilt tunnelling is far better than air vpn, but their speeds were appalling so eventually I stuck with air vpn with a script to divert only the torrent traffic through the vpn. Man do I miss Mullvad!
I’ve been enjoying the fact that airvpn let’s you open 5 ports, haven’t had any issues with them after my first few months.
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I’m not the smartest bowl in the… bowl drawer, but wouldn’t removing port forwarding just affect speed? Or would it stop torentting with Mullvad entirely? I just topped my account off lol
PIA has port forwarding and have proven not to log user data too.
Yeah, but PIA also has the issue of being owned by a company known for hiding malware in their programs. Seriously, go google Kape (the parent company for PIA) and you may reconsider using it. Their CEO prior to the buyout had also formerly been convicted for some sort of financial crimes. Off the top of my head, I think it may have been some sort of fraud or embezzlement?
I know this was all a big deal when PIA was taken over, and everybody was afraid PIA would be ruined. But none of that happened. Maybe it’s just a matter of time, who knows.
I think the point they were making was that a shitty person, as evidenced by his list of crimes, will run a company, shittily. The point of a VPN is anonymity. What good is that promise coming from a shitty, shady person?
I know, and I fully understand if you stay far away from PIA for those reasons. But like I said, PIA has proven (in court) that they actually provide anonymity.
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.
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.
Yeah, when I read who was buying PIA back then and did a little research I just said “nope.”
Thanks for all the useful informations. In my current setup I use a Proton vpn tunnel on a mikrotik router to route all the traffic from my torrenting machines through it, the only problem is that the router doesn’t support NAT-PMP which is used by Proton to open ports on their side of the tunnel. Is this a problem? If I understand correctly PF does not influence my ability to download but only my uploads (without PF my files can’t be accessed via TCP I guess). I don’t think I need PF because I already had to limit my uploads because of my shitty internet connection, in good days I have 2Mbps upload, this limited bandwidth was always saturated by qbittorrent. I know that it’s not fair p2p but otherwise I couldn’t even use my internet.
I’m asking for confirmation here, when I’ll move to a place with fiber I’ll change my setup for sure! Or maybe I’ll go through some load balancing shenanigans on my network and re-enable uploads in some way…
I don’t know enough about Proton or NAT-PMP router support to comment. Hopefully someone else can. What I can say is that, based on my knowledge, PF does not directly influence your ability to download, but like I said, it indirectly can influence your ability to download if the original uploader/seeder is gone and no one else in the swarm has PF or they limit their uploads (like you do, which is understandable). I don’t have PF with Mullvad & I still obtain new or recent releases without a problem. What’s “recent” really isn’t definable, it more depends on the file popularity and how many seeders are still supporting the file that I can connect to.
Example: within a month or so after Mullvad dropped PF I was trying to DL a very popular show (over 8.0 on IMDB & over 80% on TMDB) that had been out less than a year. I tried all variations of 1080p, 720p, x264 & x265. I couldn’t complete the entire season from any one source. I was using a few different websites to find access to the files, in addition to using the built-in qBit search function (plugins, including having the Jacket plugin setup), and automatically adding trackers to each torrent that I had copied from “ngosang” and “newtrackon” into the qBit “BitTorrent” section of “options.” I never ran into this big of a problem before on something that was still fairly new. I knew I had to choose AirVPN, ProtonVPN, switch to private trackers, or try Usenet. I wasn’t interested in private trackers (just seemed like work, to get in with good private tracker/s, having to maintain a good upload ratio, even when others may not want the files I have, and I’m an adult now, with some disposable income, so I’d rather just pay a little, get what I want, and not worry about playing nice with others, although I recognize the importance of it and always supported it in the past). Within an hour of getting Usenet, I had all my files, in the format I wanted.
With Usenet a VPN is not needed, because SABnzbd (kind of like qBit, it DLs the files) has an SSL connection enabled (Secure Sockets Layer, encryption-based internet security protocol). Then you need an indexer (kind of like a phone book or a geo-locator, sort of telling you where the files are located, but the indexer does not provide access to the files themselves) and a provider (a service that actually provides access to that file). You can even automate everything by installing the “arrs” (Prowlarr, Radarr, Sonarr, Lidarr, etc. Do a search for “servarr” and you’ll see everything available there.) Link: https://wiki.servarr.com/
There are many indexers, some better than others. Having just one isn’t good enough (because their coverage is all a little different than others in regards to what they track). Some you can have limited access to for free. I have access to DrunkenSlug (DS), NZBGeek (Geek), NZBFinder (Finder), NZBPlanet (Planet), NZB.Su (Su), and NinjaCentral (Ninja). Some of these I pay for, around $5 - $10 per year, and others I just use for free. If I had a more limited budget, I’d probably just pay for DS & Geek, or use them & others for free if you don’t search and DL much.
There are also many providers, on the same or different “backbones,” & some are much better than others. If you want some older files, along with new releases, you need someone with a longer “retention” policy. I went with Eweka, a very popular provider. They have been fantastic for me. An annual unlimited download account cost me $54.35 (with a foreign transaction fee), or $4.53/month. If you only need new releases, then a provider with a limited retention would be fine. I also see many people use a combination deal with Frugal Usenet (unlimited annual access, but limited retention) and it also has a 300 GB “block” with UsenetFarm (higher or longer retention period), from a company called “Blocknews” for $40/Year. Blocks are specific sizes of data access (300GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, etc.) that can be purchased, and generally do not expire. The idea is, most of your recent files come from Frugal, and any older files not retained there should be available on UsenetFarm. I would not buy blocks from other backbones unless you absolutely can not obtain a file from your current provider, and then you want to make sure the block is coming from a different backbone. In total, the annual cost of utilizing Usenet is comparable to many VPNs. However, I continue to use Mullvad (so far) simply for the privacy it provides me, and with a voucher I bought off Amazon, the price is discounted. I got a 6-month voucher for $23.80 almost a year ago on a lightening deal, or $3.97/mo.
Thank you for the time and effort in the reply. The information you gave are very useful.
Very informative. Thanks for taking your time out to wrote all of these! 😄
No problem. If you’re interested in more Usenet information, see my other post above, responding to Mambabasa about a “how to get started on Usenet” guide.
PF influences reverse connections to you when downloading as well. People can connect to you and upload to you. If the torrent is really badly seeded you might not be able to download it.
Thank you for the clarification! I’ll move to a different solution for my setup then.
Is there a guide on how to get started on Usenet
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/
Thanks!
This was a great write-up, thankyou for the effort!!
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Proton is very well known to be the best vpn privacy whise. They went to swiss federal court against the state to not keep network logs for their vpn, i‘d say it‘s very trustworthy
I’ve been torrenting with Proton VPN for years. No problems. Well, one problem when using Linux because the app didn’t support port forwarding but I think they fixed that. Anyway, no issues on Windows.
@akilou good to know about the Linux, I am a Linux user
This is lemmy. That’s a given at this point lol.
Op is actually on mastadon. Still the fediverse, so the Linux rule still applies imo.
The new app only officially supports limited distributions (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora). The CLI isn’t updated to v4 yet. You can still connect to the VPN by downloading the config files (OpenVPN or Wireguard) and connecting through, e.g., wg-quick https://protonvpn.com/support/linux-vpn-setup/
It’s weird, because despite not having port forwarding on Linux I’ve never had any problems torrenting.
@stifle867 interesting. I would prefer to have port-forwarding to cover my ass, though. I personally use Zorin OS, which is based on Debian, so maybe it might work?
Port forwarding is not a cover your ass privacy feature, it’s a compatibility feature.
I just did a quick search and yes, Zorin OS is based on Ubuntu so it will be able to work with all the regular Ubuntu packages such as those provided by Proton VPN.
Last I checked the Flatpak is an old version of Proton VPN. Look up how to get the beta release for your distro to get the latest features.
And in case anyone wonders, it works fine in BSD as well. I have a jail with rTorrent which is locked to the VPN connection and uses a cronjob to keep port forwarding active 🙂.
Try OpenVPN?
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.
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.
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.
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.
That’s good information. I already had a setup for openvpn, so I just plugged in their ovpn files and kept going.
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.
As far as I know, proton doesn’t allow port forwarding, so makes using it for torrenting suboptimal. If you want to use torrents with a VPN, there’s better options
PF works with proton, I use it. But you have to continuously call it to stay open. (On linux)
Yeah, it’s a bit annoying and really should be built in to the CLI or GUI apps.
It does allow port forwarding. The Windows app supports it. On Linux, you can do it via a one-liner script: https://protonvpn.com/support/port-forwarding-manual-setup/
Interesting - I haven’t had this issue with the gui. Thanks for the heads up!
Just putting out there that AirVPN has been perfect for me for several years now. No issues.
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.
@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.
I am pretty happy with them so far.
If you’re getting protonmail anyway the bundle is worth it. You can use their client software or native wireguard. I personally use AirVPN, run by an activist group. Their website isn’t shiny, but the VPN works great and has port forwarding which is really good for torrent connectivity.
I don’t think with the Swiss privacy laws governing Proton you don’t have to worry about them ratting to Comcast
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.
What do you torrent? I set up real-debrid and usenet and literally do not use any torrent sites anymore whatsoever. Everything I download is downloaded at my max bandwidth. I’d recommend spending the money on that setup instead. VPNs are overpriced for what they offer.
You realize this still exposes the fact you are visiting piracy sites?
ok and?
The whole reason you get a VPN for piracy is to stop you’re ISP from seeing what you are doing. It also allows you to easily unblock indexer websites. What you are suggesting isn’t a replacement for a VPN in anyway and is likeley to lead to you getting caught and potentially banned by you’re ISP.
Your ISP won’t ban you for visiting “piracy sites”. They’ll only care if they get a subpoena, which you’ll only get if you’re distributing copyrighted material.
i.e. seeding
That’s the thing, with usenet and real debrid, you don’t seed. It’s all direct downloads.
Pass.
Yeah I don’t live in America. You can technically be jailed for piracy where I live I believe.
If you were to decide to try Usenet, you install a program called SABnzbd (kind of like qBit, it downloads the files - no uploading, downloading only). It has an SSL connection enabled (Secure Sockets Layer, encryption-based internet security protocol). Even without a VPN, they may be able to see that you’re searching you’re indexers (on a program called Prowlarr - searching for a file to DL), but you’re ISP can’t see what you’re downloading on SABnzbd. I still use Mullvad, so I know they can’t see anything I’m doing in regards to searching or DL.
I don’t generally like being talked down to.
It’s weird you’re recommending advanced tools like Prowlarr to someone without piracy experience. I have used other programs from the Servarr suite like Sonarr and Radarr with BitTorrent and found them to be generally more trouble than they are worth.
I don’t generally like being talked down to.
No idea what you’re talking about. I was genuinely trying to provide advice and assistance.
It’s weird you’re recommending advanced tools like Prowlarr to someone without piracy experience.
How does someone try to teach and guide another person in more “advanced” things, without them taking it as though they’re being talked down to?
You’ve had two people who’ve tried to help you now, because you’re comments are clearly coming from a perspective of a person “without piracy experience” (your words).
You can see my other comments in here. I’m not talking down to anyone. I guess I’ll let you figure out the problem with using BitTorrent or uTorrent on you’re own. GL
You’ve had two people who’ve tried to help you now, because you’re comments are clearly coming from a perspective of a person “without piracy experience” (your words).
My guy I probably have more experience with this than you do. I’ve been doing it for literally years. The only thing I haven’t used is usenet. I might one day but the only advantage I can see is more consistent download speed.
No idea what you’re talking about. I was genuinely trying to provide advice and assistance.
Really? You talk as if I have no understanding of basic computer terminology like SSL. Like I know these things are encrypted. If you didn’t realize this bittorrent protocol can also be encrypted. Dosen’t stop them seeing who you are connecting to. Since piracy websites are banned you would have a hard time even accessing them without a VPN. Even if they can’t see what you’re downloading specifically they can still see you are accessing a piracy website - imagine trying to use that defense in court.
figure out the problem with using BitTorrent or uTorrent on you’re own
I was refering to the proctol. You can just say bittorrent since it’s a protocol. I don’t use either of these clients specifically I mainly use qBittorrent.
What problem are you even referring to?
Wait how do you download stuff without torrenting?
you can use a debrid service such as real debrid to basically have them dl the torrent and then send you a direct dl link (simplfied explanation). I mainly use real debrid through stremio or kodi addons for streaming shows or movies without torrenting
Usenet
@MonkCanatella that is actually a really good point. I did not think of this.
For movies and tv, there’s nothing better than usenet. Eweka or easynews as your provider, with nzb.su, nzbgeek, or drunkenslug as your indexer and you’ll never look back. Mix that with radarr/sonarr and it’s the best way to download media. Any of the indexers will be like 20-40 buck for life, and eweka/easynews are bout $40 for the year. real-debrid comes out to about $30 per year. All those sites you see that have rapidgator links and stuff like that, real-debrid turns that into an instant download. You can even use it with jdownloader which makes some of the downloads with like 50 different rapidgator links really easy to download.
I am fairly sure you still need a VPN when using these services. Is there an advantage to this over using torrents and streming piracy sites?
You don’t need a vpn with these. Evidence gathered by wiretapping isn’t permissible in court. They need you to send them copyrighted material to sue. At least in the us
I don’t live in the US
Ah ok check with a lawyer then
If I could afford one of them then I wouldn’t be doing this
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.
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.
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)
From what I’ve heard ProtonVPN isn’t really recommended. Use Mullvad or use AirVPN if you need port forwarding. (Mullvad removed port forwarding a few months ago).
If you are just using a VPN for pirating then I would just spend that VPN money on a seedbox.
From what I’ve heard ProtonVPN isn’t really recommended.
Why? You can’t attack something like that. At least say what you’ve heard.
I’ve never heard about arguments against ProtonVPN. Could you elaborate?
