Topic: List of VPN Service Providers - 2023 - page 4. (Read 3004 times)

Thanks for regularly updating this thread with some news. And I really, really like the style of your posts.

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For those who are lost in vain and don't understand what port forwarding is, calm down, nothing changes for you if you don't set up Plex Media Server, haven't been seeding torrents or if you don't set up virtual private network at your home to access it from a remote location.
Port forwarding bypasses the NAT firewall and allows external sources to access your device easily. It improves your internet speed and increases download time but it comes with the cost and the price is security because open ports, if not constantly occupied, make it easier for hackers to successfully attack you.

Most of the time, port forwarding is very useful in P2P file sharing. To directly answer your question, when you seed torrents, people who want to download from you have to access your torrent files through an open port on your network. As Mullvad and IVPN say, they removed port forwarding because some users were using it for hosting and sharing of illegal materials.
This is just an excuse to remove port forwarding features, an excuse similar to why you are asked to upload KYC documents on centralized exchanges.

If you are more interested in Port Forwarding, you can check some good articles:
Port forwarding: What it is and how to set it up - This article is focused on why you shouldn't use port forwarding.
VPN Port Forwarding - Neutral article.
What is NAT Firewall.
Supercharge peer-to-peer speeds with port forwarding.

Heads up - As it was expected, IVPN has now followed the lead and will be gradually removing the port forwarding feature from their Pro plan[1]:
This decision was also motivated by the fact that they got a big influx of users after Mullvad decision and some of those users that were abusing the service in Mullvad probably went on to IVPN to continue their behaviour. They are also issuing a refund on a pro rata basis if this change deeply affects their clients usage of the service[2].

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[1]https://www.ivpn.net/blog/gradual-removal-of-port-forwarding
[2]https://safereddit.com/r/IVPN/comments/13uun18/comment/jm6fo23/

You'll get one eventually: https://support.startpage.com/hc/en-us/articles/4521350590996-Why-am-I-receiving-a-CAPTCHA-verification-page-

Occasionally solving the captcha doesn't work for me, but switching to a new Tor circuit does.

From what I've seen, privacy laws are okay there, but I've never been there and I have no idea if they're actually enforcing it.
Note that I have no reason not to trust Startpage, and I'll only use Startpage.com through Tor without sharing any personal information. It's just great that it works without captcha. Cloudflare alone makes more and more websites completely impossible to use through Tor nowadays.

I won't go that far.

Also check out their anonymous view feature.

Their privacy policy says everything you would want it to say though. No logging of IPs, no logging of search queries.

Still, if you still don't like using a third party, then set up your own instance of SearXNG.

They are offering refunds: https://www.reddit.com/r/mullvadvpn/comments/13utbmd/removing_the_support_for_forwarded_ports_blog/jm6j7aa/

We don't have a totally different use case, I rarely use VPN for streaming but for music, it's true. Servers that are located near you, usually perform well on every VPN provider but the servers that are located far, for example, the USA servers, were slow on Mullvad but on iVPN, I get a very good performance.
If Mullvad performs well for you, then great, it's one of the greatest VPN out there.

No, VPNs help you to watch region-locked Netflix & Prime Video titles and even more. Here you can see this page of ExpressVPN: https://www.expressvpn.com/vpn-service
To be honest, the VPNs included in Non-Privacy Focused Mainstream VPNs are popular because of streaming, I doubt anyone uses them for privacy. Also, sometimes people use it for gaming too.

Imagine, I live in Bulgaria, watch a lot of animes and movies but some of them, like OG naruto and some netflix/prime/hulu tv shows aren't available in my country. It's better to buy a VPN than to buy or rent titles. Piracy is always possible but I think that's very disrespectful.

Would you trust it if there was written Sweden instead of Netherlands?

Not bad, it works instantly without annoying captcha on Tor browser.

The About Us isn't very convincing though:
Privacy laws in the Netherlands look good on paper, but many companies and government branches violate privacy laws.

Then you can use Startpage or SearXNG for free to return Google's results to you privately.

I don't know why people tend to think that VPNs are really good for streaming purposes. Putting the speed aside, in my experience (of other VPNs), trying 5-10 different locations never really helped me gain access to region-locked Netflix titles (it was different back in the day). So I think the streaming services are catching up with this trend and "neutering" the VPN's IP address.

If you want to watch something region-restricted in your country, your options are: 1 - buy it, 2 - rent it for a few days, 3 - piracy.


OpenVPN is a PITA to set up, instructions are too long and complicated. Shadowsocks servers are easier to set up.

I guess we have a totally different use case. I don't use streaming, and I wouldn't care about a few hours earlier access. I have no idea how fast internet to and from Australia is, it's a remote country and submarine cables are expensive. I usually use servers a bit closer to my location for best results.

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If you want a static IP in a certain location, a cheap VPS could work very well. Even better if it uses NAT and shares it's IPv4 with many other users. I've seen bundles for multiple cheap servers in different locations for this purpose.
Any adversary will only see your server's IP, and without access to the webhost, won't know your real location. But long-term, if an adversary gains access, you're no longer anonymous. At least with random IPs from a standard VPN provider all traces are (or at least "should be") gone the moment you disconnect.

First they created Mullvad browser that is based on Tor browser, and now they introduced new search engine.
I think this is a good idea but it's far from being used as a standard search engine, it only gives text result without images, news and other stuff, and that is very limited.
One more thing I don't like is that Leta search  is just using the same g00gle Search API.  

Talking about centralization and bias censored results in search engines:


https://www.searchenginemap.com/

What you're saying is basically setting up a personal VPN with a dedicated IP, or am I wrong? And if that's the case, wouldn't it kinda defeat the purpose of having a VPN since we would be getting a dedicated IP that could be linked to ourselves considering the fact that no more users would be using that same IP? Or were you just referring to the use case of circumventing the limitations imposed by Mullvad regarding port forwarding?

Absolutely every VPN provider that's listed in this thread, accepts Bitcoin or altcoin payments. Btw it's still not a bad idea. To be honest, as you can see, I rarely have left any space on table for anything but I think I'll figure it out if people wish so.

Of course that's normal for a business but I didn't directly meant that it's a problem, you know. I hope you understand in what way I said that (Like, I've got the protein powder but the problem is that I don't have my shaker with me - actually, there is no real problem but the situation is uncomfortable).

Yes, if you want anything beyond web browsing (for example, streaming), Mullvad VPN isn't that good. Overall, I get the best speed from iVPN.
Sometimes countries like Australia and Japan give you early access to the content because of their time zone. Btw I just saw that they have New Zealand but these countries would be a good addition too, why not? Also, more servers mean better connection for everyone. If person lives in Indonesia, he will benefit from Australian or Indonesian server.

That's like saying it's a problem Mullvad's VPN is only available for subscribers. That's normal for businesses.

Those tech savy people can setup a cheap VPS with OpenVPN and port forwarding.

While it's a bit of old news, I think it's still important to post this information here - As of 2023-07-01, Mullvad has removed the support for forwarded ports[1]. While this is not a deal breaker for some (or most of their clients) I think it's important to highlight considering that it has some uses for people that are a bit more tech savy.

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Both Mullvad[2] and IVPN[3] (which I can vouch for since I've used them both) support payments by means of cryptocurrency. Mullvad offers 10% discount when paying with cryptocurrencies as well. You can also browse kycnot.me[4] to see which more VPN services support that kind of payment.

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[1]https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/5/29/removing-the-support-for-forwarded-ports/
[2]https://mullvad.net/en/pricing
[3]https://www.ivpn.net/pricing/
[4]https://kycnot.me/services

Looking for VPN recently and found windscribe from this list, not as popular as surfshark or nord but its reliable. However tho, many people has mentioned about this thread correlation with Bitcoin and Crypto since its a bitcoin forum, so my advice, and it will be much appreciated if you add some details for the payment method, maybe just a yes/now which vpn accept crypto and which aren't. Anyway thank you for the list.

And there is a news out there from Mullvad: Introducing Mullvad Leta: a search engine used in the Mullvad Browser, but the problem is that it's only available for Mullvad users and isn't public.

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To be honest, I would prefer if Mullvad spent more money into increasing server speeds, adding more locations and improving overall performance instead of paying this money to Google for using their search engine because we have duckduckgo too and other alternatives. They are just reinventing the wheel by offering Mullvad web browser and Leta search engine and I see no point into it.

I'd rather discourage them, especially after you've mentioned many times that those VPN companies with trials available are being owned by such a shady company. I think that reason alone is enough to stay away from them regardless of your activity on the network when you're connected to their service. I'd rather be paranoid if the company I'm dealing with is proven to never cares about my privacy. Not to mention most paid VPNs offer a money-back guarantee for at least a month.

That's why you see only limited number of VPNs in this thread and those VPNs that offer trials have always been under Non-Privacy Focused Mainstream VPNs hood.
By the way, trials are a good way to measure VPNs speed and latency on different server locations and if one uses this just for testing, I don't think his privacy is compromised.
Some may want VPN for streaming, some may want it for gambling, that's why I included them, ExpressVPN, Cyberghost and some others are very popular for that purpose.

90% of VPNs are sketchy and don't care about your privacy whether you pay them in crypto or not. Most trials are not worth the privacy compromise, and should not even be called Virtual Private Networks.

Besides, what is the point of having a third party deanonymize you with Chainalysis if they can just collect your logs instead?

[At the risk of sounding like a shill for Proton, at least they don't engage in that crappy behavior. Neither does Mullvad, AFAIK.]