this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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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.
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.
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.