I switched to windscribe last month because the proton CEO starting spewing politcal BS, and I wanted port forwarding that wasn't locked behind a shitty GUI.

As far as I was concerned setup was super easy, the VPN speeds were great, and port forwarding worked really nicely. The whole price for a fixed server and port forward, + unlimited data was a bit much (at $95/year) but for the ease of use and speeds I was getting, I was happy to stick with them.

My setup is a always-on server with a 1gbps connection, where yes, I fucking seed my shit, all of it. I have about 30TB of linux ISOs and counting, and it's rare that my combined upload speed is less than 1MBps, ever.

Which lead me to getting banned from windscribe with no notice or warning in the middle of last week. This lead to me having to spend tracker points to avoid HnR, and i'm also unable to grab any new ISOs until I find a new VPN provider that won't ban me for actually using the service full time.

I did shoot them an email (after talking' with their AI bot first), and they were actually helpful enough. The offered to restore support, so long as I promised to not torrent with them again (which, I honestly did promise not to. I'm not sticking with a VPN service that can't handle me actually using it for what it's advertised for) and they did unban the account. Whole email chain took about three days to get resolved.

My sticking point is that they still have instructions on setting up torrents on their own website, and that they specifically allow for unlimited data (with the plan i paid for) so long as it's just one user. I did not break those rules. After clarifying that in the support email, they still said that I was using too much data (despite the unlimited data advertisement) and that torrenting was not allowed on their service.

TL:DR: Windscribe bans you if you use a lot of data, and support says torrents aren't allowed, despite their website advertising such. Proof in the attached images.

If y'all have any other suggestions for a VPN that allow port forwarding i'd really appreciate it.

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[–] SilentObserver@lemm.ee 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Odd. I’ve been torrenting with them for years at this rate. Even have my media server up 24/7 with qBittorrent running. I guess I’ll have to find an alternative in case this winds up happening to me.

[–] AZERTY@feddit.nl 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Same I've been using them for years without issue. This guy must have been using MASSIVE amounts of data.

[–] DaGeek247@fedia.io 6 points 1 week ago

About 8TiB upload and 2TiB download over the course of this whole mess. I don't have exact numbers because WRT stopped counting for some reason, but I can infer based on January numbers.

[–] kylian0087@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 week ago

Look in to I2P

[–] kbal@fedia.io 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Them calling it "unlimited" when there's a limit is wrong, but so is using all of the available upload bandwidth 100% of the time on a cheap home VPN service when you consider the current market prices for data transfer. Mine's limited to 2Mbps. Seems fair for $7/month or whatever it is.

Edit: Oh right it was 2Mbps. I spent 20 minutes surveying datacentre prices around the world to come up with that number, but bandwidth prices vary widely and might've changed by now.

[–] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Them calling it “unlimited” when there’s a limit is wrong, but so is using all of the available upload bandwidth 100% of the time on a cheap home VPN service when you consider the current market prices for data transfer. Mine’s limited to 2Mbps. Seems fair for $7/month or whatever it is.

they shouldn't make it unlimited them, skill issue on their part.

If you're selling me 1Gb networking speeds, with no bandwidth limit, it's not my fault for using all of it lol. I'm just using what i pay for.

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[–] thirtyfold8625@thebrainbin.org 6 points 1 week ago

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/vpn/

[–] marauding_gibberish142@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 week ago

Thanks for the note OP. Which VPN providers are you looking at for public torrents?

[–] Irelephant@lemm.ee -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Try a debrid provider. Preferably one without ridiculous filtering and an api (rip real-debrid).

[–] StinkySocialist@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I just got real debrid a month or two back for torrentio in streamio... Is it dead?

[–] Irelephant@lemm.ee -2 points 1 week ago

yeah, but there's other debrid providers which work with it.

[+] Xanza@lemm.ee -16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

You're going to be very hard pressed in finding a VPN that supports torrenting. People abuse it. That's why mullvad pulled port forwarding support.

Additionally people misinterpret what they can do even if their VPN does support torrenting. It's still illegal to use their service to torrent anything other than legal torrents...which almost no one does, which is why VPN providers aren't lining up to show their support for the torrent network.

There are no services available to you that allow you indiscriminately to torrent illegal content. It's always illegal and against TOS to torrent someone elses IP.

[–] albert180@piefed.social 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

People abuse it

My Man, unless you buy all the bullshit that YouTubers claim VPNs do, the only reason to get one is to torrent

There are no services available to you that allow you indiscriminately to torrent illegal content. They simply don't exist.

Yes, most VPNs will allow you to do that just fine. And they exist for years.

[+] Xanza@lemm.ee -7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

My Man, unless you buy all the bullshit that YouTubers claim VPNs do, the only reason to get one is to torrent

This is one of the top 10 dumbest statements I've ever seen on the internet and shows a total and complete lack of understanding what a VPN is, and what it does.

Yes, most VPNs will allow you to do that just fine.

There are currently 2-3 countries where torrenting IP isn't illegal. Unless you have a VPN in one of these countries, there are no conditions where its "allowed," because it's entirely illegal. Even if it's not expressly outlined in a services TOS it's still illegal, and therefore not allowed. Even if they expressly permit it, it's still illegal, and therefore not allowed.

I absolutely fucking beg you to use the brain you were given and stop embarrassing your parents who put time and energy into raising you.

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 4 points 1 week ago (3 children)

There are currently 2-3 countries where torrenting IP isn’t illegal.

Why are you moving goalposts? You stated originally:

You’re going to be very hard pressed in finding a VPN that supports torrenting.

MANY support it. Supporting something in of itself doesn't speak to it's legality.

I know they're not popular anymore, but PIA supports it, was taken to court over it, provided nothing (no log service, so couldn't provide anything) and walked away clean. You don't get that if what they were doing was illegal. And if they thought the risk actually mattered, they would have changed their policy to keep their company alive. But they didn't. So they support it (about as much as anyone would care to support it) and have been tested by courts.

The sad part is... if you had read the OP, you could have done 3 seconds of research and found https://windscribe.com/knowledge-base/articles/using-windscribe-with-torrent-clients/... Which is literally the VPN service being discussed EXPLICITLY talking about configuring torrent clients. Wouldn't creating pages to support users who are looking for configuration for this "illegal" thing be direct evidence that you're full of shit?

I absolutely fucking beg you to stop embarrassing the dictionary by learning and using words correctly, and to stick to the topic that you literally brought up.

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[–] albert180@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

This is one of the top 10 dumbest statements I've ever seen on the internet and shows a total and complete lack of understanding what a VPN is, and what it does.

Well then explain me why I would need a VPN in the year 2025 with encrypted connections and HSTS being the norm

There are currently 2-3 countries where torrenting IP isn't illegal. Unless you have a VPN in one of these countries, there are no conditions where its "allowed," because it's entirely illegal. Even if it's not expressly outlined in a services TOS it's still illegal, and therefore not allowed. Even if they expressly permit it, it's still illegal, and therefore not allowed.

It's illegal, but in practice not enforceable if you hide between a VPN in another jurisdiction.
So in practice you can do it and nobody gives a shit.

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[–] CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee 8 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Mullvad didn't remove port forwarding because people were torrenting too much they removed it because people were using it for real criminal activity like hacking and CP and they were getting heat for it.

I have no idea why you're mentioning legal versus illegal torrenting as laws differ everywhere, they're not banning OP for illegal activity, they're not scanning all your files to determine whether it's legal IP or not, and they're banning him for using too much bandwidth.

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