Use Mullvad, unless you absolutely require port forwarding.
this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2024
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Privacy
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This is the best answer.
And if you need port forwarding use airvpn. Proton seems more and more sketch every day
Thank you for your opinion
Proton has port forwarding? Source?
Or you already use Proton Mail / Drive etc and want to save a bit of money with Proton Unlimited at 9.99 EUR/USD / mo. That’s why I switched from Mullvad. I do agree that overall though Mullvad is the best in terms of trustworthiness (so far as we know anyway)
Mullvad is currently highly trusted by the community. If you lost your trust in proton I recommend switching back to it.
Mullvad is cheaper, and probably a bit more trusted, but Proton has port forwarding. Currently I use Mullvad. I don't like the Mullvad's 5 device limit on Wireguard clients though. You can only have 5 devices added to the account, no matter if just 1 or all 5 are currently connected. And after using Wireguard once, I don't want to use OpenVPN again where wg can fully replace it.
Both support cash payments, though Proton makes me feel like they expect it for larger sums of cash:
We cannot be responsible for lost shipments, so we strongly recommend sending your payment using a service that provides a tracking number so you can track the shipment. It’s also helpful to notify us that you’re sending us cash in the mail, so we know to expect it.
While Mullvad asks you not to use registered mail nor send larger amounts of cash. I feel like the latter is implied by asking to notify them. I suppose "Hey, I am sending you 10 bucks via mail." is not what's expected here.
What I absolutely like is the fair pricing. It's same price no matter how much time you buy, whether it's 1 month, a year or two. Even their direct competitor IVPN does this crap (and so does Proton). I value that quite a bit.
So currently Mullvad is winning for me.
Oh does the 5 device limit not apply to OpenVPN? Interesting
It technologically can't. With Wireguard, you need to upload each device's public key to Mullvad, thus registering each device separately. With OpenVPN you login with username and password. Or in this case just the username.
Theoretically speaking, you could have the same private key on 2 devices that won't be connected simultaneously though.
Isn't mullvad better and cheaper?
they're both good but I use mullvad only because I use proton for email and I don't want one company to have both my emails and web traffic
IMHO Mullvad
Mullvad is better imo, unless you need port forwarding. I'm currently using Proton since I pay for Unlimited for that encrypted drive space, and using their VPN saves me money since I just think of the payment as just for Proton Drive. This is a change I made just a few days ago though, for about a year I've paid for both Proton Unlimited and Mullvad, and I legitimately prefer Mullvad over Proton, it just made sense for me to switch money wise. Can't really go wrong between the two imo.
Mullvad only!!!
I switched from ProtonVPN Free to Mullvad last month when I needed to torrent something. ProtonVPN Free doesn't allow P2P traffic, and Mullvad is cheaper than ProtonVPN Pro (or whatever it's called these days).
The AI doesn't seem too bad, but I'd prefer it not be there at all. I have no opinions about the crypto, as there is a legitimate use for it, but I have no use for the wallet as I have had a lot of trouble getting ahold of any cryptocurrency.
I'm also happier with the company and the experience. I paid with a card, but I liked that they accept cash and Monero.
On top of that, nobody seems to have anything bad to say about Mullvad. Privacy? They keep no logs and are pretty damn transparent. Limitations? No port forwarding, but I can just use Windscribe if I need that. Clients? They don't exclude Linux or arm64, and BSD users can just use wireguard-go or something.
There's also a story when one time the Polisen came to Mullvad HQ with a search warrant, but had to leave after discovering that there were no logs kept, and therefore nothing they could do.
Furthermore, they've made my favourite web browser (which is essentially Tor Browser without Tor) by collaborating with the Tor Project. It's one of only three browsers which give good results in Cover Your Tracks (although I have not yet tested anything with CreepJS; and I tend to change the settings in everything, so your mileage may vary).
TL;DR: I recommend Mullvad over ProtonVPN, but not because of the AI or crypto.
I also recommend Posteo over ProtonMail, Filen over Proton Drive, Bitwarden over Proton Pass, and I stopped using Proton before we got Proton Wallet.
Is there any reason why Mullvad stopped supporting port forwarding?
Experience wise i’ve had a better time with mullvad at every corner when it comes to vpns than proton.
Protons still a respectable company i’d say but there focus is gonna become spread more thin while mullvads gonna continue providing a stable and simple experience.
Plus mullvads never gonna confuse you when it comes to pricing unlike proton, no extra time spent finding the difference between a monthly and annual subscription.
I suggest RiseupVPN.
Riseup is good, but I try to use other services as it's aimed at activists, journalists, refugees, and other people in need who will need the bandwidth a lot more than I do.
What was the reason for you to switch from Mullvad in the first place?
I'm using a combination of Astrill (paid) and Proton (free, as a backup) since they are the only ones that reliably work in China, but once I'm out of here and my subscriptions expire, I'll be on Mullvad again.
Damn, Astrill is expensive though. Friend in China is currently happy with Mullvad + Shadowsocks. A few hiccups here and there, but it works pretty well and is fast enough for streaming, too.
They also have guides to a few more involved methods in case Shadowsocks is blocked.
Yep, the one issue with shadowsocks is that you can only install it on end devices, not on a router. That's the big benefit of Astrill. But anyway, my days in China are numbered, so I'm soon not going to need that anymore.
To be fair the only reason I switched is because I couldn’t find out how to pay for a year instead of monthly, but I think I’ve figured it out now
You can pay in bulk. It just scales linearly/it's a flat rate, so no kind of discount for buying a year vs buying a month.
I found that Proton always had connectivity issues tbh. Frequently had to disable my vpn just to use the internet which defeated the purpose. Never had this issue with Mullvad; I've found it very reliable. Also Mullvad is absolutely more privacy oriented. They don't require any kind of personal data. Proton will be tied to your Proton account so possibly your email, proton drive, etc.
Mullvad
I used ProtonVPN for years. I use MullvadVPN. Both are totally fine, in my experience. I left ProtonVPN because I couldn't get port forwarding on Linux, and then less than two months after I did that Mullvad removed that feature, so that's how it goes.
Only reason to use proton is because you're already paying for their email/drive/whatever.
mullvad. I've been having issues with proton on windows, but its cheaper for me since I get cloud storage, aliases, and some other stuff with it
I personally use mullvad for all outgoing traffic and then airvpn for any let forwarding I require. Basically airvpn is exclusive to incoming traffic, like my self hosted services or game servers, and then anything I do on the internet routes through mullvad. All setup through opnsense since they both support wireguard.
I always had issues with proton's port forwarding being reliable in the past. That being said, if you need things like video streaming services, mullvad seems to be having a hard time with these recently where as proton worked well for me back when I used it (unsure if that's still true).
I daily drive Proton mostly because of speed for gaming, but I keep a mullvad account handy for special occasions. I have zero interest in the full Proton stack, I don’t want to centralize my data like that. Especially once they joined the AI train, I’m glad I kept my VPN and email separate.
I host my own private git server and use Unix Pass for my password vault, FastMail for email, Syncthing and SMB for file sharing, don’t really use crypto so I couldn’t care less that they added a wallet. The VPN interface on mobile and Windows/Mac is fine. I’d love to see the Linux options improve, but I just use OpenVPN profiles and it works well enough.
Just curious: why do you use a vpn for gaming?
There’s some games that use peer to peer connection that can expose your IP if the person on the other end cares to do the digging. In some competitive games people that are trying and caring way too hard will use this to say DDoS people in order to win games. While I’m probably not good enough, or well known enough for people to be doing this, you’ll hear streamers mention it happening to them every now and then.
Wow that is awful. I hope that never happens to you!
in what games does that happen? wasn't aware...
I think I know two Destiny 2 streamers that have mentioned it. That’s about it because that is the only online “competitive” game I play. To be clear, I daily drive it for all the other protections it provides. Mullvad just struggled with speeds when I gamed, so I couldn’t just leave it on. Proton didn’t have a noticeable impact so I could just leave it running.
Mullvad because, much like going raw, VPN's are used for special occasions.
I pay for proton mail and proton drive and still use Mullvad for my daily driver VPN.
Only time proton VPN is worth using is if you need the port forwarding like for gaming or something.
How does Orbot/Rethink compare?
I'm really happy with Mullvad and their pricing. I can pay for only one month if I need it so I don't have another subscription to pay each month.