4 ms·

Any Mullvad Alternative?

10 points by Pooge 3y ago

Been a while since Mullvad removed port forwarding. I'm looking for a VPN that has that too, but also no-log policy and no email address storage.

mikece 3y ago
Why is email address storage a no-go when one-account-use email addresses or aliases are so easy to create (and provided by so many services)?
- KomoD 3y ago
  Because it's not as private and you have to place trust in yet another service? With Mullvad you don't need an email or username, just an account number like 4818818509160540
jrflowers 3y ago
I’ve never used them but I’ve heard that ovpn offers port forwarding. As for the email problem I’d just use emailondeck or one of the myriad other temporary email providers for registration.
anderspitman 3y ago
Any sufficiently popular/reputable VPN provider will eventually remove port forwarding functionality. It's almost exclusively used for scams and torrenting and creates a fat target for litigation.
- flangola7 3y ago
  What's the point anyway? Just use a tunnel with DyDNS
sysadm1n 3y ago
ELI5 to me: what is 'port forwarding' with regards to VPNs (from someone who uses a VPN and might be missing out on the party?) No technical answer please, just spell it out like I'm five.
- supertrope 3y ago
  Port forwarding allows you to host content with the VPN provider’s IP address showing. Some people were hosting very illegal content, serving malware, or running scams. This resulted in hosting providers cancelling Mullvad’s accounts, police inquiries, or those IP addresses being banned for all their customers. https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/5/29/removing-the-support-for-forwarded-ports/ https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/5/29/removing-the-support-f... Like Tor when you provide a front for other people to hide, you get associated with their dirty laundry.
- eva_cananim 3y ago
  The biggest real reason the people use VPN services is probably because they are downloading lots of copyright-infringing torrents. With port forwarding, reprehensible people downloading rubbish hollywood movies using bittorrent can download from lots more peers. For ipv4, a home internet box normally gets one internet ip address. The traffic to and from the three smartphones, two computers and two smart TVs uses one ip address on the internet side. The process of combining the traffic is called NAT. Commercial public VPNs mostly have lots of customers using each VPN server. There may be a thousand customers behind the one ip address of a particular vpn server. It's a big NAT. (I know of only one commercial VPN service that gives out real ip addresses.) A computer behind NAT can connect out to a port on a remote machine, it can connect out to the https port on facebook.com or whatever. Bittorrent clients both connect out to a remote port and listen for incoming connections. Two people who are both behind NATs without port forwarding can't connect to each other. Their bittorrent clients can't reach each other. In the year 2001 there were lots of people on dialup or with a single PC on a cable modem. They had real ip addresses, not 192.168.0.x They could connect to each other. In 2001 about two thirds of machines swapping mp3 files using emule, winmx, bittorrent etc had reachable listening ports. These days, on public torrents, it's in the ball park of 1 in 6 peers are connectable. 1 in 10 in Asia where people are commonly behind CGNAT, both on home and cellphone network ISPS. Around 1 in 2 on private trackers. A majority of the bittorrent clients can't connect to each other, it mostly keeps working because a minority of otakus upload tens of terabytes, but there are lots of torrents with one or two seeds where the unconnectable torrent clients get nothing.
switch007 3y ago
I kept Mullvad and got a seedbox instead (with the benefit that torrents download much much quicker, and now I've got a hosted personal Plex too, for just under 15 EUR a month). I've recently tried other VPN providers (their names escape me, but they rated highly just behind Mullvad) and their apps were worse and their IPs blocked by many more services. I still use Mullvad despite their frequent outages and slower speeds, but I don't like their growth in to other areas - they need to focus on speed and preventing DDoS attacks/outages.

10 points by Pooge 3y ago

Been a while since Mullvad removed port forwarding. I'm looking for a VPN that has that too, but also no-log policy and no email address storage.

mikece 3y ago

Why is email address storage a no-go when one-account-use email addresses or aliases are so easy to create (and provided by so many services)?

KomoD 3y ago
Because it's not as private and you have to place trust in yet another service? With Mullvad you don't need an email or username, just an account number like 4818818509160540

jrflowers 3y ago

I’ve never used them but I’ve heard that ovpn offers port forwarding. As for the email problem I’d just use emailondeck or one of the myriad other temporary email providers for registration.

anderspitman 3y ago

Any sufficiently popular/reputable VPN provider will eventually remove port forwarding functionality. It's almost exclusively used for scams and torrenting and creates a fat target for litigation.

flangola7 3y ago
What's the point anyway? Just use a tunnel with DyDNS

sysadm1n 3y ago

ELI5 to me: what is 'port forwarding' with regards to VPNs (from someone who uses a VPN and might be missing out on the party?) No technical answer please, just spell it out like I'm five.

supertrope 3y ago
Port forwarding allows you to host content with the VPN provider’s IP address showing. Some people were hosting very illegal content, serving malware, or running scams. This resulted in hosting providers cancelling Mullvad’s accounts, police inquiries, or those IP addresses being banned for all their customers. https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/5/29/removing-the-support-for-forwarded-ports/ https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/5/29/removing-the-support-f... Like Tor when you provide a front for other people to hide, you get associated with their dirty laundry.
eva_cananim 3y ago
The biggest real reason the people use VPN services is probably because they are downloading lots of copyright-infringing torrents. With port forwarding, reprehensible people downloading rubbish hollywood movies using bittorrent can download from lots more peers. For ipv4, a home internet box normally gets one internet ip address. The traffic to and from the three smartphones, two computers and two smart TVs uses one ip address on the internet side. The process of combining the traffic is called NAT. Commercial public VPNs mostly have lots of customers using each VPN server. There may be a thousand customers behind the one ip address of a particular vpn server. It's a big NAT. (I know of only one commercial VPN service that gives out real ip addresses.) A computer behind NAT can connect out to a port on a remote machine, it can connect out to the https port on facebook.com or whatever. Bittorrent clients both connect out to a remote port and listen for incoming connections. Two people who are both behind NATs without port forwarding can't connect to each other. Their bittorrent clients can't reach each other. In the year 2001 there were lots of people on dialup or with a single PC on a cable modem. They had real ip addresses, not 192.168.0.x They could connect to each other. In 2001 about two thirds of machines swapping mp3 files using emule, winmx, bittorrent etc had reachable listening ports. These days, on public torrents, it's in the ball park of 1 in 6 peers are connectable. 1 in 10 in Asia where people are commonly behind CGNAT, both on home and cellphone network ISPS. Around 1 in 2 on private trackers. A majority of the bittorrent clients can't connect to each other, it mostly keeps working because a minority of otakus upload tens of terabytes, but there are lots of torrents with one or two seeds where the unconnectable torrent clients get nothing.

switch007 3y ago

I kept Mullvad and got a seedbox instead (with the benefit that torrents download much much quicker, and now I've got a hosted personal Plex too, for just under 15 EUR a month). I've recently tried other VPN providers (their names escape me, but they rated highly just behind Mullvad) and their apps were worse and their IPs blocked by many more services. I still use Mullvad despite their frequent outages and slower speeds, but I don't like their growth in to other areas - they need to focus on speed and preventing DDoS attacks/outages.