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VPN Logging Policies in 2025: Which 'No-Logs' Providers Pass the Test? (redact.dev)

submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by barnaclebill@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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[-] upstroke4448@lemmy.dbzer0.com 95 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

They lost me at calling ExpressVPN the gold standard. Even their audit is bs. KPMG is the same company that provides the "always-on" audit to PureVPN.

Any article that still uses the "eyes" as a factor in their evaluation is a massive red flag. Very public intelligence alliances are the least of your worries.

[-] barnaclebill@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 3 days ago

I had not read about this criticism of KPMG before. For the benefit of other readers, I found this other forum post from March 2025 where commenters question the worthiness of the KPMG audit for PureVPN. For my own part, I'm not sure I understand what an audit that's acceptable to privacy communities would look like. If somebody can elaborate on this, I would appreciate it.

[-] upstroke4448@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Audit providers just like VPN providers come in a wide variety of quality.

Its hard to point out specifics of what makes a good audit as most people don't, and have no need to, understand the technical details of the audit and just go off its summary.

Another difficulty is just like most VPN providers, there just isn't much info provided about Auditors or the auditing process.

A few have well known reputations...

KPMG is a low quality provider. Any auditing company that provides an "always-on" service is not being serious.

Cure53 is a high quality provider.

[-] chaoticnumber@lemmy.dbzer0.com 45 points 3 days ago

The only gold standard here, is this article being the gold standard for hand-wavy "truths".

Such a load of BS. Mullvad is the only one so far that has not squealed.

[-] HappyFrog 40 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

The founder and CEO of redact (the site this is hosted) is Dan Saltman, a man so obsessed with online drama that he would side with Hitler if he went after Hasan.

There are also allegations that Dan has used redact to dox someone, though, I find this less substantiated.

[-] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

CyberGhost is great if you support zionism and trust mossad.

[-] Dsklnsadog@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 3 days ago

ExpressVPN is a Chinese govt aproved company... do all audits you want. You need trust. Audits doesn't matter. They can change everything after. I trust IVPN and Mullvad

[-] 0x0@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago

No IVPN?

[-] black_flag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 3 days ago

Any of them have port forwarding? Thought not...

[-] ReCursing@feddit.uk 10 points 3 days ago

Proton does... but you need to use a shell script to enable it on Linux. It's easy enough and documented on their site, but it's annoying. Mullvad does not, that's why I moved away from them. Can't speak for others

[-] nfreak@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 days ago

This is why I moved from Mullvad to Proton. Mullvad worked great for me, but then I started my own media server, and port forwarding goes a long way for torrenting Linux ISOs. Proton also offers double the active connections as Mullvad, which helps when hooking it up to various Gluetun containers which are mostly routed through different servers for one reason or another. And despite how gimmicky the marketing for it is, the "VPN accelerator" fuckin works.

That being said, Proton sketches me out - their CEO has said some awful bullshit last year, and it just feels like enshittification is around the corner. But their VPN is proven and works great.

I'd love to go back to Mullvad for those reasons, but the feature set Proton offers right now is unmatched imo.

[-] black_flag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 days ago

Proton is too fucking expensive.

[-] ReCursing@feddit.uk 9 points 3 days ago

Same price as Mullvad, about a fiver a month, if you buy a year at a time. Annoying that you have to buy a year upfront but works out to the same price

[-] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Paid for itself for a year in like 2-3 movies!

[-] barnaclebill@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 days ago

Do you know if Proton's port forwarding times out and needs to be reconfigured every so often in the same way the other commenter mentions about Windscribe?

[-] Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 days ago

It's pretty solid, but if you reconnect to a different server then you'll likely have a different port number. There's an add-on script for docker qbittorrent though that auto updates the port number.

[-] ReCursing@feddit.uk 3 points 3 days ago

I have it alias the external port to local port 2000 and point qbittorrent at 2000

[-] easydnesto@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago

For Linux it does timeout and basically just need to run a bash while loop to keep open. I’m not sure if windows is the same way, but from what I hear it’s more integrated.

Overall the port forwarding is not that big of a hassle on Linux. It’s an opt in feature and I just have bash aliases to enable the port forwarding when I need it.