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submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by Quistermark@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

What VPN have you switched to after the Mullvad situation. I have looked at nym and ivpn. But don't know if they are any good.

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[-] theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 38 points 1 month ago

I switched away from Mullvad when they killed port forwarding years ago. I have used AirVPN since and it has always been pretty good!

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[-] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 31 points 1 month ago
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[-] hexagonwin@lemmy.today 25 points 1 month ago

i use proton.. airvpn looks good but i still haven't tried it

[-] comrade_twisty@feddit.org 22 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Similar issues with Proton CEO, he seems to be a Trump fan.

Furthermore, I heard it's generally bad practice to use a VPN provider from your own jurisdiction, AirVPN mentionend above is located in Italy for example and won't sell any accounts to Italians for that reason.

[-] eldavi@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 month ago

the people of this community are proton fanboys and the downvotes prove it. lol

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[-] purplish2323@piefed.social 18 points 1 month ago

I am also considering either IVPN or Nym. Not sure which is best for best privacy/security. Probably IVPN? Can anyone more knowledgeable help me decide between these two?

[-] nfreak@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I've been looking at IVPN as well. Nym seems interesting but seems very new and idk if they offer Wireguard configuration files (I don't think they're even WG-based? I could be wrong)

I'm sitting on Mullvad for a week to do research into alternatives. Apparently their support team is handing out full refunds far outside their typical policy because of this shitshow, no questions asked. IVPN so far is looking promising, but I don't know a damn thing about the company and people behind it.

[-] somegeek@programming.dev 7 points 1 month ago

I have purchased nym last week.

  1. I got the 1 year plan which came at a great price (price is really important for me atm)
  2. its apps arent as robust and good as mullvad, use more resources. But still do able.
  3. They dont offer config files
  4. It's speeds seems pretty promising. Better than mullvad
  5. It takes it a while to connect. Maybe up to 1m. While mullvad connected immediately.

If mullvad wasn't expensive for me I'd stick with it.

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[-] inanimate_carbon_rod@lemmy.zip 17 points 1 month ago

I've been pretty happy with Windscribe. They are headquartered in Canada, but they have also proven they don't keep logs. https://cybersecuritynews.com/court-dismisses-criminal-charges-against-vpn-executive-affirms-no-log-policy/

If you're looking for a good comparison, I found the Techlore comparison table helpful: https://vpn.techlore.tech/

[-] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 month ago

They also threatened to leave Canada if Bill C-22 passes, which I take as a good sign that they're serious.

[-] OccasionallyFeralya@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 month ago

AirVPN does good for torrenting I use it now that mulvad doesnt support port forwarding

[-] furzegulo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 1 month ago

yeah i'm switching to ivpn

[-] Tangentism@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 month ago

I use AirVpn as they allow port forwarding and are reasonably priced. They are no logs and allow payment through non-bank methods

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[-] voxel@feddit.org 13 points 1 month ago

I wouldn't recommend NYM, I tested it for multiple months, it's quite unreliable and had serious security issues (e.g. updates weren't available through multiple repositories they publish to).

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[-] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It really depends on whether you care or not about State Surveillance.

If you don't and only really care about general privacy and things like not getting letters from lawyers demanding money because you torrented something, then any no-logs VPN will do:

  • For starters just having a VPN means it's not just a case of a lawyer claiming to represent a copyright owner demanding from a local ISP the identification of the user of a specific IP at a specific time (which many countries have made laws to facilitate, so they don't even need a court order) so now they probably need a court order
  • Then if the VPN is in a different legal jurisdiction said court order needs to be from a court there, not where you are. Even if said lawyer are there and get that court order, they still need the ISP in a different country to give them the information of the user whose IP is in the VPN logs, so that's a lot more complex.
  • Then if the VPN has no-logs, they can't even get the user IP address because it's nowhere to be found. They would need a court order to install what's basically wiretapping equipment or software in that VPN in order to catch a user whilst they're actually using that connection to torrent some file or other. No court is going to be issuing a wiretapping order for a VPN provider to catch a non-commercial case of copyright violation.

If, however, you care about State Surveillance, then merely a no-logs VPN isn't necessarily safe anymore. You see several countries, such as the US and UK, have special surveillance courts (such as FISA courts in the US) which can issue court orders to facilitate data access for mass surveillance WHICH THE RECIPIENTS CANNOT PUBLICLY ADMIT THEY'RE UNDER. In other words, the wiretapping equipment/software to allow bulk tracking of what users are doing might already be installed at the no-logs VPN (and they cannot tell you about it otherwise they'll literally end up in jail) so it's not in fact no-logs because the likes of the NSA is actually logging it all. Any VPN hosted in such legal jurisdictions can be the target of it, any company registered in such legal jurisdictions can be the target of it and it doesn't matter how honest and pro-privacy the people in those companies are - I vaguely remember the case of a secure e-mail provider in the US (forgot the name now), who tried to fight one such court order and ultimately the only way they found to do so was to close down the service and their company.

So if you VPN company is for example registered in Gibraltar (which is a British jurisdiction) or the US and they're still operating, they're very likely compromised and even if they're not, they can silently be compromise at any time.

If you care about avoiding mass surveillance from actual governments, then beyond the usual autocratic nations you'll want to avoid VPN exit points in and VPN providers based in or registered in at the very least the US, UK and Israel and any of the regions under their jurisdiction (for example Gibraltar and the Channel Islands for Britain, Puerto Rico for the US), probably more broadly all the 5-Eyes nations (so, the first 2 plus Canada, Australia and New Zealand).

So check were that "wonderful no-logs VPN" company is registered and were is based and avoid those in countries with insane civil society surveillance legislation like the Patriot Act and even avoid exit nodes of other VPN companies in such countries.

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[-] Gerald@discuss.tchncs.de 12 points 1 month ago

Airvpn... few servers, but reliable on different machines and no problems.

[-] taco@anarchist.nexus 9 points 1 month ago

I never got around to changing from PIA when they were purchased years ago. Haven't found any practical reason to change since, and though I get the backlash over the purchase.

My main use case is keeping my ISP from cutting me off for seeding, and it's done that reliably.

[-] comrade_twisty@feddit.org 23 points 1 month ago

https://www.middleeasteye.net/trending/outcry-erupts-over-expressvpn-ownership-what-israeli-connection-means-user-privacy

PIA is part of that group of VPNs all owned by a dubios Israeli entity that keeps gobbling up VPN providers

[-] fubbernuckin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Just remember that PIA's owner is kape technologies, which is a British-Israeli company. Their headquarters are in London but development is done in Tel Aviv.

It sounds like you might already be aware but for anybody stumbling by.

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[-] comrade_twisty@feddit.org 9 points 1 month ago

Someone mentioned https://cryptostorm.is/ on another board, but I never heard of them before.

Any experiences here? I know a lot of VPNs like Express VPN or PIA are controlled by Israel/Mossad - so I won't recommend tbem without a lot of research.

[-] oblivion96@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 month ago

I'm using Cryptostorm for around two years now for seeding and browsing. Some things to know.

  • We don't know who is behind Cryptostorm. It could be a honeypot. I personally think this is unlikely because they basically don't advertise and their website is way too uninviting for the "casual" criminal user, but who knows.
  • PGP-encrypted mail support works well and is (likely) handled by a dev with competence. (Very sure there is no specific "support" person.)
  • Server and client code is open source on their GitHub, but they only have an OpenVPN client for Windows. For other systems you need to use the provided WireGuard or OpenVPN configs.
  • No PII is required for signup.
  • Their blog posts are very good and go into detail about their system and what they are doing.
  • IP blocks are somewhat common, and you don't have streaming servers.
  • Speeds are fine (not the best, but good enough) and can vary from server to server.

Generally, I'm quite happy with them. But everyone needs to make sure they are fine with not knowing who exactly is behind the service.

[-] RhondaSandTits@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 1 month ago

I have 5 days left, looks like I'm not gonna renew.
I find the support of that political party pretty disturbing.

I think I am just going to use tor for general browsing. Mullvad IP addresses get blocked just as much as tor these days anyway.

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[-] wisdomsuccubus@thelemmy.club 8 points 1 month ago

I use Proton VPN, but also exist self-hosted VPNs which is better

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[-] DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 month ago

Personally I'm not using any of them that haven't been raided and proven not to keep records and as far as I know Mullvad is the only one who fits that bill.

[-] tirateimas@lemmy.pt 8 points 1 month ago

Mullvad is still the best. For the time being, until the situation clears out, I wouldn't stop using it.

[-] Quistermark@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I disagree. VPNs is all about trust because you can't verify they don't log. I don't trust a company where one of the people that owns 50% have donated 450k euro to a party that is describe as a racists, fascists and nazis and apparently shares opinions like not my words wanting to deport 100 000 "welfare-Somalis".

After reading a bit more according to Mullvad's Wikipedia page "Flamman also alleged he later stated it was sad that the party's remigration policy was necessary".

Remigration is: "Remigration is a far-right concept referring to the ethnic cleansing[1] via mass deportation of non-white minority populations, especially immigrants and sometimes including native-born citizens, to their place of racial ancestry."

[-] whatiswrongwithyou@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 month ago

Mullvad has been audited over and over again and found to not be logging.

Before they dropped port forwarding a police raid famously found nothing and confirmed that they were not recording any user information and operating as advertised, that is to say, operating in a way that not only didn’t log, but precluded the possibility of logging.

A raid where they get nothing is like an audit but it’s the real thing.

They dropped port forwarding because, in concert with an Interpol investigation, all the big content delivery networks and lots of websites to boot started blocking their endpoints.

There is not any vpn I’m aware of that has been physically raided by cops with a court warrant in hand and shown to have nothing and also dropped their possibly most popular service, port forwarding, in order to not have to comply with an investigation.

I used ivpn in the past and see it as basically an untested mullvad from ten years ago. Who knows how its people and technology would respond under the same circumstances? Could be good, could be bad.

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[-] simpolomeo@piefed.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 month ago

ivpn seems like a good enough replacement privacy-wise

[-] RoddyStiggs 8 points 1 month ago

I care more about the results of privacy audits than I care about moral purity tests and bandwagon boycotts.

I am paying for a service. I'm not tithing to a religion.

[-] Quistermark@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Audits don’t prove they don’t keep logs when a company do a audit on them Mullvad give them access to what they can audit Mullvad can just delete the logs from the servers when the audit is taking place it don’t prove anything.

So you have to trust the vpn provider. And i have a hard time trusting a vpn provider where the person that ownes 50% donates to a party that is pretty close to a Nazi party.

I am paying for a service. I’m not tithing to a religion.

By paying for it you are indirectly funding a party that is pretty close to being a Nazi party.

According to Mullvad’s Wikipedia page “Flamman also alleged he later stated it was sad that the party’s remigration policy was necessary”.

“Remigration is a far-right concept referring to the ethnic cleansing via mass deportation of non-white minority populations, especially immigrants and sometimes including native-born citizens, to their place of racial ancestry.”

[-] RoddyStiggs 6 points 1 month ago

And your phone was built by child slave labor. By using it to type that you're basically a slaveowner.

Or....

We can think like adults. Paying for the best utility is not a virtue signal. End.

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[-] chrand@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 month ago

I'm a happy IVPN user. Small team, privacy enthusiasts, transparent, great products. Just a heads up, some IVPN subscription tiers offer MailX (email aliases, like SimpleLogin), ModDNS (like Contro-D or NextDNS) and Portmaster (app firewall, and SPN network, inspired on TOR). It's hard to compete!

[-] pineapple@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 month ago

Im broke as hell so I'm using pia right now, I very much regret it I will probably switch to nym as soon as my subscription runs out.

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this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2026
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