The best VPN services | Engadget (www.engadget.com)

submitted 10 months ago by 1984 to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[-] LastYearsPumpkin@feddit.ch 72 points 10 months ago

Very telling that big sites are only promoting VPN services that heavily advertise... i.e. - give commissions on signups.

The list of providers they "tested" aren't even that complete, they didn't even bother to pretend to check out ones that won't give a kickback for promotion.

They don't give specific recommendations, but the EFF has a good list of things to look for in a provider. https://ssd.eff.org/module/choosing-vpn-thats-right-you

[-] 1chemistdown@kbin.social 18 points 10 months ago

Totally agree but I’m fine with them choosing protonvpn as the best overall out of that list. I like proton and have used them for years. But, the fact that Mullvad wasn’t in their list at all is suspect.

[-] Lord_Boffum@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Agreed with your last point, though Mullvad axing port forwarding means for torrenters they've become drastically less useful, so I wouldn't rate them very highly myself either. Despite liking them a lot.

I wonder why they don't employ Nat-pmp like Proton does.

[-] 1chemistdown@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago

I think Mullvad was being used for a lot of CSAM torrenting, and they didn’t like that. They got tired of regular users complaining of being blocked everywhere, and Interpol knocking on their door.

Unfortunately port forwarding also allows avenues for abuse, which in some cases can result in a far worse experience for the majority of our users. Regrettably individuals have frequently used this feature to host undesirable content and malicious services from ports that are forwarded from our VPN servers. This has led to law enforcement contacting us, our IPs getting blacklisted, and hosting providers cancelling us.

[-] HidingCat@kbin.social 10 points 10 months ago

Shocker: All these "Best of" lists are nothing but affiliate marketing pages. They're popular because people do seek them out, since good lists are genuinely useful, so sites capitalise on them as a revenue source.

[-] 1984 4 points 10 months ago

I've noticed this too.

[-] CookieJarObserver@sh.itjust.works 37 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Proton VPN with Proton unlimited. Don't use anything that is advertised everywhere.

Nord VPN... 🤡

[-] brcl@artemis.camp 1 points 10 months ago

I find I’m getting high ping with proton and relatively slow speeds. Does it get better with proton unlimited?

[-] CookieJarObserver@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

Definitely, you get thousands of servers in many countries, the free version is just the demo package.

[-] brcl@artemis.camp 1 points 10 months ago

I feel the price is high for a VPN and ad block service. I don’t think I’d use any of their other systems. Do you use calendar, mail, etc from them?

[-] CookieJarObserver@sh.itjust.works 1 points 10 months ago

I have a custom business plan... So yeah i use everything. The security is great and the service is worth it.

[-] glad_cat@lemmy.sdf.org 25 points 10 months ago

Mullvad is not the first on the list?

[-] Ado@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago

It’s engadget, so

[-] ayaya@lemdro.id 4 points 10 months ago

Mullvad no longer supports port forwarding, making it completely useless for torrenting which is my main use case.

[-] LastYearsPumpkin@feddit.ch 6 points 10 months ago

I find this interesting because I use Mozilla VPN, which is just rebranded Mullvad, and qBittorrent works just fine on it.

[-] redditReallySucks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You can torrent without portforwarding. The only issue is on rare Linux isos. You potentially will have trouble discovering new peers. At least one person will need portforwarding.

[-] Lord_Boffum@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

It's more that effective seeding is very hard without a forwarded port. If you only leech, you'll be fine. But that's not how the system is envisioned.

[-] turtlepower@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

What about with something like Soulseek? I'm just getting into using it and still have no idea how to optimize using it, and doing so safely.

[-] Lord_Boffum@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Can't really help you there, I haven't used Soulseek before.

[-] umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago

Really? I was planning to switch to Mullvad.

[-] Lord_Boffum@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Had to leave MV because of this. I went to Proton, though I did need special software to support its form of port forwarding without introducing a regular hassle. All good now, mostly.

[-] ayaya@lemdro.id 1 points 10 months ago

Yep I use the binhex container too, makes everything really easy to set up.

[-] umami_wasbi@lemmy.ml 1 points 10 months ago

I was looking at Proton too but I'm already a customer and the VPN is going to be shared with family members. I worries if they can access my mail if I share my account.

[-] Lord_Boffum@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

You can get around this by generating the files for OpenVPN or Wireguard for them and sending those.

[-] 1chemistdown@kbin.social 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The Change just happened a couple months back.

[-] skankhunt42@lemmy.ca 13 points 10 months ago

I prefer the TorrentFreak article on VPNs.

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 6 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The once-niche way to protect your online activity took off, in part, due to massive marketing budgets and influencer collaborations convincing consumers that a VPN's functionality or privacy features could solve all their security woes.

In other words, secure VPNs work by masking your IP address and the identity of your computer or mobile device on the network and creating an encrypted "tunnel" that prevents your internet service provider (ISP) from accessing data about your browsing history.

“If you're just worried about somebody sitting there passively and looking at your data then a VPN is great,” Jed Crandall, an associate professor at Arizona State University, told Engadget.

If you travel a lot and rely on public WiFi or hotspots, are looking to browse outside of your home country or want to keep your traffic hidden from your ISP, then investing in a VPN will be useful.

We looked at price, usage limits, effects on internet speed, possible use cases, ease of use, general functionality and additional “extra” VPN features like multihop.

That said, it works on a bunch of devices from smart TVs to game consoles, unlike some other services that lack support beyond the usual suspects like smartphones and laptops.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[-] smolyeet@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

I will have to suggest ovpn. Minus it being slightly more difficult to search issues because it’s too similar to openvpn , I’ve been super happy with it for my use case. I ended up choosing them over mullvad because of the port forwarding issue.

[-] jet@hackertalks.com 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Compare their list vs https://www.privacyguides.org/en/vpn/

It's kind of funny proton comes on top of both lists.

[-] InvaderDJ@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Not seeing anyone mention Private Internet Access. Are they not good anymore?

this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023

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