Basically I started with mullvad then turned to proton but after they introduced AI and a crypto wallet I’m just looking for what peoples opinions are.
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.
Mullvad is very trusted by community generally they haven’t given any reason to mistrust for now that I know of. They don’t allow port forwarding anymore though so that’s something to keep in mind if you need that.
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.
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.
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.
Mullvad is currently highly trusted by the community. If you lost your trust in proton I recommend switching back to it.
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
Mullvad
@Ste41th mullvad, definitely
Use Mullvad, unless you absolutely require port forwarding.
Thank you for your opinion
This is the best answer.
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)
Proton has port forwarding? Source?
God damn that’s complicated compared to PIA
I dont know why that has you doing so much, I use port forwarding with proton vpn and all I did was press a button in the proton vpn app and it was on.
What OS?
Windows 11
Ah that’ll do it. Seems more effort has been put into the windows app
That’s the manual setup for use cases like on a server or whatever (a common place where you would need port forwarding)
Pia is owned by very sketchy Kape Technologies, just FYI.
Yeah but their stack is open source, with no evidence of wrongdoing, and proven no log track record. Their servers have no persistent storage. The threat model isn’t the fuckin NSA lol
While PIA Might not have done any wrong doing, Kape Technologies definitely has. Imo, it’s not worth funding.
I have a proton subscription but it’s not worth the effort to port forward until their app can do it
And if you need port forwarding use airvpn. Proton seems more and more sketch every day
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.
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.
Isn’t mullvad better and cheaper?
think I didn’t get it?
protonvpn is a few pennies cheaper when goin’ for 2 years and even much more when you wait for the black friday offers.
so if you can’t wait and don’t use a vpn on a daily basis, mullvad is 100% cheaper, so yes kinda.
I wouldn’t pay for 2 years for a privacy service. Eventually you’ll loose privacy. Better to create a new account at least every 6 months.
Mullvad only!!!
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 watched 4k Olympics live for a long time yesterday on mulvad. Different continents for end to end.
Only reason to use proton is because you’re already paying for their email/drive/whatever.
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-goor 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?
