Okay. I know this question is probably asked a billion times but I really want to know what vpn to get as there are a million different factors to consider…
Things that I want: Generally secure vpn where I don’t have to worry that my info is being stolen, port forwarding, fast speeds, and relatively cheap.
VPNS i have used: Surfshark, Mullvad, and AirVPN.
I immediately refunded Surfshark, Mullvad I really liked but they removed port forwarding, Aand AirVPN was fine but as I was torrenting something it bugged out and that really freaked me out so I refunded it.
I have heard that PIA is good, but it is owned by Kape so I guess it’s a bad idea???
Proton sounds good but it is quite pricey.
I’ve heard of TorGuard but that seems to get mixed reviews.
Windscribe sounds good but I haven’t researched it a lot.
Are there any other suggestions? Are the vpns I mentioned good?
GamingVPN.com has been designed with gamers in mind but it is pricey like Proton. And about TorGuard I have read mostly good reviews, I don´t see any issue with them.
I can’t comment on the former, for reasons TM, but for gaming recommend reading this:
https://blog.windscribe.com/should-you-use-a-vpn-for-gaming/
Written by one of our discord mods. Man plays a ton. I do myself and have to use Windscribe for Warzone 2. I don’t know if it’s the routing or Activision using the cheapest servers known to man - but it stops the packet loss rubber banding for me. It says my ping is 10 higher but plays better for me.
VPNs and gaming aren’t often compatible. Some games I can’t at all. But for say Chiv 2 or R6 it works fine.
I’ve been using Windscribe myself for literally everything. I don’t really play games online much these days, so I can’t say anything in that regard with any confidence.
Torrenting though, it handles perfectly fine in my experience. I started using it back in 2019 because their a la carte custom plan gave me super cheap access to their Japanese servers so I could access the online features of a game I was playing at the time. Today my main use of a VPN is for when I need to torrent, and Windscribe seems to have the key features you look for; the two important ones being access to the Wireguard protocol and port forwarding support.
The only drawback is that port forwarding is not included in the base pro plan; it’s an extra charge and you can’t pay monthly for it; as of writing this, you can only pay annually for a datacenter static IP ($24 USD annually) or residential IP ($96 annually). Personally, I haven’t had a need for port forwarding as my speeds have been perfectly fine. From what I’ve gathered, it’s most beneficial if you’re downloading torrents with few seeds. If this were to become a frequent issue for me though, I’ll most likely switch to AirVPN. It costs the same as Windscribe with port forwarding access, but includes that in your monthly bill as opposed to an immediate payment. AirVPN is also audited; I’m not sure if Windscribe is or not. Auditing, as far as I can tell, acts as proof that their privacy and security claims are legit.
GamingVPN.com has been designed with gamers in mind but it is pricey like Proton.
Never heard of this vpn. Very little online about or even on its own websites. Seems very shady.
And about TorGuard I have read mostly good reviews, I don´t see any issue with them.
Right before making this comment you made this one where attempted (very poorly) to defend TorGuard for suing NordVPN for Trying To Disclose Their Own Vulnerability to Them.
But tell me again how you ‘don’t see any issue with them’ lol.
Ill have to check them out. Its interesting you haven’t heard a lot of bad things about torgaurd because every time I look up reviews half the people love it and the other half hate it.
Well Mullvad removed port forwarding and proton is really expensive, so is there any other options?
How good are windscribes speeds?
Are you sure port forwarding is not included on the pro plan? https://windscribe.com/features lists port forwarding.
They are a new VPN, it is understandable you never heard of them, they have a subreddit /r/GamingVPN/ and they post in Reddit that is how I learn about them.
Varies, I have a 1GB down / 200mb up in Portugal and playing I get zero jitter but a loss to my up by roughly 5%. Down is about the same.
In England (Yorkshire, mate) I have 25mb down / 4 mb up but as I’m close to Manchester it’s pretty seamless.
I would love us to investigate a bit here to be honest. It’s weird that we should be slower but are actually a positive. Where as CS:GO I play without VPN. It may have something to do with the game and server refresh rate/ tick rate.
What do you play?
Lol I’m the CM, it’s pretty obvious. The name, profile, links, mod access. Use of “our discord mods” etc.
We are literally the only VPN that works in Iran and Russia but OK. In OPs case, that’s the gaming side of things, there’s no stand out options. No VPN on paper is best for gaming. Sometimes you get lucky and somehow it’s slightly better due to routing. But it’s not by design.
Also our entire company is smaller than the marketing departments of Express, Surfshark, and Nord. People say good things on our behalf because despite that we still out perform them.
Their affiliates have to rely on comparing our free tier to their affiliates paid to paint themselves in good light.
Also if $3 a month for unlimited data is too much then I would love to see a comparable service as low as that.
https://windscribe.com/upgrade
Everything that’s listed at the top is what you get with the pro plan. If you want a static IP for port forwarding, you need to pay the additional annual fee based on the type of IP you go with.
But again, I don’t really know how important port forwarding really is. I’m still relatively new to this and am basing this off of research from what unbiased sources I can find, so I don’t know how accurate any of this is, but I don’t think port forwarding is so much a security/privacy feature as it is a speed/efficiency feature (in fact, I think it technically can make things less secure since you’re sharing that IP with significantly less people, making it easier to narrow you down). All the torrents that I’ve downloaded have had plenty of seeds and peers and I’ve been getting download speeds on par with my direct download speeds. I haven’t run into any cases where something I need to download has less than 10 seeds/peers, and from what I can gather, that’s where port forwarding shines most.
Yeah I would love to use one of those but all the kape technology stuff makes me feel like it’s not secure. Is kape really that bad?
Pretty similar games as you. I love fps games I just haven’t fully gotten good at one yet. I’m curious to test it out as I live in the usa. How stable is the VPN? I remember surfshark randomly disconnecting which was super frusterating.
Oooh I see. Yeah I really only need port forwarding for downloading torrents with low seeders, but the only low seed files that I see are for movies and I have Kodi set up. So maybe I wont need it or ill try airVPN again.
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Community Manager. /r/vpns mods are allowed to post in /r/Windscribe and vice versa. Had zero issues. Even our biggest “flaw” didn’t result in any breach of data. Unlike most the corporate VPNs who were actually breached. Porn site? You may be mistaking us for Kape.
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You’re an Atlas fan despite their zero day exploits etc. Nuff’ said. Where as we are the only VPN to cover for Traffic Correlation attacks and other tools to protect activists and censored folk in Iran, Russia, Belarus, etc.
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$3 for custom - free plan doesn’t effect them as they get access to more locations. Speaking of which, we have the biggest physical network. No virtual servers to inflate numbers. You are conveniently comparing their 24 month contract to our 12 month plan. Easy to cancel unlike Nord who have a class action lawsuit against them for how bad it is.
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Sounds like a user error, as I myself use Windscribe while tube hopping in London on TFL public hotspots.
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We have our own style. Professionalism to us is being technically adept. Not foregoing humour to use corporate speak. Sorry if you don’t like that but the volume of fan-mail alone suggests we keep at it as millions do.
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Ah yes. The VPN affiliate that Michael Horowitz deigned to mention as biased. If the site itself is suspect - unmoderated comments (like posted by the site itself) aren’t going to be much better.
I give you 3/10. Most of that for effort as the content itself is wildly inaccurate.