If you are a pirate VPN is an essential tool. I am trying to ascertain the popularity of various VPNs in piracy community. In this excerise, I will list several Popular VPNs in the comment if you use one of them just upvote that comment and reply the reason. If you don’t find your VPN listed add a comment with just their name. Reply the reason to it. This make it easier to understand the real life user cases.

P.S: I am only looking for paid VPNs please don’t mention “free vpn”.

  • Zedstrian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    Proton VPN since it’s cheaper than ExpressVPN but apparently faster than other paid VPN options, while also having port forwarding to improve torrent connectivity.

  • Metal Zealot@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    So… at the risk of humiliating myself,
    I’ve never once used a VPN in my entire life.

    I pirated games, movies, shows, music, software… and the worst thing that happened to me was getting a letter from Telus once or twice saying “Hey. Don’t do that.”

    That was 5 years ago

    I know it’s bad practice. But is a VPN 100% necessary? Even a free one?

    • Shadow@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      That’s because you’re in Canada. We don’t need to worry like Americans can. It’s not really necessary for us.

    • UnhealthyPersona@beehaw.org
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      8 months ago

      I think of it like having sex with or without a condom. If you don’t use a condom, there’s a chance to get an STD (or get “caught”). It’s not a guarantee to get caught, your IP address needs to end up in the pool of addresses they collect to send out DMCA notices so it won’t happen every time. But having a “condom” (VPN) reduces your chances by nearly 100%, assuming it’s properly setup which usually is a very simple process

    • daq@lemmy.sdf.org
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      8 months ago

      Same here. Started with IRC, then private trackers. Always force encryption. Zero issues. VPN is a waste of money for piracy.

    • m00b0mph@lemmy.sdf.org
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      8 months ago

      How do you pay the VPS Provider? The Cops can simply go to the VPS Provider and ask what Bank account or paypal is linked to the Account who runs the Server with the IP address they tracked. And what if the VPS Provider is logging your traffic? They can Monitor anything that leaves your VPS (their network) because a VPS is just a Virtual Machine like KVM thats why its called VPS = VIRTUAL Private Server. OPSEC my friend… I think you are safer if you just use Mullvad and pay with XMR and only access the mullvad site from Tor. (I know i am paranoid xD)

      • Specal@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        With my credit card, I’m not worried about the police coming after me. Pirating is a civil issue not a criminal issue.

        But how do you think they are running their VPNs? As we have seen from the past, Paid VPNs can track what you do any way. Just make sure you’re using HTTPS and you have setup your OS to encrypt your data and you’re fine. No one’s going through the effort to catch youre suspected of doing something serious enough.

  • Free Palestine 🇵🇸@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    I use IVPN and I’m very happy with them. They allow you to make an account without giving out your Email address, you just get a random-generated Account ID (Mullvad does the same btw). They also allow you to pay with Monero, an anonymous crypto currency. I used Mullvad before, Proton VPN and AirVPN are great options as well.

  • Zaphod@discuss.tchncs.de
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    8 months ago

    Currently testing Windscribe because they had good offer for a yearly subscription and some interesting features like ad block (mostly useful for mobile). Their privacy level is sufficient for what I’m doing currently, but if I ever need I’ll just Mullvad.

  • Katlah@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    I use Mullvad because I don’t need port forwarding. If you are using a VPN specifically for piracy I would use a seedbox, cheap ones aren’t that much more expensive.

  • LanyrdSkynrd [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    8 months ago

    I use PIA because it was the cheapest on their 3.3 year plan, and it has a good node geographically close to me with port forwarding. I only use it for torrenting, so I don’t care if it’s a CIA Honeypot or whatever.

  • aPirate@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    Currently proton its decent though I’m thinking of moving to mullvad even though they’ve removed portforwarding.

    • Free Palestine 🇵🇸@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Mullvad is great. Also check out IVPN, they are kinda similar to Mullvad (they also allow for anonymous registration without an Email address and they accept anonymous Monero payments). Maybe take a look at AirVPN if you need port forwarding.

    • kryllic@programming.dev
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      8 months ago

      I did this and found it worked way better in terms of stability. Bonus is that Mullvad has a proper Linux client whereas Proton’s is just a cobbled-together mess that’s not worth using and is no where close to feature parity with the Windows client

      • rfy@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        And in the case that your Linux distro doesn’t have a client in their repos, you can very easily use Mullvad with wireguard in the terminal.

        • java@beehaw.org
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          8 months ago

          you can very easily use Mullvad with wireguard in the terminal

          To be fair, same with Proton. OpenVPN and WireGuard configurations are available.

    • CalicoJack@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      I’ve used both and much prefer Proton for sailing the seas. Connecting through France (highest speed + p2p) with port forwarding is the best torrent speed I’ve had on a VPN. The only slight annoyance is it switching the forwarded port every time it reconnects, but I run it 24/7 anyway.

      Just skip the “official” client and run it through gluetun. It’s a much better experience.