I am fully aware of what vpn services to use and not. I am not using Express VPN, I am simply doing research for a master thesis, when I came across these results from Express VPN. If you have any ideas or corrections, please let me know why a VPN provider would need to have access to these permissions.
Screenshot is from Exodus service, which let’s you view what exactly perimissions and trackers each app uses. You can check out the results and the tool for yourself here: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.expressvpn.vpn/latest/
I don’t get why the entire world isn’t on Mullvad.
I don’t trust these guys at all. I trialed them and despite their full money back guarantee, they locked me into a support loop, always switching support staff with boiler plate responses and links that dealt with account issues or whatever. It wasn’t until I left a stern reply demanding the refund or I would escalate the matter with the proper regulatory bodies.
It took 4 support tickets. To me, they came across hella shady.
they closed off Port Forwarding
I used to host my Minecraft server safely 😭 don’t know any trusted VPN that has Port Forwarding
ProtonVPN still offers it I believe
AirVPN
You can set up a VPS and tunnel that to your minecraft server using wireguard some iptables magic if you’re into Linux.
AirVPN still has port forwarding. They are run by a non profit activist group and you can use it without their app. Works with openvpn and wireguard natively.
I use Azire, maybe see if they would work for you? They have port forwarding and don’t rotate their IPs that often.
Windscribe
AirVPN
PIA has port forwarding but it costs extra
It doesn’t cost extra, though the IP changes often. You could however buy a dedicated IP, which supports PF and costs extra. I tried PIA in July and it worked well, but the IP changes were annoying when hosting my Minecraft server.
Use something like NoIP.
Dilly dilly, Mullvad is great. I prefer it over ProtonVPN just for how lightweight and simple it is
I know this isn’t popular but I really like Nord. I’ve been with them for years before the ad campaigns that turned people off. Mullvad can use wireguard so I may look at them again at some point, but the Linux cli client for Nord is really solid and picks the fastest server in whatever region you like.
Wireguard is insanely fast. Like insanely fast compared to traditional VPN connections. For me that is an absolute dealbreaker they don’t have it.
Once you start using Wireguard you can’t go back.
Thanks for the update. I just checked them out and they seem like they have a lot of servers. They’re almost double what I paid for Nord. Is there enough of a difference to consider switching? My Nord subscription doesn’t expire for five more months though.
Mullvad is by far the best for privacy since you can literally pay with cash and all your account is is a number. No email, no phone number (unless you pay with Swish), nothing at all identifiable except your IP.
The pricing is honest and very consumer friendly, although being more expensive than average. There is no subscription, just monthly cost with no special discounts to get you to buy it “cheaper”.
And they got raided by police and provided them with everything they had: Literally nothing.
Up to you. For me it would be about trust. These guys are supposed to be my disguise. And then obviously speed.
I have a 1Gbps line and see no speed impact using Mullvad. Unless I move to real far geographical servers. And even then, some still hit peak throughput.
The anonymity is great too as you can send them an envelope with cash and your account number and they’ll process it. Their service feels like you walked up to someone on the street, got a month’s of VPN and walked off. I wish every sale had to be set up this easy.
Express VPN, PIA have a reputation for working in some very censored places like china.
But the main reason people don’t use Mullvad, is that they don’t advertise.
NordVPN, private internet access, ExpressVPN… All have massive advertisement budgets.
Mullvads mission doesn’t require that.
Worst thing about mullvad is they only offer like 5 devices or so for your subscription. If they bumped it up to 7 or 8 I’d have no complaints.
For the price, 5 devices is really reasonable
I didn’t say it was unreasonable. I just think it would be nice to have a couple more. I’m usually running out on the devices I run and have to proactively prune connections from machines that might, at the moment, not be using them. What I really wish is that it had tiers: like paying 1 euro for each available connection, versus just “5 euros and 5 connections” - I don’t need 10 full connections, but I’d be happy paying 7 euros for 7 connections.
That depends entirely on your use case, and how “devices” is defined.
For example, I run a couple of docker containers which each have their own VPN connection for different purposes. All connections originate from the same IP and run on the same physical machine even, but if they would be counted as different “devices” that would eat up the 5 device limit rather quickly.