- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
I switched to windscribe last month because the proton CEO starting spewing politcal BS, and I wanted port forwarding that wasn’t locked behind a shitty GUI.
As far as I was concerned setup was super easy, the VPN speeds were great, and port forwarding worked really nicely. The whole price for a fixed server and port forward, + unlimited data was a bit much (at $95/year) but for the ease of use and speeds I was getting, I was happy to stick with them.
My setup is a always-on server with a 1gbps connection, where yes, I fucking seed my shit, all of it. I have about 30TB of linux ISOs and counting, and it’s rare that my combined upload speed is less than 1MBps, ever.
Which lead me to getting banned from windscribe with no notice or warning in the middle of last week. This lead to me having to spend tracker points to avoid HnR, and i’m also unable to grab any new ISOs until I find a new VPN provider that won’t ban me for actually using the service full time.
I did shoot them an email (after talking’ with their AI bot first), and they were actually helpful enough. The offered to restore support, so long as I promised to not torrent with them again (which, I honestly did promise not to. I’m not sticking with a VPN service that can’t handle me actually using it for what it’s advertised for) and they did unban the account. Whole email chain took about three days to get resolved.
My sticking point is that they still have instructions on setting up torrents on their own website, and that they specifically allow for unlimited data (with the plan i paid for) so long as it’s just one user. I did not break those rules. After clarifying that in the support email, they still said that I was using too much data (despite the unlimited data advertisement) and that torrenting was not allowed on their service.
TL:DR: Windscribe bans you if you use a lot of data, and support says torrents aren’t allowed, despite their website advertising such. Proof in the attached images.
If y’all have any other suggestions for a VPN that allow port forwarding i’d really appreciate it.
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Wasn’t sure if this was the right place, but I figured someone should know about this. For what it’s worth, I would actually recommend windscribe if you don’t plan on doing torrents all the time, or you have sub 1gbps internet. Just sucks that I hit their “unlimited” internet limits on my home connection.
They have a page on their site about chargebacks. They’re confidant they’ll win them, but they still ban because it costs them money. I’ve done one anyways; as far as my reading of their tos goes, I was in the right. Might as well make this experience cost both of us money, instead of just them.
Their guide for using torrents with their service; https://windscribe.com/knowledge-base/articles/using-windscribe-with-torrent-clients/
Their FAQ on bandwidth and chargebacks: https://windscribe.com/knowledge-base/articles/why-did-my-account-get-disabled/
The fact that they have anti-chargeback wording on their public website speaks volumes. I bet they have anti-union posters in their breakroom too. Fuck this company!
Lmao I like the tl;drs on TOS page. Some of them are a little reductive, but it’s still better than making it a giant illegible block
They have a page on their site about chargebacks. They’re confidant they’ll win them
The portion about chargebacks refers to being outside the refund period, nothing to do with p2p or bandwidth caps.
It sounds like they banned you for excessive usage. They allow at least 1tb a month because ive used that amount regularly with them.
It is a bit misleading for them to be calling it “unlimited” tho
It is a bit misleading
If it’s limited, it isn’t unlimited. That looks like a lie to me, and not “a bit misleading”.
Which is why they said the issue was torrenting and not using too much data. It’s an unlimited plan and they would never think to put a limit on data usage. They just object to torrenting and it’s pure coincidence that they only object to that when someone is using a lot of data.
It’s not “a bit misleading” for them to call it unlimited and then ban people for using too much data, it’s extremely misleading, almost bordering on scammy. If I were OP I would’ve done a chargeback and switched VPNs instead of begging them for an unban. They deserve it for lying and trying to deceive customers. Vote with your wallet (and chargebacks) if you want companies to stop doing shitty shady like this.
The unban was just to check if the refund process would go through. Since it didn’t then I did a chargeback.
That makes sense, best to try and give them a chance before going the ugly route. I do try and point this out since there are a lot of people who believe you should never EVER do a chargeback since companies, especially the sleazy ones claim it’s not allowed or broadly illegal (likely because if people were more inclined to do it, they’d be in big trouble).
it’s extremely misleading, almost bordering on scammy
It’s neither of those things either. “Misleading” indicates their representations were technically true, but it sounds like this is just a straight up lie.
That’s true, they outright lied, it’s not one of those technically true situations they outright lied and said unlimited and ban people for going over an arbitrary data limit, not even temporarily cutting off connection, outright suspending their accounts.
I don’t think this is misleading. Misleading is when you use technically true facts to draw someone towards an incorrect conclusion. Calling a plan unlimited then having a limit is more like fraudulent if you ask me.
Buried deep in the terms of service where nobody will ever read will be a “reasonable use” clause. That’s the justification for why it wouldn’t count as a fraud.
I do agree however that as a consumer we are constantly being defrauded by corporations free to do whatever they wish without repercussions.
Beware of the leopard
Buried deep in the terms of service where nobody will ever read will be a “reasonable use” clause
Their ToS is pretty succinct and clear. There’s no “reasonable use” or any similar wording, and also no wording in regards to p2p or data caps.
I agree, but the 40gb limit on my phones “unlimited” plan seem to disagree with reality, as does the $30 per 500gb comcast would charge me if i use over 1.2tb…
Not saying it isnt false advertising, but its how a lot of internet service providers choose to advertise things these days.
“a bit”. this post just proves they are lying all around
Didn’t the, do the same with the lifetime VPN for 10€/year and later stated the lifetime is meant to be Putin’s lifetime, i.e. when he dies the offer expires? Same with the 40gb/month for free which they randomly changed…
I use airvpn with an always on server setup, port forwarding, and constant seeding. If you’re okay with manually using a wireguard or openvpn client instead of an airvpn specific client it works great.
Edit Plus, they have a progressive pricing thing that lets you buy a few days for like 2€ just to test stuff.
AirVPN is perfect. Works flawlessy with gluetun, only thing the website is kinda outdated, but I can’t remember the last time I got on there so who cares
AirVPN!!! Its really great.
It’s definitely a bandwidth usage thing, given their reputation for being informal in communications they could have been a lot nicer about that.
It’s really disappointing to see this from them, they were one the best priced VPNs out there claiming to respect privacy. Their support was also super helpful with my questions about their datacenter static IPs.
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Not really. Unlimited means no data cap, not infinite bandwidth, and that’s perfectly reasonable to provide. Data isn’t a limited resource, the only thing that’s committed is the amount you can get right at that second.
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Unlimited means no data cap, not infinite bandwidth
How is limited bandwidth not a data cap? When you multiply a bandwidth limit x the number of days, hours, minutes, etc in a month, it sure looks like a data cap to me.
Thanks for the warning!
I’m not trying to convince you either way, but can you point to the ‘political BS’ Proton guy said that made you flip? I use Proton and also veer hard left wherever politics are concerned, and I personally think the whole thing is way overblown. I may have missed something though, happy to hear otherwise, because in my understanding all he did was soft-endorse someone who identifies as republican at the moment
Here’s the exact post that got the Proton CEO in trouble:
Maybe Gail Slater really is a great pick for Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division. Frankly, I have no idea. But I won’t do business with any company that carries any water whatsoever for Trump.
He also went on Reddit and defended his statements by saying he wasn’t familiar with American politics and he’s sorry if he triggered people. So he’s claiming to be unaware of thing because he doesn’t engage in American politics, and at the exact same time, he’s using right-wing talking points like misusing the term “triggered” to mean “upset left-leaning people”. Something he could only have picked up if he’s lurking in right-wing spaces.
he’s using right-wing talking points like misusing the term “triggered” to mean “upset left-leaning people”.
At this point you can pretty much pick up that term from anywhere. We might think it’s dumb, we might use it sarcastically, but it’s entered our lexicon.
While that’s true, “I’m sorry that you got upset at what I did” is in no way actually an apology or an admission that they might have been wrong, so…
My comment is in no way related to the CEO dude
He called republicans “Republicans” and the Democrats “dems” in the comment.
Yeah I’m with you. I’m more pissed with Proton for disengaging via Mastodon than at the stupid CEO - but none if it is a good reason enough to opt for lesser services. Proton’s doing good stuff.
The strong other half of my reasoning was port forwarding being locked to GUI. I use a lot of scripts to keep my server restart process simple.
Wait, port forwarding on Proton is locked behind a GUI? That doesn’t seem right - I use proton with port forwarding for my torrent setup on my NAS and it connects to VPN just using environment variables from a docker compose file. No Proton software installed at all.
Also fully possible I’ve misread something; apologies if so.
I don’t know about ‘locked’ so much as ‘hard to get running with headless linux’. I looked into it two or three times and was stymied by the various ways it went wrong.
In comparison, windscribe had me choose a port on their website, and then I used that in my docker run command and it just worked.
That’s understandable. I do recall when setting up my stuff that Proton’s documentation left a lot to be desired. Thankfully I found the Dr Frankenstein guides that walked me through it. I don’t do much script writing of my own though, so that may not be helpful for everyone.
Everyone bases their opinion off that one out-of-context tweet, but if you actually take the time to evaluate the context you’ll find it’s extremely unlikely that Andy Yen (Proton CEO) is a “Trump supporter”. At worst, he is a rationalist who wants to continue Proton’s work with the US administration regardless of who is president, rather than having a tantrum and trying to virtue signal boycott and achieve nothing for 4+ years. Unfortunately a lot of people on the left would rather circlejerk in their online cope chambers like Lemmy and Bluesky rather than actually engage with reality.
I was one of the people who based my opinion of Proton on that tweet and swore off them until someone else shared that link with me. It’s excellent, thorough, and makes a convincing case that Yang is actually left-leaning. I can only assume that you’re getting downvotes from people who haven’t read it.
The downvotes are for the unnecessary holier-than-thou rant at the end attacking everyone using this very site.
I’ve seen that Medium article shared here before and find it very unconvincing. While I agree that framing the Proton CEO as an evil Nazi lapdog is a bit much, here’s a comment I saw on Lemmy another time this was discussed that explains why the article is flawed better than I could.
I have scores disabled so I wasn’t aware that I was being mass downvoted, but I think it only further validates my point that Lemmy is full of left-wingers who have fled here so they can have an echo chamber safe space where their opinions and behaviours are never questioned. It’s quite sad how easily triggered people are, they have a complete existential crisis if you even try to point them in the direction of reality.
One thing to consider is that your interpretations of the polemics around “echo chamber” and “safe space” are rather provincial.
This sort of phrasing can in good faith be dismissed as politically defined regional demagoguery.
Them calling it “unlimited” when there’s a limit is wrong, but so is using all of the available upload bandwidth 100% of the time on a cheap home VPN service when you consider the current market prices for data transfer. Mine’s limited to 2Mbps. Seems fair for $7/month or whatever it is.
Edit: Oh right it was 2Mbps. I spent 20 minutes surveying datacentre prices around the world to come up with that number, but bandwidth prices vary widely and might’ve changed by now.
Them calling it “unlimited” when there’s a limit is wrong, but so is using all of the available upload bandwidth 100% of the time on a cheap home VPN service when you consider the current market prices for data transfer. Mine’s limited to 2Mbps. Seems fair for $7/month or whatever it is.
they shouldn’t make it unlimited them, skill issue on their part.
If you’re selling me 1Gb networking speeds, with no bandwidth limit, it’s not my fault for using all of it lol. I’m just using what i pay for.
That’s technically within your legal rights I guess, just like (depending what the fine print says) it’s within their rights to throttle all your traffic one way or another to a low speed including the stuff you actually need to go faster. The places that always have low speeds for everyone are like that because they’re designed to cater to people who don’t give a shit about what their fair share might be and just want to max out their connection. Those services are fine for torrenting, useless for everything else. Windscribe isn’t one of those but it could become one if enough of its users think like you and insist on it.
Hopefully they’ll set a soft 2TB limit or something before they do that, though.
that’s true, but i would prefer they be upfront about it. If you’re advertising something, and i’m not getting it, that’s not great advertising.
If you’re telling me i get unlimited bandwidth on a 1gb connection, and you don’t give me that exact thing in return, it’s false advertising. Soft limit it if you want, just be honest about it. The solution here is a bandwidth limited plan, and one that isn’t.
You’re going to be very hard pressed in finding a VPN that supports torrenting. People abuse it. That’s why mullvad pulled port forwarding support.
Additionally people misinterpret what they can do even if their VPN does support torrenting. It’s still illegal to use their service to torrent anything other than legal torrents…which almost no one does, which is why VPN providers aren’t lining up to show their support for the torrent network.
There are no services available to you that allow you indiscriminately to torrent illegal content. It’s always illegal and against TOS to torrent someone elses IP.
People abuse it
My Man, unless you buy all the bullshit that YouTubers claim VPNs do, the only reason to get one is to torrent
There are no services available to you that allow you indiscriminately to torrent illegal content. They simply don’t exist.
Yes, most VPNs will allow you to do that just fine. And they exist for years.
My Man, unless you buy all the bullshit that YouTubers claim VPNs do, the only reason to get one is to torrent
This is one of the top 10 dumbest statements I’ve ever seen on the internet and shows a total and complete lack of understanding what a VPN is, and what it does.
Yes, most VPNs will allow you to do that just fine.
There are currently 2-3 countries where torrenting IP isn’t illegal. Unless you have a VPN in one of these countries, there are no conditions where its “allowed,” because it’s entirely illegal. Even if it’s not expressly outlined in a services TOS it’s still illegal, and therefore not allowed. Even if they expressly permit it, it’s still illegal, and therefore not allowed.
I absolutely fucking beg you to use the brain you were given and stop embarrassing your parents who put time and energy into raising you.
This is one of the top 10 dumbest statements I’ve ever seen on the internet and shows a total and complete lack of understanding what a VPN is, and what it does.
Well then explain me why I would need a VPN in the year 2025 with encrypted connections and HSTS being the norm
There are currently 2-3 countries where torrenting IP isn’t illegal. Unless you have a VPN in one of these countries, there are no conditions where its “allowed,” because it’s entirely illegal. Even if it’s not expressly outlined in a services TOS it’s still illegal, and therefore not allowed. Even if they expressly permit it, it’s still illegal, and therefore not allowed.
It’s illegal, but in practice not enforceable if you hide between a VPN in another jurisdiction.
So in practice you can do it and nobody gives a shit.Well then explain me why I would need a VPN in the year 2025 with encrypted connections and HSTS being the norm
To connect to a network, which is private and virtual. As the name suggests, this is the reason for which VPNs were invented and are still used today. Using VPNs for “privacy” is how they’re popularized for anyone who doesn’t actually know what they are and how they’re used. Which clearly includes yourself. To believe that there’s no legitimate use for VPNs outside of their layman’s usage is so incredibly fucking insane.
If you’re going to speak about something, do yourself a favor in the future and at least do a cursory Google search to find out what it is that you’re speaking about first so you don’t look like a total idiot. For fucks sake.
So you’re moving Goalposts again?
Nobody was talking about a VPN for accessing your private home or company network. Even you were talking about a commercial VPN Providers…You’re really insufferable
Using a VPN for accessing your private, home or company network is the literal reason for which it was created and designed.
It’s in the fucking name, virtual private network. I don’t have to mention it like it’s somehow tangential or some kind of secondary and unused function of the technology. It is it’s literal primary focus.
I’m having a conversation with a literal child trying to explain to them the purpose of a network software that is self-evident in the fucking name of the software itself, and you have the balls to say that I’m insufferable? This community is fucking insufferable–filled to the brim with 12-year-olds that don’t know their ass from their elbow and assert with absolutisms without reading or understanding anything at all. It quite literally brings bile to the recesses of my mouth.
There are currently 2-3 countries where torrenting IP isn’t illegal.
Why are you moving goalposts? You stated originally:
You’re going to be very hard pressed in finding a VPN that supports torrenting.
MANY support it. Supporting something in of itself doesn’t speak to it’s legality.
I know they’re not popular anymore, but PIA supports it, was taken to court over it, provided nothing (no log service, so couldn’t provide anything) and walked away clean. You don’t get that if what they were doing was illegal. And if they thought the risk actually mattered, they would have changed their policy to keep their company alive. But they didn’t. So they support it (about as much as anyone would care to support it) and have been tested by courts.
The sad part is… if you had read the OP, you could have done 3 seconds of research and found https://windscribe.com/knowledge-base/articles/using-windscribe-with-torrent-clients/… Which is literally the VPN service being discussed EXPLICITLY talking about configuring torrent clients. Wouldn’t creating pages to support users who are looking for configuration for this “illegal” thing be direct evidence that you’re full of shit?
I absolutely fucking beg you to stop embarrassing the dictionary by learning and using words correctly, and to stick to the topic that you literally brought up.
Why are you moving goalposts?
There are no goalposts. This isn’t my opinion. It’s an incontestable fact that stealing IP is illegal in 98% of every country on this planet. You can choose to live denial in some virtual fantasy where you pretend that this isn’t true, but you can’t change facts. Period.
MANY support it.
There is no VPN on this planet which “supports” theft of IP. There are providers which don’t actively seek to ban users for doing so. Which is absolutely not the same and you pretending that it is, is disgusting behavior. Truly infantile.
There are no goalposts.
Yes you did. You switched from “supporting” to “illegal”. Which are two separate and distinct conception. Murder is illegal… How many people around these parts support Luigi? See… two completely separate topics.
This isn’t my opinion. It’s an incontestable fact that stealing IP is illegal in 98% of every country on this planet.
Cool. Then next time don’t talk about “support” when you meant “legality”. And further please cite the 98% claim, as I will definitely contest it. And be careful to fall into the trap for countries that DO care about IP laws, but only within their country (China).
There is no VPN on this planet which “supports” theft of IP.
So you think they setup these torrent help pages and don’t expect people to use torrents in an illegal manner? Do you think that the Windscribe page wouldn’t come up in a lawsuit if they were dragged into one to put some onus on the provider themselves for supporting their users in the process of torrenting illegal content?
You think these companies are just stupid? You think they don’t recognize that capturing this group of customers is valuable to them?
Which is absolutely not the same and you pretending that it is, is disgusting behavior.
I never weighed in on my thoughts on the matter at all. You have no idea if I support torrenting illegal content or not.
Truly infantile.
Says the person who’s failing to comprehend basic language and easy premises while claiming actual things that nobody else claimed.
Now that I have a bit more time later in the day…
https://privacysavvy.com/security/torrents/safest-countries-to-download-torrents-and-worsts/
Switzerland Switzerland tops the list of the most torrent-friendly countries. Swiss law gives every citizen the right to download music, movies, books, and all types of copyrighted content as long as it’s for personal use.
Spain Spain is almost as safe a country as Switzerland for torrenting and filesharing users. The legal precedent was set in 2006 when a judge ruled that downloading, keeping, and using copyrighted files was fine as long as no profiting was involved.
Poland The legal status of file sharing is nowhere near as explicit in Poland as in the previous two countries. Instead, it’s more of a nobody’s land. No written law or official legal precedent refers to “personal use” as an acceptable instance of possession and use. However, there seems to be legal consent in legal opinions that point to the private use of copyrighted material as legal and acceptable.
And this is just the EU… You think ANY African or South American government gives a flying fuck? (Really the best you’ll find is that it’s illegal on paper but there’s virtually/effectively 0 enforcement).
You think most of Asia gives a flying fuck?
China as mentioned before only cares if you’re stealing from within China. Russia is the same in that they don’t care about outside companies but only if you hurt another Russia/friendly company.
To be frank, it’s only a handful of countries that actually care about international IP laws. You’re so far out in left field with your claims that it’s actually sad. It’s almost like you live in one particular country and assume the rest of the world is the exact same. When in reality the rest of the world really doesn’t care, like nearly at all.
Mullvad didn’t remove port forwarding because people were torrenting too much they removed it because people were using it for real criminal activity like hacking and CP and they were getting heat for it.
I have no idea why you’re mentioning legal versus illegal torrenting as laws differ everywhere, they’re not banning OP for illegal activity, they’re not scanning all your files to determine whether it’s legal IP or not, and they’re banning him for using too much bandwidth.
Mullvad didn’t remove port forwarding because people were torrenting too much they removed it because people were using it for real criminal activity
Regardless of your personal feelings on the matter, pirating IP is illegal. The statement you just made is unabashedly stupid beyond all measure. Everything you listed are crimes.
I have no idea why you’re mentioning legal versus illegal torrenting as laws differ everywhere
There are less than 5 countries on the planet where pirating IP isn’t illegal. This isn’t a “well, it’s illegal in Arizona, but not in Idaho!” type of deal. It’s essentially illegal in every sovereign country on the planet save for a few.
This community is so incredibly naive and stupid sometimes. I swear to God.
The statement you just made is unabashedly stupid beyond all measure
It’s hilarious you keep making statements like this as every point you make has been shown to either be uninformed or completely false. I sense strong projection here…
Everything you listed are crimes.
Torrenting isn’t a crime and downloading others’ IP is also not a crime. Sharing others’ IP can be a crime in some jurisdictions. There is also a gap as wide as the Grand Canyon between sharing a Taylor Swift album and distributing child porn or hacking into government systems which is why I put a qualifier on my statement. I’m surprised a stable genius such as yourself couldn’t understand the difference. You’re basically claiming that speeding and murder are equivalent crimes here.
It’s essentially illegal in every sovereign country on the planet save for a few.
What exactly are you defining as illegal here and what’s the level of enforcement in all these locations? Weed is illegal everywhere in the US, and yet I have been able to drive down to a store and buy it for the past 10 years without issue. Once again you don’t seem to grasp what you’re discussing, and I notice that you conveniently left off the rest of that statement since you presumably can’t form a coherent rebuttal like we keep seeing in all of your other comments here. For someone who puts their intelligence in such high regard, your replies seem to be anything but.
Sweetheart, if you’re going to participate in online communication you need to keep up. And you need to read the entire statement and not just cherry pick like what you’re doing now. Not once did I ever say torrenting is illegal. I said very specifically an exactly that torrenting IP is illegal.
That’s not a contestable statement. It’s not an opinion. It’s a literal fact. There’s no politics here, where I say a statement that you disagree with and we agree to disagree. There’s no version of this where what I’ve said is wrong and you’re somehow correct. It’s a wholly truthful statement from start to finish… And you’re pretending like it’s not by cherry picking the very first part of it and convincing yourself that I’m saying that torrenting by itself is illegal and I think you know at least on some basic level of intelligence that that is not at all what I have said, and it’s concerning to me that maybe you don’t even understand that you’re doing it. It’s truly sad and pathetic thing to see…
Is there a “Confidently Incorrect” community here? Regardless, it always seems to be the most condescending people that make the most generalized and factually incorrect statements, then sneer at the person that was actually right… 🙄
Every part of your comment is wrong or false. Air, O, Proton. There’s 3 that are “mainstream”.
There’s multitudes of smaller providers that allow it.
Mullvad removed it because of CP and extremist content being hosted behind mullvad. It had nothing to do with torrenting as they had no problem with it for the many years.
Many countries don’t even acknowledge DMCA. Some have their own that have higher criteria for enforcement like the NL, others just don’t care. Hosted many things out of Vietnam, Kosovo, Hungary, etc.
It’s evident to me that you’re either stupid, or lack the ability to read. You make up your mind on which is which.
It’s not possible for a company, no matter where they are in the world to permit users to do things which are illegal. Period. Proton cannot allow their users to use their VPN to use the torrent network to download IP. As with any company anywhere in the world. To live in some state of reality to be unable to acknowledge this is the most insane shit I’ve ever seen in my life. You literally are living outside of reality here… The sheer level of stupidity here is fucking insane to me, so I’ll try one last time to put it into perspective for you;
I’ve said “Murder is illegal, no matter where you are. You can’t just kill people” and you’ve said quite unironically “GLOCK allows their customers to kill people, they’ve made murder legal.”
Do you genuinely not see how fucking idiotic and stupid you sound?
Many countries don’t even acknowledge DMCA.
This also has nothing to do with DMCA–which is a US law and cannot be enforced in other parts of the world. As I’ve said from the very beginning, theft of IP (torrent or otherwise) is individually illegal in all but less than 5 countries on this planet… It doesn’t matter how you do it, or where you do it. It’s always going to be illegal because all of the countries from which these VPN providers originate, it’s illegal in those countries.
I’ve done my very best to explain this very simple concept to you–that you can’t break the law just because you’re behind a VPN and they don’t actively pursue you for every little infraction–but if you still don’t understand it after all this, then do us both a favor and just take a vow of silence for the rest of your pitiable life.
I mean Jesus Christ.
Mullvad didn’t pull port forwarding because of people abusing torrenting. They pulled it because interpol resorted to telling everyone to block their servers after mullvad wouldn’t/couldn’t assist in its investigation into csam sharing across forwarded ports using stuff as simple as the windows file and printer sharing system.
What caused them to pull port forwarding was the threat of being dropped from the routing table over stonewalling a police investigation into csam, not torrenting.
This is well documented and reflects the experience of many mullvad users including myself over the time period that it occurred. Saying that the decision had anything to do with torrenting is just false.
The CEO of Windscribe is an Elon stan so you didn’t switch to a more left-leaning provider than Proton.
Holy shit, you’re not lying. The literal first Post on his Twitter
I suspect most CEOs are, The vast majority just have enough common sense not to ruin their relations with the 99 percenters.
I’d recommend AirVPN. Here’s why I’d recommend them, in their own words:
No traffic limit. No time limit.
No maximum speed limit, it depends only on the server load
Every protocol is welcome, including p2p. Forwarded ports and DDNS to optimize your software.
AirVPN seems really good, I liked Mullvad but unfortunately they dropped port forwarding which really ruined them as a VPN service for Torrenting.
I switched to AirVPN about 6 months ago and I’ve been really happy with the service. Was previously using NordVPN, which was fine, but I was looking for a VPN provider that offered port forwarding and AirVPN does that. I don’t have hard stats on this, but I do feel that having access to port forwarding has improved my overall torrent speeds since switching.
Same here. Switched from Mullvad to AirVPN once they dropped port forwarding. I have had several issues with the Eddie client, but wound up dropping it in favor of gluetun and Wiresock with Wireguard configs and have had zero issues.
As a rule, the more outdated a service’s website is, the better the service is.
It’s funny that you mentioned this, because the crappy website is one of the things that sold me on it. It reminds me of the old internet.
It’s also surprisingly affordable, I got a 3 year subscription for something like $60. I was during a sale.
Came to give AirVPN a shoutout too. Been with them since 7 years. Using both their client and native wireguard kernel module. Very happy.
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Air is actually good, but they don’t have a lot of fast servers. You are naturally limited by the server you choose and peering.
Windscribe encrypts your browsing activity, blocks ads, and unblocks entertainment content
so that was a lie
I think that refers to geoblocked content.
Agreed, but that’s also weird. Suddenly they’re the arbiter of what rules are okay to break and what aren’t? Sounds like they’re just trying to keep costs/traffic down.
What’s concerning to me is, how do they know what you use their services for if supposedly they don’t keep any logs. https://windscribe.com/privacy/ https://windscribe.com/features/no-identifying-logs/
There is a big difference between “not keeping logs” and “dont have a way to check what you are doing right now”.
No logs just means they can’t check what you did last week but they can always check the traffic you are producing in that moment. If they see traffic from a torrent protocol they know you are torrenting.
Edit: they do claim they do “No Monitoring” so yeah by their own words they should not be able to tell you are torrenting.
No Monitoring
We don’t monitor your activity and have no way of seeing what sites you are visiting. We do store when you last used Windscribe as well as the total amount of data used in a 30 day period (to enforce free account limitations and to prevent abuse).
It doesn’t take a genius to guess a forwarded port is used for torrenting though
Like most any paid VPN service they need to track bandwidth usage somewhat. They can’t see what you’re accessing but they can see how much of whatever it is. Windscribe also offers a free 10gb/mo plan so they do track it for that purpose as well, much like any VPN with a free tier would.
Sure, they say that they monitor bandwidth usage but how do they know it was used for torrenting.
Because I told them I used torrents. Their FAQ literally has a page with instructions for setting up torrents. Still does. I didn’t think it’d be an issue for them.
You told them after getting banned so either they saw you were torrenting or gave you a bs explanation and banned you just for your data usage.
Probably the latter. Doesn’t matter which it is though; they advertise both on their website.
It’s probably pretty obvious when terabytes of upload are accrued over a few days like what OP mentioned, by seeding 24/7.
It was submitted in the chat…
I thought this was your Internet service provider. This is a VPN service? Holy shit what’s the point of a VPN with rules like this. Fuck em. I use proton and am looking to switch because the CEO is a right-winger but they don’t pull this shit.
Holy shit what’s the point of a VPN with rules like this.
Maybe I just want to pay $8 per month to change my Netflix (which I also pay $20 per month for) in order to watch different shows from another country. 👉👈
Does that even work? These companies know the IP ranges of many VPNs and block them.
I have no idea. I know back before I had sponsor block that seemed to be a common VPN influencer talking point.
I’ve seen a grand total of one influencer make a good argument for a VPN and that was Alan Fisher saying “have you observed your work skirting regulations that they shouldn’t be? Are you potentially reviewing legal materials on your work’s WiFi that your place of work might prefer you didn’t know about? To help avoid retaliation, you might need a VPN such as one from today’s sponsor…”
If your workplace lets you run a VPN on their device/network they’re probably not looking through your traffic
Blocking VPNs isn’t really possible. You can block known IP ranges but ultimately there’s so many ways to encapsulate and encrypt traffic that no solution is 100%. I have specifically worked at places in which those in management positions are interested in sniffing DNS queries to “see what people are up to on company time” and those happened to also be the employers that were doing sketchy things that may or may not have been legal
You could pay less for that stranger but understandable
I don’t pay for a VPN or Netflix lol
It was a comedic strawman
AirVPN (Eddie) has port forwarding. The interface isn’t very appealing and their website is meh, but it works and I got a great deal on a 3 year subscription.
Their own website says they allow p2p so I would see what your options are for getting a refund. If you purchased with a credit card, file a chargeback and include the documentation.
“It’s not allowed… especially in the amounts you do it” LMAO. It’s against the rules but we let him murder some people, just so long as it doesn’t get out of hand 🤪
Perhaps murder is a bit extreme. It’s more like “we’ve noticed you’re taking woodchips from the playground. That’s not allowed. We wouldn’t mind if you were just taking a few chips, but you’ve taken 2 tons.”
[edit] But putting analogies aside, the service really should make rules and restrictions like this clear in advance. That seems like the real failing here, rather than the rule itself.
If the service is advertised as no data limit, aka “take as man woodchips as you like” they shouldn’t track back on it.
Sure. I agree that’s the problem; and none of these analogies really help make that any easier to understanding. Certainly they don’t have a “murder as much as you like” policy! (I find that analogies are rarely useful - except for manipulating how you want people to feel.)
More like they operate a tollroad to the playground and are concerned about why there’s so many trucks of wood chips costing them much more to maintain the road to the playground. And OP freely admitted they’re taking truckloads of woodchips from the playground.
Except the analogy also doesn’t work because ultimately piracy isn’t taking, it’s just copying and sharing copies. There isn’t really a good analogy without directly describing digital distribution and piracy. Maybe an analogy involving a solar farm and a transmission company? Except that gets into technical details that are just as technical as just explaining it as it is
The analogy works fine, the problem here isn’t about pirating, it’s about bandwidth
I’ll let you in on some reality about sysadmins: we generally don’t care what you’re doing until it causes problems. Clearly this guy’s amount of traffic did.
So yeah, absolutely. This is normal and reasonable.
It has to be against the rules for situations exactly like this where OP should be using a seedbox. But generally, they have better things to do than track down every little minor rule abuse.
Like playing their own pirated games while wfh. Or fixing other problems. Most teams of people who support shit like this are understaffed.
For instance, I’m sure that people are using my work network for all sorts of shit. I’ve seen people streaming Netflix to their desks. We lock down what we can, and don’t worry about shit until we have to because it’s causing a problem. Like years ago when someone streamed Netflix at an old location with I think only a T1 connection, saturated the network connection, and then no one could access anything on the network.
Most people don’t go around looking for reasons to enforce the rules. They use them when they have to because there’s a problem.
We don’t even care about customers going way over their license until they give us a reason to. You pay for 500 users, you have 2000 and are using the platform as a barely compressed 4k video hosting service which it really isn’t designed for. Then you also complain about performance?
Homestly if they didn’t act so shitty when raising a support ticket over it we probably would have continued to not care about it. Being a dick about it though and we will look for any reason to tell you to fuck off.
Well obviously. A severe violation of anything is considered worse by pretty much anyone.
if somebody does a little torrenting you can just hand wave it, but if someone is doing all of the torrenting, you pretty clearly know about it.
