Hi all,
Moving away from USA solutions I also want a good European vpn. I contracted GOOSE because it’s from my country, but their servers are spotty on mobile and I regularly have connection issues on my Linux.
I want a stable VPN, streaming and P2P enabled, from a European provider. Who has good options? Must be Linux compatible either through an app or OpenVPN/WireGuard.
Is proton a good option?
I only have experience with surfshark and nordvpn Surfshark: its fine? NordVPN: its not great, but very cheap with woolsocks’s cashback
Mullvad
Unfortunately they don’t support port forwarding
Mullvad (Sweden)
edit: it doesn’t support port forwarding, though.
I’m looking at switching to them. I like their price plan.
Look for Mullvad gift cards. They usually come with 6 or 12 months or service and end up costing less then paying monthly. At least it is cheaper for me in Canada with the exchange rate. I grabbed a gift card off Amazon for only $75
AirVPN. Only trustworthy VPN left that doesn’t discriminate traffic and allows port forwarding. You know they’re good cause they barely advertise at all.
I don’t use Eddie, their client, but just import my config into network-manager on linux. Works with openvpn and wireguard (wg-tools installed on fedora).
I use WG Tunnel app from fdroid on android.
Thanks for the detailed description! Their speeds are good?
Yes its pretty fast in my experience. When I had a 1Gbps fibre connection I regularly saw speeds of 28MBps (MB not Mb, so like over 200Mbps) downloads on steam (so from a single source), I don’t recall what my max was when torrenting multiple large files consecutively, but for example a 1080p movie took like 45 seconds. Their compatibility with my docker setup on my server was pleasantly good after many failed attempts with other VPNs.
Mullvad sounded like a good option to me, both pricewise and privacywise, but was a non-starter due to them folding to Hollywoods pressure and disallowing port forwarding. Anyone who torrents without port forwarding and sharing back what they get at least 1:1 is a scab IMO.
Unfortunately I only have a (somewhat tenuous) mobile 5G data connection these days, but here is a fresh speed test result showing about 60 Mbps (Mb this time, not MB) while connected to AirVPN. I ran a few and they averaged 30-60Mbps. Exact same speeds without it on, but with slightly lower ping, about 85-90 ping, but surprisngly higher jitter around the 85-90 too when not connected 🤷♂️. You’ll have to take my word for it that its similar speed without it connected since I don’t want to share my actual IP results.
I believe speeds depend on which server you connect to, but they don’t implement any throttling on their end, exept an even reduction in allocated speed if a single server’s connection becomes saturated. For example if everyone in one region decided to connect to one specific server, it may saturate its network connection and everyone’s share of the total bandwidth would reduce. (I personally have not seen this happen, or anywhere near it on any of the servers I regularly connect to). I believe normies that use their default app (Eddie) have access to better features like automatic server switching so I imagine they prevent this from happening with some sort of load balancing.
Mullvad or Proton. I use Mullvad and am happy with it.
I tried both on Linux (for extended period of time) and both are a good choice.
Mullvad VPN 👌
No port forwarding unfortunately :(
Oh yes I see that now, I remember using port forwarding extensively before 2023, but I was not aware of its removal. What a shame /:
Mullvad VPN is pretty great!
P2P enabled
Mullvad does not support port forwarding.
If you are torrenting without seeding (requires port forwarding) you are the reason free (community seeded) torrenting sucks now.
I seed all my torrents to a ratio of 1.10 and I’m on Mullvad, so clearly someone out there is benefitting.
Nah, I auto remove torrents when I seed to 3.0
Mullvad works for me because in my country the torrent sites are blocked, but not the protocol. I just need the vpn to get the magnet links and then I switch it off.
Been running ProtonVPN on Fedora, Debian, and Android for almost a year with no problems.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I run Debian so I’m considering it
- AirVPN
- Proton VPN
Both of these support port forwarding, what are your experiences with them?
Airvpn is great. One of the last VPNs that doesn’t throttle traffic for P2P. Allows port forwarding.
Proton is the most obvious honeypot I’ve ever seen
In what way a honeypot?
I think he’s just angry at Proton based on his other posts.
AirVPN looks a bit “old”, but it has better support on Linux afaik.
Protons support for linux for all their products is dogshit and thats how you know they don’t actually give a shit about privacy. If they are happy pushing their customers to stay on windows spyware then obviously they don’t really give a shit
If you think that, you obviously do not understand Proton’s mission. I am a Linux user and I am a bit sour about their Linux support, but I chose them specifically knowing what I am getting into. They want the privacy to be available to as many people as possible. And you don’t do that with targeting mainly Linux users who are already very privacy conscious. If you want to spread some idea, you don’t go to a place where everybody already knows about it. And why do I use Proton then? Because its easy for my friends and family to use Proton. Its easier to show them the more private choices without compromise on their sides. And I am able to slowly push them further and further even beyond Proton.
So if you made a wrong, uninformed decision, don’t take it out on Proton. That’s on you.
https://european-alternatives.eu/category/vpn-virtual-private-network
Mullvad
Proton
F-Secure
Goose
Xeovo
Thanks, but in my post I mentioned I’m dissatisfied with Goose, so just wanted to get people’s input. I read the page
Yep, but I was just posting them in order that they appear as preferable alternatives for that site.
Nord, express, surfshark and others after all owned by the same company, they have been accused of stuff in the past. They also own most of the VPN review sites so put their VPNs consistently in the top 5.
Mullvad would be the best at €5 per month and as mentioned then proton.
P2P enabled
Does this mean you need port forwarding?
Yes in order to “seed” the files you have downloaded you need to port forward your file sharing software’s ports.
Basic torrenting etiquette is at least 1:1 ratio if we don’t want free easy access to (free) torrents to degrade (too late honestly, we’re already there). Pressure from Hollywood to block port forwarding contributes in this degredation.
(Paid) Private trackers have their own ratio rules and you will actually get booted if you don’t follow them.
Yes, this would be greatly preferred
ivpn
P2P enabled
Double checked and ivpn no longer supports port forwarding. Anyone torrenting without seeding is why free (community seeded) torrenting fucking sucks now.
Thank you so much for sharing this link! I’ve clicked on other pages in the footer to find alternatives for other apps and I’m impressed with what I see.
Thanks. I have been working on it for a while. Always good to hear that it’s useful.
I have positive experience with Surfshark, their branding comes of as American (to me), but they are from Europe. Owned by the company behind Nord VPN now. No experience with them. Also curious to people’s experience with proton VPN (the technological experience, not their CEO experience)
Very positive experience with Surfshark also here. Wonder why it appears to you as American, because in it’s web says that was founded in Lithuania in 2018 and now the company offering the service, Surfshark BV, is registered in Netherlands. So European it is too!
I know, I did some research before using a coupon from a youtuber, but before i did i just had an expectation based on their name and logo and all. Maybe i am the only one and i didn’t have to write that, maybe I’m not and somebody might skip over Surfshark because of their branding.
