Looking into finally getting a VPN. What should I use?

So I’ve finally decided to start using a VPN. I’ve never used one, and TBH I’m not quite sure what I’m looking for. This decision came from wanting to start pirating games online that I didn’t feel like paying for. But I also want something that will protect me from surfing the web, and whatever else. Could I get some recommendations and advice on what I should be using a VPN for?

mullvad is the golden standard

protect me from surfing the web

What do you mean by protect?

CHeck out pinned posts on my profile it should leave few questions unanswered

I highly recommend Mullvad

Don’t do Nord, unbelievable business ethics and they lie and steal from you.Do not give them your credit card information, watch your expiration dates and delete auto renew.NEVER AGAIN

Personally, I am using Nord on two devices (Windows and Android) and it works as good as you can get. The speed with their VPN protocol NordLynx is great, do not get any speed drop at all. The new feature Meshnet is really good for connecting devices, sharing files, photos, videos, you name it. I like the interference, two buttons and you are connected. Really worth a try.

As someone who works in computer security. I recommend renting a virtual computer in the country you want to appear to be from then running OpenVPN on that computer. This get avoids any problem with a streaming service recognising your IP address as belonging to a VPN company.
Also I can’t imaging that the big name VPN providers are anything other than data scraping choke points.

M A D F T B

U N O O O I

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V E :+1:

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(Rip pc format :downcast_face_with_sweat:)

Most of the Internet is encrypted nowadays so most concerns about privacy are taken care of. An ISP can see the sites you visit, but not the content on the sites themselves. If you are doing illegal activity there are ways to put the data together and figure out what is going on VPN or not. That being said there are legitimate uses for changing your location at times to watch content from another country or accessing country specific websites or information.

For example governments can’t censor people effectively if a VPN can be used to get outside information. People in China, Iran, and Russia can use VPNs to get around misinformation and lies from their governments. Overall VPNs are great for streaming content, but not that much better for privacy than the tools that already exist.

I like trustzone vpn, it’s good for torrenting - every server supports p2p, no logs, anonymity and… to be honest it’s very cheap

Howewer it’s terrible for streaming but I dont need this

I would be happy to recommend Blokada 6 as a solid & privacy-friendly VPN.

Blokada is a popular ad blocker application that also offers a VPN service.

One of the main advantages of the Blokada VPN of the Blokada VPN is that it is integrated with the Blokada Adblocker, which makes things simpler. Additionally, it doesn’t keep any logs of your online activity by default, which further enhances your privacy.

Disclaimer: I am part of the Blokada team!

That’s what I hear. I’ve also seen many people say streaming is affected, and tbh I don’t really care. I pirate all shows anyway. So is there anything besides streaming they do worse? I’ve also been looking at azire and windscribe, though those I hear less about.

Ok so I just bought a month. What settings should I edit?

Well I’m honestly not sure that’s why I asked. But I actually just bought Mullvad. So I’ll definitely go and read your pinned posts.

I was looking into mullvad. I use ExpressVPN currently and have had no issues so far, but was looking for something better/more features. I actually had a question or two. I don’t torrent *yet becasue I fear getting caught even with vpn. I know that using vpn saves you from this though so I am just worring for nothing. I torrented once and got caught (I didn’t use vpn then) so that is why my worries exist.
Anyway, currently I use streaming sites like youtube and *others* (not netflix, etc.) but I heard that mullvad hinders speeds when not torrenting. What do you think? Has the service been good for you? I usually keep my vpn on so being able to do normal things is important (email, browsing, youtube, etc.).

So is there anything besides streaming they do worse?

Nope, they just don’t support it. Been using Mullvad for around a year and have 0 complaints.

I don’t use Mullvad (I use windscribe), but in their defense this was posted recently:

Mullvad, the Swedish company behind Mullvad VPN (virtual private network), says police walked away with nothing after attempting to seize computers from its office, as reported earlier by PCMag. According to an update on Mullvad’s site, the authorities left and didn’t take anything after it informed them that the company doesn’t store customer data.

“We argued they had no reason to expect to find what they were looking for and any seizures would therefore be illegal under Swedish law,” Mullvad writes. “After demonstrating that this is indeed how our service works and them consulting the prosecutor they left without taking anything and without any customer information.”

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/21/23692580/mullvad-vpn-raid-sweden-police

Thought, Idk if this relates to web logs, per your question.

Theres no reason to keep logs secret, when they don’t keep logs at all
You don’t need an email, password, or any information to make an account. Just a way to pay them

Set up port forwarding and then enter the port number (just the number and not the country/city) in the listening port field (Preferences > Connection) in QBittorrent.

Also bind Mullvad’s adapter to QBittorrent if you haven’t already, there’s plenty of guides on this subreddit on how to do that.

Protect as in hide the IP, yes. Protect as in malware, no. Protect as in privacy not really, because most trackers use cookies, fingerprints and other methods of browser identification.