I’d prefer to get a VPN to avoid the risk of my internet getting shut down, but I’m not aware of what the options for Linux are. I figured this would be a good place to ask.
The only VPNs which are not owned by marketing companies are Mullvad and Proton. The largest VPNs are owned by Kape Technologies, renamed because their prior company name distributed malware, whose top people are former Israeli military, so I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them. I would never use a free VPN except for Proton, and Proton’s paid VPN has a lot more nodes and features.
Mozilla’s VPN is just reselling Mullvad, so you can support Mozilla and use Mullvad at the same time if you like.
That’s good to know!
If you want support Mozilla then go to their donation page and send them money directly
That only benefits the Mozilla Foundation and not the Cooperation who is responsible for developing Firefox. If you want your money to be used for Firefox, then you need to spending it towards the Cooperation AFAIK.
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Windscribe is based out of Toronto.
I’m a Proton die hard but I hear their Linux VPN client is lacking. I use all of their products but not on Linux.
You don’t really need a client unless you want to do something fancy like port forwarding which they don’t support anyway
I have not had a problem using ProtonVPN on Linux.
I know this is an old comment I’m replying to, but what about AirVPN? They don’t seem untrustworthy and/or a honeypot.
Are they? :/
well i sometimes use urban vpn, because it has Bulgarian servers
Also lesser known PrivateVPN has no ties to marketing companies. Supports port forwarding, Wireguard, decent price, and is no log.
Been using them for years without complaints.
Proton and mullvad are the two best options I know of.
Pretty much any VPN provider is usable on Linux though, network manager can handle wireguard or openvpn configs just fine. Your biggest concern should be trustworthiness.
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Proton supports port forwarding, although setup on Linux is weird.
You also don’t need port forwarding for bittorrent. It is helpful, but I haven’t used it myself for years.
although setup on Linux is weird
Works fine with Gluetun!
Mullvad has an open source client. It can also be set up usung OpenVPN too.
Bear in mind they don’t have Port Forwarding anymore.
They also have Shadowsocks proxies and SSH tunneling to help circumvent some blocking.
I’m a Proton slave, all my eggs are in their basket so I’ll go ahead and provide some free marketing for them. ProtonVPN is pretty good since it’s ran by a good company that cares about you, getting Port Forwarding setup on Linux is a bit of a chore but I believe they’re working on automating it, the Windows app does have it automated already by the way.
I do worry about the long-term practicality of ProtonVPN because of this manual process, since as far as I can tell there’s no way to automatically hand your assigned port to the torrent client…
Any idea on when they’ll get port forwarding automated on Linux? Do you follow a blog of theirs or something?
I’m not sure if their app does it. But the gluten docker container supports their port forwarding. Works really well if you’re looking to route other containers through a VPN.
AHH ok, yeah I do that already. I thought maybe their Linux app might so it at some stage. But glutun is good enough for me right now.
im having very good results with proton/openvpn using gluetun
Mullvad if you’re a stickler for privacy.
And when so such, pay in Monero.
I use Mullvad
I like mullvad. I use their wireguard service.
Is it free?
5 euros a month. Worth it, it’s by far the best VPN.
No.
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Mullvad, it has ipv6 and works on linux even if you don’t use NetworkManager. Protonvpn doesn’t have ipv6 and only works with networkmanager
Also last I checked, mullvad wireguard works in the app, whereas proton requires special setup
Mullvad doesn’t offer port forwarding anymore if that’s important to you.
I’ll vouch for airvpn. I’ve been using it for probably six years now with no issues. When using wireguard I can download Linux isos at 500mbps.
Not sure if limited by your connection but on PIA I’m pulling about 980 megabit/s
My internet is 500/500.
Checks out
Your OS doesn’t matter when picking a VPN provider.
Others have mentioned plenty of good options.
It does matter in terms of ease of use. Some have apps, some don’t. A non-linux-native might have difficulties with the latter.
Pick one that has a wireguard config generator, so you don’t need to use any client software besides the normal linux wg client.
I’d also look for one that accepts anonymous payment methods. Even if you don’t intend to go to the trouble to use that yourself, it’s probably a good sign if it’s available. Mullvad is pretty safe and served me well until they stopped doing port forwarding. Proton, windscribe, azire, and airvpn were the ones that seemed most recommended when I went to look for a new one a few months ago.
- Mullvad: Very privacy focused, ok priced, very robust. Sadly they removed port forwarding not too long ago.
- AirVPN: Good speeds, many servers, cheap, port fowarding.
- ProtonVPN: Works well, specially if you like the idea of getting their services together (mail, cloud, vpn)
I just use Mullvad with wireguard, not very hard to setup.
OS doesn’t matter. And windows with crapware removed runs just as well. (OMG, there is so much crapware on the barebones install)
OP is not asking for windows
Anything that’s openvpn compatible will work but requires some setup
requires some setup
The story of Linux in a few words.
Every OS requires setup.
windows just does it for you, sometimes poorly. never used a mac so idk there
From the one time I tried MacOS in a VM, setup is similar to Windows with somehow even fewer options and stronger 1984 vibes.
Windows 11 and needing a Microsoft account to install enters chat.
And yes, I know there is a work-around, which I’ve used, but it requires CLI commands to restart the OOBE/install.
At least you can use Windows without an account, on MacOS you can’t even install an app without one I don’t think.
Just to be clear, I hate both of them, I’m a Linux user.
Nope, you must create a user account for Windows. Creating a local (non-MS online account) requires the extra steps.
