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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[–] PotatoesFall@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The CEO of Windscribe is an Elon stan so you didn't switch to a more left-leaning provider than Proton.

[–] Tonuka@feddit.org 4 points 11 months ago

Holy shit, you're not lying. The literal first Post on his Twitter

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 11 months ago

I suspect most CEOs are, The vast majority just have enough common sense not to ruin their relations with the 99 percenters.

[–] Ghost999@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Switch to ProtonVPN, they don't have any problem with Torrents and allow unlimited bandwidth usage. Windscribe can go fuck themselves

[–] Sturgist@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 months ago

OP says they switched away from Proton in the first sentence.

[–] CountVon@sh.itjust.works 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] MysticMushroom1776@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

AirVPN seems really good, I liked Mullvad but unfortunately they dropped port forwarding which really ruined them as a VPN service for Torrenting.

[–] CountVon@sh.itjust.works 0 points 11 months ago

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.

[–] qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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/

[–] groet@feddit.org 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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).

[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 11 months ago

Windscribe encrypts your browsing activity, blocks ads, and unblocks entertainment content

so that was a lie

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Meh, switch to usenet. Download as much as you want, at max bandwidth 100% of the time, with 0 need for a vpn and no obligation to re-seed content for months on end.

[–] spooky2092@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 11 months ago

Do you have a guide or something to get started? I've considered doing this a couple of times, but haven't had the bandwidth to dig in and figure it out.

[–] Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

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

[–] CountVon@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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.....

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works -1 points 11 months ago

My comment is in no way related to the CEO dude

[–] troed@fedia.io 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] DaGeek247@fedia.io 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 months ago

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.