this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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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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[–] mooncake@lemm.ee 3 points 5 hours ago

I think you should give surfshark a go I've been using it for over a year every day all day and it's flawless.

[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 31 points 14 hours ago

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.

[–] Alaknar@lemm.ee 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

proton CEO starting spewing politcal BS

Context, please?

[–] sus@programming.dev 15 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (2 children)

What started it I think is this twitter post praising trump and the republican party: https://xcancel.com/andyyen/status/1864436449942110660

He later doubled down on it (if I recall correctly) and the company has generally been making some highly questionable decisions since

[–] Alaknar@lemm.ee 1 points 43 minutes ago* (last edited 43 minutes ago)

Alright, have you actually read his tweet?

I know you just linked it, but have you actually read it, the context, and given it some thought?

[–] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (2 children)

Goddamnit, I just made an email with them, trying to get out of google's monopoly. Does anyone know an email service that doesn't suck?

[–] Alaknar@lemm.ee 1 points 40 minutes ago* (last edited 39 minutes ago)

The whole "scandal" is bullshit.

Look at the linked tweet, mate. Trump appointed Gil Slater as Assistant Attorney General or the Antitrust Division.

Slater was known for being anti-Big Tech.

Yen is famously anti-Big Tech.

He calls the appointment a good choice.

That's it. He doesn't say "Trump is great", he doesn't say ANYTHING about Trump himself, he just comments that "appointing this person (who we know is anti-Big Tech) to a high position in the Antitrust Division is a good choice".

But since we live in the world where saying "Trump, maybe, potentially, accidentally did something good" means you're in a cult because you didn't call to hang him for everything he does, we are where we are.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
[–] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 1 points 52 minutes ago

That is in the back of my mind. God help me I may just do it.

[–] squid_slime@lemm.ee 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Tailscale + mullvad integration works great if you want port forwarding and at about the same price as mullvad VPN.

[–] matcha_addict@lemy.lol 2 points 9 hours ago

How does this work??? I thought I wouldn't be able to use Mullvad with port forwarding. Would I need to have a vps? Would the VPS not disallow me for connecting to VPN or detecting p2p traffic?

[–] COASTER1921@lemmy.ml 6 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

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.

[–] gamer@lemm.ee 6 points 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (10 children)

Since y'all probably know more about VPNs than me, is Mullvad any good? I bought them to use for torrents, though haven't tried seeding anything yet. I assume they're good with that?

Also, anyone know if they're run by MAGA creeps?

[–] viking@infosec.pub 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Mullvad are Swedish and the most privacy respecting out there, so that's an excellent choice.

[–] RyutoSetsujin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago

I second this, Mullvad is awesome, and after trying Windscribe, NordVPN, and ProtonVPN, I ended up switching to Mullvad a few weeks ago and I haven't looked back.

[–] nul9o9@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 14 hours ago

They are who I use, never heard of anything fishy with them.

The fact that you can pay by mailing in cash is pretty cool.

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[–] qwerty@discuss.tchncs.de 48 points 1 day ago (8 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/

[–] HappyStarDiaz@real.lemmy.fan 1 points 7 hours ago

It was submitted in the chat…

[–] groet@feddit.org 16 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (1 children)

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).

[–] Miaou@jlai.lu 0 points 11 hours ago

It doesn't take a genius to guess a forwarded port is used for torrenting though

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[–] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 37 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ha!

My ISP sends me emails saying (paraphrased) “we’re only forwarding this email because we have to. We don’t track your data and your IP logs are wiped every 30 days. Your best option is not to respond because then they would know who you are.”

[–] TheGreenWizard@lemmy.zip 5 points 13 hours ago

What ISP are you with?

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