Mullvad VPN or Proton VPN?
Basically I started with mullvad then turned to proton but after they introduced AI and a crypto wallet I’m just looking for what peoples opinions are.
EDIT: Thank you all for your suggestions and opinions :D
Mullvad is currently highly trusted by the community. If you lost your trust in proton I recommend switching back to it.
Mullvad is cheaper, and probably a bit more trusted, but Proton has port forwarding. Currently I use Mullvad. I don't like the Mullvad's 5 device limit on Wireguard clients though. You can only have 5 devices added to the account, no matter if just 1 or all 5 are currently connected. And after using Wireguard once, I don't want to use OpenVPN again where wg can fully replace it.
Both support cash payments, though Proton makes me feel like they expect it for larger sums of cash:
We cannot be responsible for lost shipments, so we strongly recommend sending your payment using a service that provides a tracking number so you can track the shipment. It’s also helpful to notify us that you’re sending us cash in the mail, so we know to expect it.
While Mullvad asks you not to use registered mail nor send larger amounts of cash. I feel like the latter is implied by asking to notify them. I suppose "Hey, I am sending you 10 bucks via mail." is not what's expected here.
What I absolutely like is the fair pricing. It's same price no matter how much time you buy, whether it's 1 month, a year or two. Even their direct competitor IVPN does this crap (and so does Proton). I value that quite a bit.
So currently Mullvad is winning for me.
Oh does the 5 device limit not apply to OpenVPN? Interesting
It technologically can't. With Wireguard, you need to upload each device's public key to Mullvad, thus registering each device separately. With OpenVPN you login with username and password. Or in this case just the username.
Theoretically speaking, you could have the same private key on 2 devices that won't be connected simultaneously though.
Mail is extremely insecure, it's actually really nefarious for them to recommend it. I still use Mullvad sometimes because it's just so cheap and fast. I know it's some kind of high level NATO spyware though. Just look at where their servers are. I mean fucking come on now.
Just look at where their servers are.
Kind of... al around the place? What do you mean?
Also, in the mail you don't send the account number, just a payment token. So the postman won't be stealing your account, just your cash at most.
Vouchers are probably the safest, but I actually like sending mail, and this is basically my only opportunity to do so nowadays.
Isn't mullvad better and cheaper?
think I didn't get it?
protonvpn is a few pennies cheaper when goin' for 2 years and even much more when you wait for the black friday offers.
so if you can't wait and don't use a vpn on a daily basis, mullvad is 100% cheaper, so yes kinda.
I wouldn't pay for 2 years for a privacy service. Eventually you'll loose privacy. Better to create a new account at least every 6 months.
Mullvad is very trusted by community generally they haven't given any reason to mistrust for now that I know of. They don't allow port forwarding anymore though so that's something to keep in mind if you need that.
Mullvad is better imo, unless you need port forwarding. I'm currently using Proton since I pay for Unlimited for that encrypted drive space, and using their VPN saves me money since I just think of the payment as just for Proton Drive. This is a change I made just a few days ago though, for about a year I've paid for both Proton Unlimited and Mullvad, and I legitimately prefer Mullvad over Proton, it just made sense for me to switch money wise. Can't really go wrong between the two imo.
they're both good but I use mullvad only because I use proton for email and I don't want one company to have both my emails and web traffic
Huge fan of Mullvad for the work around respecting users privacy. They are implementing ways of skewing AI-guided traffic analysis. VPN encrypts your data but companies are starting to use AI to look at traffic patterns and help determine what that data is. I won't pretend to understand it completely so I'd recommend reading their blog about it.
I've been eyeing PIA for it's price and the inclusion of port forwarding but not sure if anyone has experience with PIA.
I would recommend Windscribe over PIA. They're open-source and rank highly on Techlore's VPN toolkit.
PIA also has an open-source client. I think'd need to still purchase a static IP with Windscribe to enable port forwarding. PIA also gets regular audits if I remember correctly. I'm looking for cheap vpns with port forwarding but will consider Windscribe.
PIA for it’s price
PIA for its* price
IMHO Mullvad
Experience wise i’ve had a better time with mullvad at every corner when it comes to vpns than proton.
Protons still a respectable company i’d say but there focus is gonna become spread more thin while mullvads gonna continue providing a stable and simple experience.
Plus mullvads never gonna confuse you when it comes to pricing unlike proton, no extra time spent finding the difference between a monthly and annual subscription.
Mullvad only!!!
I used ProtonVPN for years. I use MullvadVPN. Both are totally fine, in my experience. I left ProtonVPN because I couldn't get port forwarding on Linux, and then less than two months after I did that Mullvad removed that feature, so that's how it goes.
And now you can have it through NAT-PMP on ProtonVON
I switched from ProtonVPN Free to Mullvad last month when I needed to torrent something. ProtonVPN Free doesn't allow P2P traffic, and Mullvad is cheaper than ProtonVPN Pro (or whatever it's called these days).
The AI doesn't seem too bad, but I'd prefer it not be there at all. I have no opinions about the crypto, as there is a legitimate use for it, but I have no use for the wallet as I have had a lot of trouble getting ahold of any cryptocurrency.
I'm also happier with the company and the experience. I paid with a card, but I liked that they accept cash and Monero.
On top of that, nobody seems to have anything bad to say about Mullvad. Privacy? They keep no logs and are pretty damn transparent. Limitations? No port forwarding, but I can just use Windscribe if I need that. Clients? They don't exclude Linux or arm64, and BSD users can just use wireguard-go or something.
There's also a story when one time the Polisen came to Mullvad HQ with a search warrant, but had to leave after discovering that there were no logs kept, and therefore nothing they could do.
Furthermore, they've made my favourite web browser (which is essentially Tor Browser without Tor) by collaborating with the Tor Project. It's one of only three browsers which give good results in Cover Your Tracks (although I have not yet tested anything with CreepJS; and I tend to change the settings in everything, so your mileage may vary).
TL;DR: I recommend Mullvad over ProtonVPN, but not because of the AI or crypto.
I also recommend Posteo over ProtonMail, Filen over Proton Drive, Bitwarden over Proton Pass, and I stopped using Proton before we got Proton Wallet.
Is there any reason why Mullvad stopped supporting port forwarding?
Mullvad/IVPN for their pay with cash policies
I believe proton also accepts cash payments. At least I've seen that in their mail service.
I'm not sure if Proton is the same, but with Mullvad you can be super anonymous with cash. You can get an a code from their site and literally just write it on a bit of paper, stuff it in an envelope with some cash and mail it to them with no other way of identifying you. I haven't tried it personally but apparently it works lol.
Can I really pay with cash?
You bet, and please! Stay anonymous all the way. Just put your cash and payment token (randomly generated on our website) in an envelope and send it to us. We accept the following currencies: EUR, USD, GBP, SEK, NOK, CHF, CAD, AUD, NZD.
Always mullvad for privacy, top tier. Only know you as a number and you can pay physical cash whole os (iirc) & vpn server runs in RAM and is gone on powerloss, the best.
Unless you are trying to get around geo blocks as they publish all their servers, so it’s easier for them to get blocked https://mullvad.net/en/servers.
Or if you are using it constantly, then just go with whoever is cheapest/has the features you like as you are only hiding from your ISP, everyone else still knows.
I found that Proton always had connectivity issues tbh. Frequently had to disable my vpn just to use the internet which defeated the purpose. Never had this issue with Mullvad; I've found it very reliable. Also Mullvad is absolutely more privacy oriented. They don't require any kind of personal data. Proton will be tied to your Proton account so possibly your email, proton drive, etc.
Mullvad has been my only reliable vpn tbh.
Mullvad
Both options are very good. Neither the wallet nor the writing assistant impact your vpn experience, so not sure what you're looking for in alternatives.
Anyway, sticking with proton or using mullvad are two equally good but different options. Want a VPN without port forwarding and only a VPN? Mullvad. Want port forwarding, or are interested in using their other privacy minded products? Proton.
What was the reason for you to switch from Mullvad in the first place?
I'm using a combination of Astrill (paid) and Proton (free, as a backup) since they are the only ones that reliably work in China, but once I'm out of here and my subscriptions expire, I'll be on Mullvad again.
Damn, Astrill is expensive though. Friend in China is currently happy with Mullvad + Shadowsocks. A few hiccups here and there, but it works pretty well and is fast enough for streaming, too.
They also have guides to a few more involved methods in case Shadowsocks is blocked.
Yep, the one issue with shadowsocks is that you can only install it on end devices, not on a router. That's the big benefit of Astrill. But anyway, my days in China are numbered, so I'm soon not going to need that anymore.
You can pay in bulk. It just scales linearly/it's a flat rate, so no kind of discount for buying a year vs buying a month.
I suggest RiseupVPN.
Riseup is good, but I try to use other services as it's aimed at activists, journalists, refugees, and other people in need who will need the bandwidth a lot more than I do.
I switched to Proton because I use all the products of their unlimited plan so it makes financial sense to go for that.
However, I feel like Mullvad VPN is vastly superior. Their no bullshit payment options are fanstastic. 5 euros a month, no matter if you buy 1 month or 10 years. I feel like speed and connection stability was noticeably better as well.
I miss Mullvad VPN, really.
Only reason to use proton is because you're already paying for their email/drive/whatever.
I personally use mullvad for all outgoing traffic and then airvpn for any let forwarding I require. Basically airvpn is exclusive to incoming traffic, like my self hosted services or game servers, and then anything I do on the internet routes through mullvad. All setup through opnsense since they both support wireguard.
I always had issues with proton's port forwarding being reliable in the past. That being said, if you need things like video streaming services, mullvad seems to be having a hard time with these recently where as proton worked well for me back when I used it (unsure if that's still true).
I watched 4k Olympics live for a long time yesterday on mulvad. Different continents for end to end.
I daily drive Proton mostly because of speed for gaming, but I keep a mullvad account handy for special occasions. I have zero interest in the full Proton stack, I don’t want to centralize my data like that. Especially once they joined the AI train, I’m glad I kept my VPN and email separate.
I host my own private git server and use Unix Pass for my password vault, FastMail for email, Syncthing and SMB for file sharing, don’t really use crypto so I couldn’t care less that they added a wallet. The VPN interface on mobile and Windows/Mac is fine. I’d love to see the Linux options improve, but I just use OpenVPN profiles and it works well enough.
Just curious: why do you use a vpn for gaming?
There’s some games that use peer to peer connection that can expose your IP if the person on the other end cares to do the digging. In some competitive games people that are trying and caring way too hard will use this to say DDoS people in order to win games. While I’m probably not good enough, or well known enough for people to be doing this, you’ll hear streamers mention it happening to them every now and then.
Mullvad because, much like going raw, VPN's are used for special occasions.
@Ste41th mullvad, definitely
mullvad. I've been having issues with proton on windows, but its cheaper for me since I get cloud storage, aliases, and some other stuff with it
I pay for proton mail and proton drive and still use Mullvad for my daily driver VPN.
Only time proton VPN is worth using is if you need the port forwarding like for gaming or something.
I'm really happy with Mullvad and their pricing. I can pay for only one month if I need it so I don't have another subscription to pay each month.
How does Orbot/Rethink compare?
General consensus seems to be mullvad if you just want a VPN, and proton if you're gonna use all the other stuff. I use their email for some things, and I'm planning to switch to proton drive once they roll out the linux app, so I use proton.
Personally I wouldn't trust any VPN I didn't host myself
Self hosted VPN can be easily traced back to you unless you have multiple users.
Self-hosted and obfuscated with tor, i2p and freenet..
Whilst I appreciate the level of privacy you have, I feel your post is just showing that off and not actually answering OP's question.
Use Mullvad, unless you absolutely require port forwarding.
This is the best answer.
Proton has port forwarding? Source?
https://protonvpn.com/support/port-forwarding-manual-setup/
And if you need port forwarding use airvpn. Proton seems more and more sketch every day
Or you already use Proton Mail / Drive etc and want to save a bit of money with Proton Unlimited at 9.99 EUR/USD / mo. That’s why I switched from Mullvad. I do agree that overall though Mullvad is the best in terms of trustworthiness (so far as we know anyway)