this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2024
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Only reason I'm not with them anymore
Wonderful software, easy payment, great rates, but lack of port forwarding is a major fallback. I understand it was due to a very minor chunk of bad actors, but that minor chunk was hosting CSAM and other horrible internet-accessible things, and no way to track what traffic is where, means they had to remove the feature for the 98% of good faith users.
But I almost refuse to use AirVPN's software. It's so... weird. I'm thankful they support wireguard with zero issues, so I can just use the default network manager and apps for Linux/Android, but that client interface is so backwards compared to Mullvad and iVPN.
Other than torrenting what else do you use port-forwarding for?
That's it mainly. Port forwarding improves my torrenting enough to where I get better reliability.
Why not a seedbox?
My internet isnt fast enough, My average download speed for the entire place is maybe 18 MB/s, and 0.5 MB/s upload.
Torrenting helps solve the problem as I can just tell it to download in chunks and then turn it off when I need more leg room on my copper wire internet from 2003 that AT&T doesn't change.
I have some of the slowest speeds where 4G Data is a massive upgrade, so when I need to offload some jpgs to discord or something, its faster if I just send them to my phone and upload that way.
And that is exactly the reason to use a seedbox. You can leave it in the cloud to seed at gigabit speeds whilst you can download at your leisure and not worry about tormenting at all on your computer. Also it's less expensive than Mullvad but you likely can't pay with XMR/cash if that's a deal breaker
I have tried a seedbox before, but the bottleneck is the last mile of my home internet. I just have a Raspberry Pi 3B+ hooked onto my router via ethernet. I just log onto qBittorrent and tell it to go as I sleep, and turn it off when I wake up. The downloading is done already onto a spare laptop drive I have, and then I watch it via Jellyfin or sneakernet it over to a friend.
I won't say a seedbox is useless, I think it's great, but due to how my living works, it's not great. I've waited several minutes for a few PNGs to download, game updates often take hours. Not even counting how the actual fucking wind slows down my internet, due to the copper wiring being on poles like electricity. And I live in a place with so many windmills due to the natural features of the land creating daily wind storms from 4 PM until 7 AM.
I really do appropriate the advice however!
Your situation is really unique. Yeah, you're probably better off with a VPN and torrenting directly. Which VPN do you have in mind?
I personally use AirVPN. I detest the software client. It's open source at least, but it feels like it was made for Windows XP and just ported forward.
That said, it supports Wireguard, so making my rpi log into the VPN anytime it goes offline is simple. Same for my laptop and phone.
Decent rates, good ways of dealing with per-device things, easy to lend the account to people who need a VPN, and often has sales.