this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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Mullvad is removing port forwarding (https://mullvad.net/fr/blog/2023/5/29/removing-the-support-for-forwarded-ports/). Is there a credible alternative ?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm testing now AirVPN and will decide after trying both parallel.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Would you mind reporting back your findings here? :)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I was an AirVPN user for a number of years until Mullvad came around. I switched to Mullvad and stuck with them for a few years. However, now that Mullvad has gotten rid of port forwarding, I have since moved back to AirVPN.

The performance has been solid with all the servers I have used, even with multiple tunnels open. My only complaint is that the IPs on the servers I use are unfortunately blacklisted on quite a number of sites. Other than that, I am satisfied.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Hi, so far everything works fine! Max out my connection which is not very fast.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What I can already say is that the Eddy app for android worked pretty bad on my Pixel 6. But with the Wireguard app everything is smooth. For my Fedora Installation I can say it works fine as long as I disable DHCP in the LAN config. There are better solutions but I did not dare to change anything deeper in the system so far. Even more as I mostly use my VPN over my router, and that way I have no DNS/IP leakage.

App wise Mullvad was much better.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Any verdict? Now that Mullvad port forwarding is gone, I am also looking for alternatives. Thanks !

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

As my first trys did not seed a lot I could not see any difference. Speeds were about the same.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I second IVPN

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

AirVPN seems to be working nicely for the past few weeks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Assuming they go by GMT it is now July 1 and as of this moment port forwarding still works

Edit: Yup as of July 3, port forwarding is gone. Just checked using telnet and it no longer works. Also Mullvad website no longer has the port check function.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ive heard proton vpn is good, but I’m also looking for a good alternative. Damn shame they’re getting rid of port forwarding

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

ProtonVPN will probably discontinue port-forward too since it is using Mullvad in the backend

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why would you want to replace Mullvad? Did they do something bad?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They're removing Port Forwarding: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/5/29/removing-the-support-for-forwarded-ports/

Unfortunately port forwarding also allows avenues for abuse, which in some cases can result in a far worse experience for the majority of our users. Regrettably individuals have frequently used this feature to host undesirable content and malicious services from ports that are forwarded from our VPN servers. This has led to law enforcement contacting us, our IPs getting blacklisted, and hosting providers cancelling us.

The result is that it affects the majority of our users negatively, because they cannot use our service without having services being blocked.

The abuse vector of port forwarding has caught up with us, and today we announce the discontinuation of support for port forwarding. This means that if you are a user of forwarded ports, you will not be able to add or modify the ports you have in use.

We have removed the ability to add port forwards on all accounts.

Let me put on my tinfoil hat for a second: I have a heck of a time believing other VPN providers haven't encountered the same issues as Mullvad and to me, this signals that Mullvad's competitors are working with, lets say, organizations that would be highly interested in what you're doing.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sorry but I’m confused. You saying Mullvad has more integrity or less?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think he's saying that all VPNs that do port forward will interest governments/police and the ones that are still operating are probably only operating because they got a deal to not be prosecuted in exchange of letting those entities see the traffic. Mullvad being Mullvad, they will never do that so instead of having all those legals threats, they just shut down the port-forward service. Tbh I'm surprised it ran as long as it did.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

How does this affect a torrent service using a deluge container for example?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use IVPN. The last time I looked they also had port forwarding

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

iVPN is removing port forwarding too.

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