Glad that worked out with AirVPN, they’re the main alternative to Mullvad that I was considering back then. I may still try them in the future. Yeah, I was shocked that Mullvad was so cool about handing out refunds. I’ve read about many other VPNs that wouldn’t consider that. I guess with Mullvad being the official rebranded Mozilla VPN they can afford to let some people go and still have a smile about it.
Fairly soon after they removed PF, I searched for a show that was less than a year from release, rated over 80% on TMDB & over 8.0 on IMDB, and pretty popular. I couldn’t complete a full season of it on any one format (720p, 1080p, x264, x265). Probably around 10 incomplete versions in qBit. Never ran into something that bad before, on a somewhat recent show. Started using usenet and had my files within an hour or so, in the format I wanted. I understand and support their decision, but it was a very good feature to have. If your looking for new material, PF won’t affect you. I’ve read people suggest Tailscale as a way to supplement Mullvad (if you’re running a server and want to remotely access it), but I know little about it.
Yeah, Mullvad stopped offering Port Forwarding as well, along with iVPN (I think) and some others. I believe AirVPN is the recommended VPN which still has PF (I may have iVPN and Air mixed up). I understand one of the reasons why they stopped supporting PF (it allowed sick f*cks to share illegal child content with others), but it also pretty much destroyed my ability to find and complete a download of old/er files that I normally didn’t have a problem with, and, like you mentioned, I could no longer seed back. It’s the sole reason why I started using usenet. I could have tried one of the other VPNs I mentioned (Proton & Air, which I believe both have PF) but I chose to stick with Mullvad and add usenet instead, which I’ve really liked.
I should have also mentioned that I otherwise thought your initial post was good.
then it’s not bad to also set a VPN killswitch
At least with Mullvad (and I imagine the other three I mentioned), there is nothing to set. It’s already there in the app, and automatically enabled after install. The only thing that can be done is to turn it off.
This is what I was referencing in the first bullet about network interface
Understood. I was just providing the specific term (“bind” or “binding”), used by VPN companies & users, for anyone else who wants to search for instructions on properly connecting qBit to their VPN.
I agree that Kape did some sketchy shit in the past
It’s not my place to fault or criticize you or anyone else for choosing to go with Kape/PIA (or Nord). I just think people should at least know of their past. For me, there is zero chance of me returning to PIA. Someone tells me the girl I’m interested in cheated on their past boyfriend, or tried to somehow spy on or sabotage him? Zero chance I’m getting involved. Too many other good/better options available. My brother has had no issues dating cheaters. To each their own. None of my business why others make the choices they do.
Any sort of data breach definitely sounds bad but since I haven’t reviewed the details
It’s not necessarily that they had a data breach, it’s how they handled the situation that many people found troubling.
Nord and PIA you can usually get multiyear deals
Same with this. I don’t fault you for trying to save some money. Everyone has their own situation to deal with, and I’ve been “there” before. For me, I’m not rich or a boomer, but I’m old enough now and have enough disposable income that I make decisions that work for my privacy and reliability requirements. I see something that cheap now and I ask myself, “why is that so cheap?” It could still be a good product, but I know enough to at least ask the question & research. I also don’t pay for long term, multi-year deals anymore (I had about six months remaining on my PIA deal when I “noped” out of being a part of Kape’s acquisition), but I still try not to be an idiot and just give away money either. As an example, I buy the Mullvad gift card, with a scratch-off code from Amazon, $29/6mo ($4.83/mo) or $57/12mo ($4.75/mo). No euro exchange rate or transactions fees, etc. My preference is to incentivize my favorite companies to stay in business, providing the service and continual upgrades that I want and expect, like the following:
When people talk about “zero logs,” I’m not aware of anything better than having everything run through RAM. Going out to lunch/dinner or watching a movie is roughly $10 to $20/person these days. I’ll happily pay a couple extra bucks a month for a VPN with this kind of privacy and continual upgrade in service, or from the other three I mentioned (and I believe Mullvad is still even the least expensive of the four). No criticism from me on your choices though.
you can set up a “vpn killswitch” … A lot of VPN client apps have this feature built in.
Most quality VPNs will have a killswitch built in and enabled automatically, with nothing to setup, but they are notoriously unreliable and can fail. The key term people want to search for is “bind.” You want to bind qBit to your VPN. If your VPN isn’t working, qBit doesn’t have a connection. Most decent, privacy first, “no log” VPNs (Mullvad, Proton, AirVPN, iVPN, etc.) will provide instructions on binding. This is above and beyond their built-in killswitch.
I can recommend PIA, NordVPN
I’m not saying you shouldn’t recommend these, or that people shouldn’t use them, but IMO, people should at least be warned to search for the following, so they can make an informed decision:
“kape technologies malware” (Kape owns Private Internet Access, which is why I switched to Mullvad years ago when Kape bought PIA)
Thanks for confirming that. I must have installed it myself then. Glad it worked. Updates I believe are automatically handled by uBlock. I’ve never done anything with it since installing it and it just works.
If you don’t have it, install uBlock Origin. Uninstall any other adblocker. If you don’t trust me, do your own research, but uBlock is the only one you need. Do not disable it on a website, unless you’re having a major problem on an important website (like banking, something you need to access, but I’ve rarely had that problem). You just need to look where I mentioned and enable the filter. I believe it should already be there, you just need to enable it. I don’t have any other “ByPass Paywall” add-on extensions and I view, but don’t pay for, all sorts of different websites, without paying for them or logging in.
Yes, I believe uBlock Origin already has a bypass paywalls option there, you just need to enable it, check the box. Look for it where I mentioned to find it. I don’t have anything else installed (other than uBlock) and I view all sorts of pay-walled websites, without having to pay or login. If the option isn’t there, install it from the link from me or “@free”.
I wouldn’t disable uBlock Origin, unless a specific website that I need to work is having a problem with it (like my banking website, or one of my usenet websites, etc., something very important to me, and that I trust). It’s very rare that I need to disable uBlock.
To be clear, I’m saying that I don’t think you need to install anything else, because I believe uBlock Origin already has this feature built into it.
Install uBlock Origin (everyone should already have this installed anyway), click on the gears (you’ll see “Open the Dashboard” as you hover over the gears), go to the bottom of the “Filters lists” tab to the “Custom” area, there should be a box you can check for “Bypass Paywalls Clean filter.”
I believe this is the same filter that “@free” posted elsewhere in this thread from Gitlab: https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-clean-filters. I can’t recall for sure if it was already installed in uBlock, or if it was something that I added on my own to uBlock from Gitlab, but I believe it’s already there.
You may or may not already know this, but I believe this is already included on uBlock Origin, towards the bottom of the “Filter lists” tab, in the “Custom” area.
EDIT: Someone else told me it’s not installed on uBlock by default. I guess I installed it from Gitlab a long time ago and forgot, and that it just shows up in uBlock now.
There are websites for that, which get used all the time. Basketball, football (NFL & college), MMA, hockey, football (soccer), motor sports, baseball, boxing, etc., along with Firefox & uBlock Origin. Never had a problem, unless it’s been a lessor known boxing or MMA match by a smaller promotion.
The process some others have described is called binding. You want to bind qBit to your VPN. qBit will only work if your VPN is active then. Close the VPN (while uploading/downloading) and qBit automatically loses it’s connection. This is above and beyond a “kill-switch,” which is notoriously unreliable. Most decent VPNs have a built in kill switch, but you should not solely rely on it.
There is already a deal mentioned in there (which the provider has since said was not intended as a BF deal, or for the regular public, I guess just repeat customers) but I’d encourage people NOT to utilize the UsenetExpress backbone. See the bottom of my other post for stats, compared to Eweka. Again, I like my Eweka provider, but another popular alternative may be the Frugal Usenet w/ UsenetFarm + 300 GB -or- 750 GB Yearly Blocknews Account deals. We’ll see what else BF may bring.
There is already a deal mentioned in there (which the provider has since said was not intended as a BF deal, or for the regular public, I guess just repeat customers) but I’d encourage people NOT to utilize the UsenetExpress backbone. See the bottom of my other post for stats, compared to Eweka. Again, I like my Eweka provider, but another popular alternative may be the Frugal Usenet w/ UsenetFarm + 300 GB -or- 750 GB Yearly Blocknews Account deals. We’ll see what else BF may bring.