I am looking to buy a VPN subscription, and im interested in getting one that allows port forwarding. Found a few that still allows this, including pure VPN and air VPN which seem to offer good value for money, at least on the the long term plans. Any feedback on these two?

I used to have nordvpn, and used it for 3 years, and once that subscription ran out, have been using mullvad so far. Performance wise mullvad hasnt disappointed me or anything, but now im looking to find one that allows port forwarding.

I also have a doubt regarding the whole port forwarding thing, does the VPN having this feature enable to do it even if my ISP doesnt allow port forwarding? From the videos and articles I read, VPN port forwarding is just something you do inside their native apps and such, so if the ISP hasnt enabled port forwarding for me (which I know it hasnt, because tried to get jellyfin working the other day, and couldnt get the ports to open even after setting everything up in my router), will I still be able to do it? I tried searching around with this query, but didnt really find anything.

  • rhythmicotter@midwest.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I use AirVPN. It’s reliable and I like their vpn client Eddie, but there are a few things you should know. Google blocks traffic from all of their Dallas servers, about 20% of their us based servers. Also, a few web hosting companies block AirVPN traffic, at least on the servers I use, including GoDaddy. I can’t access the Linux Mint forums while on AirVPN either. Every day or two I have to disable the VPN to access a site, which defeats the purpose, IMO.

    One good thing about AirVPN is that they have sales often. But I would try a week now before committing. Reliability has been top notch and they have a lot of servers.

    Edit: I use port forwarding for bittorrent and it was easy to set up. You log in on their website and choose a port to forward for your account. I’m honestly a novice at networking and I figured it out using these instructions.

    • svotay@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Thank you for the additional information, I am not in the US, and would not most likely be using their US servers. Web hosting services blocking the traffic seems concerning though, isnt GoDaddy one of the big player?

      • –Phase–@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I switched to AirVPN a month ago and haven’t encountered a single site blocking me from connecting with my VPN so far. I looked up GoDaddy and connected with the VPN on and it didn’t block me from going on the site. I connected with servers in Canada and the US. GoDaddy appears to be a site that sells domains, so even if they blocked people connecting to their site, I doubt they could force anyone who buys a domain from them to block VPN connections as well. And if they really are one of bigger domain retailers on the internet, I’m sure I would’ve encountered a site registered with them by now that’s blocking me from connecting.

        Other than that, my experience with the VPN has been good so far. Page load times are good, port forwarding works, and download speeds reach the max for my internet plan. They appear to have a good privacy track record as well. I’d recommend it.

        • rhythmicotter@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Maybe I just go to different sites than you, but I run into problems accessing web sites from AirVPN fairly often. Its also possible that the AirVPN servers that you use are not blocked like they are for mine (Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, etc).

          Like I said above, the best thing is to try any VPN service for a few days or a week to see whether anything annoying happens in your use case before jumping into a long term contract.

    • svotay@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      Edit: I use port forwarding for bittorrent and it was easy to set up. You log in on their website and choose a port to forward for your account. I’m honestly a novice at networking and I figured it out using these instructions.

      Do you know what the ISP port forwarding status is, in your case, or is that irrelevant to setting it up?

      • rhythmicotter@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I don’t know really anything about network setup, but as far as I know, your ISP should have nothing to do with it while you use a VPN.

        All I had to do was change the settings on the AirVPN account on their website (logged in) and add the port to my qbittorrent settings as well as the killswitch that stops torrenting if my vpn connection fails. After that, I went to a site like https://canyouseeme.org/ and verified my port forwarding was set up properly.

        I never had to touch my router or ISP settings. My configuration is running the VPN from each device. It is also possible to set up your VPN directly on the router. That way, all traffic on the home network is through the VPN.

  • yooman@lemmy.one
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’m not sure about port forwarding, but I can vouch for AirVPN as a service. Never had a single problem with them in 4 years of usage, plus the people who run it are pretty cool activists for net neutrality.

  • Brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    does the VPN having this feature enable to do it even if my ISP doesnt allow port forwarding?

    Yes, VPN itself is an encrypted connection to the VPN server. As long as the VPN service has port forwarding available on their VPN server then you will have that feature available when you connect to them. But it has to be done through the VPN connection e.g. nothing to do with your ISP.

    Also see the earlier posts in [email protected] e.g.

    https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/465513

    https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/312389

    https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/276577

    https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/193626

    • svotay@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      That is what I wasnt able to wrap my head around, thank you for clarifying it for me. I will look through the posts and decide which one suits my needs and I can afford. Thank you again for your answer, and the links!

  • FiendishFork@artemis.camp
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    If you are getting a vpn to torrent and want to share media with others remotely look into split tunneling. You can exclude apps from the VPN so you don’t have to worry about it getting in the way.

  • thorbot@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Port forwarding is a function that can reside both inside your network and outside your network. What exactly are you trying to do with your ports? Generally what it does is allow traffic from the WAN zone (outside) to be directed to a specific device inside your network. Also, if you use a private tracker with good reputation there’s not a need for VPN at all. What exactly are you trying to accomplish with forwarding ports?

    • svotay@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      I do not have a defined purpose exactly. What felt appealing to me about having something like port forwarding with a VPN subscription, it would mean I can avail it wherever I physically am, and without having to give any consideration to whether my ISP at the moment allows me to or not, since my living situation is a bit fluid and I move around a bit. If I am able to avail it, wouldnt I be able to avail some self hosted services, like jellyfin, regardless of where I am, and be able to share with friends and family.

      • thorbot@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I’m still not sure why you’re trying to use port forwarding in that case. You can just use the VPN service on any device from anywhere. Port forwarding is typically only for someone hosting a server inside their network that they want outside people to be directed to when browsing to their public IP address. You don’t need it for torrenting.

        • svotay@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          As I understand it, port forwarding is very much needed for torrenting when you’re seeding. But in my case, I was curious about using a service like jellyfin for sharing my media to people I know over internet, a service which does require open ports.

          • Pulp@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            Definitely recommend using port forwarding for seeding. But seems like you want multiple ports. Have to make sure the provider you use allows that. Alternatively you could use VPN to port forward your torrent client and cloudflare tunnels to allow access to Jellyfin

          • thorbot@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            It’s not required at all. It helps if you want to set up a seed box specifically for boosting your ratio but you can run a torrent program without port forwarding and it works just fine. I’ve been doing it for 10+ years.