this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by lennvilardi to c/vpn
 

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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[–] DannyMac 17 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.

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

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

[–] CodeGameEat 13 points 1 year ago (3 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] 2 points 1 year ago

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

[–] DannyMac 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for clarifying to @brownbreadboy!

The only way I would use port forwarding via other providers is if I was wanting to share something that I only didn't want my ISP to know about.

[–] brownbreadboy 1 points 1 year ago

Dang, that's awesome. I honestly didn't know mullvad or even vpn's at that do port forwarding and really don't understand the need to.

[–] DannyMac 2 points 1 year ago

More integrity. @CodeGameEat's response perfectly says what I intended.