I am planning to buy VPN as I have a 30$ coupon.
NordVPN yearly is for 71$. I was thinking of buying it.
Basically I want to use to switch to other countries for apps like Youtube and Netflix on my phone and PC.
And most importantly, I would like to integrate it with my selfhosted setup when fetching torrents.
A friend of mine suggested proton vpn instead. Any advice ?
I don’t think nord is horrible, but I also don’t think they’re particularly remarkable.
If I was going with a VPN in that price range I would do Mullvad.
If I was looking for cheaper I would go with PIA.
I hate Nordvpn because of all those shitty influencers trying to sell it. Got myself a good black friday deal on PIA, more then 3 years, unlimited devices. Using it with 2 dockers on unraid, all devices of my household and even 2 tunnels on the opnsense firewall to Albania (Youtube) and Germany (Roblox). Works great
NordVPN won’t stay connected on Linux. You literally have to write a script that runs in a loop 24/7, to detect when the connection stalls, then try gently reconnecting, or gently restarting, or if those don’t work then sudo kill -9 all related processes, services, and socket. Then restart everything in the right order.
It’s ridiculous.
Seems fine on Windows though.
My script also sets the killswitch feature every time it reconnects, just in case that gets disabled - which does happen occasionally. (The point is to make sure there’s no internet connectivity while it resets.)
Depending on usage, my script can restart NordVPN hundreds of times per day.
If torrenting, it often gets so irreversibly fucked up, that a full OS reboot is required. I don’t know if it’s the volume of bits, or the protocol, that causes it to get so fucked up.
I once tried to run it on a pihole/wifi server. The amount of traffic caused it to hose itself so often, I eventually had to have it reboot itself every night, but even that wasn’t enough. Finally had to remove it.
Of course I’ve tried every “fix” imagineable, including the different protocols and different settings. No fix.
It’s been this way for years. The only reason I haven ditched it for good, is because I’ve literally been too busy! And my script for the most part keeps things going. I just don’t torrent.
I’ve had NordVPN installed on a dozen different (mostly) real and virtual installs, from Ubuntu 18.04 to latest Debian Test to OpenSUSE Tumbleweed - and everything in between (eg all versions of Ubuntu since 18.04 which NordVPN won’t run on anymore). And on all kinds of different hardware from brand new to ancient, from wired to wireless, etc. And on dozens if not hundreds of different host networks. (E.g. other homes, airports, ethernet with gigabit fiber or cable internet, etc.)
It works exactly the same on all of them.
I use NordVPN. Route some trackers through it, not all. Torrent client behind the VPN always. Big plus is meshnet - no need to mess around with tailscale or any of that because Nord brings it OOTB.
I use proton but I also have their email etc. so VPN is bundled. Use whatever you want, they’re mostly all the same
To fetch those Linux ISOs using torrents, you best use port forwarding. NordVPN doesn’t allow port forwarding. Proton, or air vpn do.
I have NordVPN. It’s included in my Revolut Card fee. Maybe there is a similar offer where you are from.
If you do not want to torrent, use nordvpn. They have the better deals. Sometimes you can get a 2 year membership with some magic (cashback programs,…) for free.
If you want to torrent, use proton. There it is possible for an explicit port forwarding. So you got better speeds or on some trackers it is necessary.
In the end, both are awesome, it depends on your needs.
seconding this. i’ve used a lot of VPNs but AirVPN makes things nice and easy, especially if you’re using Gluetun.
very important point thanks as my main life is on linux
I’ve heard good things about them. Personally I’m roped into TorGuards vpn. Which also works for ops purposes. I’m sure most will. I’ve heard of nord they just seem to pay social media personalities to sponsor there product which isn’t necessarily bad.
agreed to that brother, but right now I am not downloading any torrents, I just have my web app hosted on my server. So I don’t really find a need to VPN … (unless there is more way to make it secure)