If nothing else, thank you for informing me about hide.me.

My, personal, inability to intelligently compare VPNs is what’s holding me back from port forwarding.

I’ve been trying to parse what I mean and failing:

A VPN should be at least affordable for me, no point looking if I can’t afford it.

It should be suitably secure, again no point looking if I don’t trust them to give/sell/surrender my data.

It should be suitably fast, no point looking if it’s slower than dialup.

And, it should have a minimum of features: port forwarding, easy to set up, etc.

Where the minimums are is subjective but I think these are the things that each of us consider. Price, privacy, performance and feature set.

Comparisons are either really good for “here’s the cheapest, here’s the most private and here’s the fastest” but neglect whether they’re P2P friendly or allow port forwarding. Or, the comparisons are really detailed on the feature set “max handshake encryption, max data encryption” but neglect how much I might pay.

It’s a whole lot of research for something I know I don’t/won’t understand and with potentially huge consequences should I get wrong. So: “Here’s the most private” I’ll take that one please

I’m currently on Mullvad, it topped a bunch of vpn comparison for ‘normals’ on security, and I have been content with them. But I’m ready to move up when my sub ends. Testimonials are just about all I’ve got.

Edit: I suppose it’s ‘mid-level’ guides I think are missing. Beginners have their cheap/secure/fast articles. Advanced users can compare on “max handshake encryption” whatever that means. I need a “so you want to effectively and securely support the swarm, here are your options.”

I’m the “it works for me” normie. At least right now, accepting a 10% failure rate comes at the benefit of a decrease in complexity, and thus an increase in security (on account of me being less likely to fuck it up). This is an attractive proposition.

When I was beginning TRaSH-Guides was the scripture and on their port forwarding page (for qbit) they only mention Torguard. On the torguard page they quote:

As of 13 March 2022 Torguard Settles Piracy Lawsuit and has agreed to use commercially reasonable efforts to block BitTorrent traffic on its servers in the US using firewall technology. ‼

I Talked to several people and they are still able to use Torguard for Torrents, Perhaps because the connection is encrypted. And others just selected a server in another country.

“Torguard settles piracy lawsuit” is scary for normies, at least it was for me when I was setting this all up. So I went with Mullvad who actively do not want to know who I am. I’m a UK resident so my entire Linux ISO stack, is under Gluetun.

Generally the documentation around port forwarding, “who to use, how and how much they cost” was hard to find, difficult to follow, or out of date. Perhaps I should look again though.

Ideally, I’d want a “you want budget use X £#pcm, you want privacy use Y £#pcm and if you want speed use Z £#pcm” article with the guides for getting X,Y and Zworking in the style of TRaSH. I get that takes time and effort, but I think that’s what it would take for mass adoption. Advanced users can debate the minutiae elsewhere on best vpn client combo, advanced users are building seed boxes. Normies need 3 meaningful choices (price, privacy, speed) and hand holding to the finish line.

A good general suggestion. The WAF I follow are ‘reasonable’ expense, reasonable form factor, and a physical investment. I floated the idea of a VPS and that’s when I learned of the third criteria. It is what it is.

I just started on this 8tb HDD so it isn’t very full right now, I could raise the ratio limits. But, I worry about filling the HDD and part of me worries about 100s of torrents on an n100 doing other things. So I’m keeping the habit from my pi4+1TB days of deleting media behind us and keeping the torrent count low.

I justify it as self managing though: popular Isos are on then off my harddrive fairly quickly, but the ones that need me will sit and wait until they hit the ratio of 3 however long that is. I would like to do “3 + (get that last seeder to 100%)” but I don’t know how/if it’s possible to automate through prowlarr.

I should probably keep sharing Linux Isos longer than I do, but data hording has a low WAF. Instead I have prowlarr set the ratio to 3 (one for me, one for a leecher, and one to add to the pool) to keep the data churning.

I use Mullvad and have a qbit go through gluetun. I don’t mind the lack of port forwarding, as I leave the Pi on 24/7 and I’m not under ratio constraints. Also, my system isn’t secure enough for me to be messing with that stuff, next build I’ll get everything off root, set proper permissions, route everything through a single port etc, then think about port forwarding. For now I’ll hide behind my ISP and Mullvad’s security while I learn and make mistakes.

Down is quick enough for me and Up is slow but constant.

Music is my main media and I pay Deezer specifically to recommend me stuff.

For games, I’m on an emulation streak, so top X listicles. Mostly, I’m racking my brain for things I thought were interesting but never played/didn’t finish/want to experience again.

For TV and movies (and new games), I care a lot less about and I mean a lot less, so word of mouth. If all my colleagues, family, and friends are raving about the new hotness I’ll find out.