cross-posted from: https://fedia.io/m/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com/t/2046624

I switched to windscribe last month because the proton CEO starting spewing politcal BS, and I wanted port forwarding that wasn’t locked behind a shitty GUI.

As far as I was concerned setup was super easy, the VPN speeds were great, and port forwarding worked really nicely. The whole price for a fixed server and port forward, + unlimited data was a bit much (at $95/year) but for the ease of use and speeds I was getting, I was happy to stick with them.

My setup is a always-on server with a 1gbps connection, where yes, I fucking seed my shit, all of it. I have about 30TB of linux ISOs and counting, and it’s rare that my combined upload speed is less than 1MBps, ever.

Which lead me to getting banned from windscribe with no notice or warning in the middle of last week. This lead to me having to spend tracker points to avoid HnR, and i’m also unable to grab any new ISOs until I find a new VPN provider that won’t ban me for actually using the service full time.

I did shoot them an email (after talking’ with their AI bot first), and they were actually helpful enough. The offered to restore support, so long as I promised to not torrent with them again (which, I honestly did promise not to. I’m not sticking with a VPN service that can’t handle me actually using it for what it’s advertised for) and they did unban the account. Whole email chain took about three days to get resolved.

My sticking point is that they still have instructions on setting up torrents on their own website, and that they specifically allow for unlimited data (with the plan i paid for) so long as it’s just one user. I did not break those rules. After clarifying that in the support email, they still said that I was using too much data (despite the unlimited data advertisement) and that torrenting was not allowed on their service.

TL:DR: Windscribe bans you if you use a lot of data, and support says torrents aren’t allowed, despite their website advertising such. Proof in the attached images.

If y’all have any other suggestions for a VPN that allow port forwarding i’d really appreciate it.

  • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
    51·
    2 days ago

    Yep if you run a seedbox you shouldn’t be surprised if consumer-grade offerings don’t want you on their service, they provision their capacities, whole business model, for a certain average usage.

    There’s a huge difference between “I downloaded that ISO because I needed it and am going to seed it 24/7 because I’m too lazy to turn off my PC in the evening” and “I grab every fresh release and mirror it”.

    OP you gotta pro up. You don’t want a VPN you want a server or rackspace at a datacentre or IXP. If all you’re seeding really is linux ISOs talking to the right people even might get you free access to overcapacity, as in free transit to wherever your location doesn’t pay transit for, and whatever minute-by-minute capacity doesn’t cost them anything on the upstream (those links are billed by max bandwidth used, not transfer volume, so if there’s a lull in their traffic you can soak it up and all it costs is electricity).