I’m considering ProtonVPN to replace mullvad as they do have port forwarding for torrenting. I also did a quick search for VPN communities, but didn’t find any. Maybe just not from my instance.
Just wondering if they’ll end up axing port forwarding, if I pay for a extended length plan and then they axe the feature, I will have wasted quite a bit of money. At least with mullvad, it was monthly anyway, so not much to lose.
Is port forwarding actually needed for downloading? I thought torrenting used automatic ephemeral ports that stayed alive while you’re connected to the swarm (I am talking out of my ass, I don’t know how it works, I just know I’ve never needed to port forward for torrenting).
Does this Mullvad change entirely kill torrenting? Or does it only stop initial seed torrents?
No it doesn’t stop it, just seed torrenting as you say. Makes it harder for others to download from you if they too do not have open ports. Got to facilitate sharing is caring.
A VPN acts like a NAT layer, so you basically have to open a port forward in order for traffic to dial your number, so to speak.
It may be in your case that you have UPnP or similar set up, so that your router automatically picks up your open port. Not viable for VPNs which tend to service enough clients to qualify as CGNAT, so we set up fixed ports.
Edit: Looks like I was wrong about not viable, seems like ProtonVPN has a NAT-PMP switch in their config
I believe if no one is having port forwarding (for instance for torrent where there is only a few people) it’s not possible for peers to connect between themselves?