$14.99 Netflix subscription
$11.99 Gamepass subscription
$11.99 Spotify Premium subscription
Want more than one networks programming? Hulu/Max/Paramount/Peacock all cost around the same
ISP still sells your damn data to advertisers
OR
$5 Mullvad subscription.
You tell me what makes more sense.
Unfortunately I cannot recommend Mullvad for Torrenting. They blocked port forwarding, making seeding and thus contributing back to the network that much slower
I just went for ProtonVPN since (next to iVPN I think) it’s the only other one to at least be partially OSS and still viable for daily-use
Yes shame about Mullvad. AirVPN still allows port forwarding though.
Now days I just stick to private trackers while using a cheap European VPS setup with wireguard. Only saves me a couple of bucks a month compared to VPN service but it adds up.
Thats fair, and I agree with you for torrenting, its the one thing I wish they’d change. For privacy though, I feel like Mullvad is leading the pack. (Not having to provide an email, crypto and/or cash payments, DAITA)
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Brazil and most Latin American countries are also safe pirate havens, unless you set up a for-profit piracy site, then you’re painting a huge target on your head.
Only thing Eastern Europe does better than the west
I’m doing fine in Ireland anyway.
Maybe it’s luck but I’ve shamelessly torrented in the UK my whole life, I wouldn’t be surprised if in the past fifteen years, I’ve downloaded a petabyte on pirated content.
I’ve never used a VPN and the one time I got a letter from my ISP, I suspect it was a scam anyway. I have used at least 4 ISPs in this period and two mobile networks, I’ve even used public and work WiFis with not issue.
I’m not sure if this a UK thing or if I’m just wildly lucky.
I’m stateside, and I torrented something once without a VPN and got an email complaint from my ISP not long after.
To be fair, I’m also stateside and, while I knew enough to know not to do it with abandon, I’ve torrented without a VPN at least a handful of times and never got anything from my ISPs in two decades.
Have the same story here in Belgium.
Never gotten a letter.
In the Netherlands they pay a small fee (3.5€ on a new phone) on every electronics “with which you can download”, which allows them to pirate without much worrying.
We have such a fee as well in Sweden, but piracy is still illegal and prosecuted.
You can also just direct download games without a VPN.
100% safe?
No, but uh, ISPs have so heavily switched over to monitoring torrents, they kind of forgot the other option exists.
(I’ll update this with a -whoops I got fucked- if that happens, but I’ve been doing this for half a year now, no problems.)
Another option is I2P for either direct dls or torrents, no subscription fee, but it is quite slow.
You also need an ISP, which isn’t free either.
If you have a non-sucking ISP, you don’t need a VPN. But a VPN is incredibly cheap, so just lump it in mentally with the cost of the internet service.
You also need something to play the games on, a place to play them, electricity for the internet and device, etc., and none of them are free. But they’re also not exclusively used for playing a single game, unlike the single game you’re pirating instead of buying.
Free Public Wifi.
enjoy downloading a 10GB game on 32Mbps…
Hotels. Tell the restaurant you left the thing with the wifi password in the room.
What VPN do you recommend?
That depends on a number of things, like do you want to seed (if so, Mullvad is out), how much do you plan on downloading (if a lot, a VPS may be out), if your ISP blocks any of them, etc.
I generally recommend Mullvad or DIY w/ a VPS (I DIY a wireguard VPN on a VPS), but just try some out and see what works best for you.
Piracy free?
100TB isn’t free Fast internet connections ain’t free VPN ain’t free Hundreds of hours ain’t free
What is free is the freedom that comes with just being able to watch whatever the hell I want to watch when I want to watch it, without ads, without “oh now we found another way to make money, we shuffle media between providers so now pay someone else too if you want to finish this show”
You forgot electricity to power your PC
I have never once used a VPN to pirate shit.
I did ONCE, and got a notice. 😂 VPN all the way boys!
My ISP couldn’t give a rats arse if I pirate games or not. That’s the benefits of a local ISP, they are so small they don’t care.
But no girls or nonbinary folks.
lol funny. We all know we are dogs using the internet while the humans are at work.
Yall are dogs to right?
Yes
I used proton once…
Same. I get notices from my ISP on occasion but nothing of consequence.
Can’t you borrow games at the library?
Not at mine. We have board games and telescopes though.
You can also torrent games at the library
In Austria you totally can and it costs € 30 / year. But for the new ones you can simply torrent them because nobody cares here.
Read the megathread ffs, use ProtonVPN
Proton is not that good bro. At least not the free version. I kind of hate when people suggest it because just like other free vpns, the free version is designed to not work well. It does basic browsing very well but you are not gonna torrent with it.
for direct downloads it works, however I tried to torrent on it and it disabled and said “no p2p”. I pay for mullvad now and have no regrets
Don’t use Proton, use Mullvad.
That said, if you’re only paying for a VPN so you can torrent, you’re better off getting a Debrid service instead (like Real-Debrid). It’s cheaper and gets you direct downloads to any torrent you want at 1Gbps speeds.
This is the way. Plus you can set up RD through Stremio/various Kodi add-ons so you can stream shows and movies directly from them. And! They even give you credits when you pay for service, that you can then redeem for more service. Pretty nifty 🙂
I may or may not have torrented so many games, software, movies and albums without any VPN. It went well for years until we got one of those letters.
Woops, looks like I left my Wi-Fi network open. Must have been my neighbor ;)
If you live in a country that requires a vpn to torrent, you can probably afford video games.
Wrong, you probably can afford a temporary license to play a video game.
This is always such a stupid take. Just force fully encrypted traffic in your torrent client… No VPN necessary.
This is wrong, torrenting is mostly caught by reviewing the peers list of torrents with infringing content, not analyzing the traffic. Only a VPN (or Seedbox) masks your IP, or alternatively private trackers are rare to get monitored.
Okay so I think you are talking about getting caught by a copyright holder, and I am talking about getting caught by your Internet service provider. The alternative (free) solution to the former is just to use private trackers. The alternative (free) solution to the latter is to fully encrypt your traffic.
80$ games btw.
If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen! 🏴☠️
Sure will… in 10 years when its $3 on sale because borderlands 69 is being released soon.
Lifetime VPN sub. Makes it a one-time purchase.
This sounds as unsustainable as free vpns
Because it is. Just recently some VPN provider I already forgot the name of cancelled all lifetime subscriptions. There were multiple posts on Lemmy about it.
Ten years and counting for me and VPN Unlimited so far. Unsustainable? Capitalism is un-sustainable. Cheaper than paying monthly or yearly? Absolutely.
Personally, I use the VPN to do my searches, grab magnet links, and get the torrent started, then I disconnect the VPN and switch to Cell data, as that ISP has never sent me a nasty-gram about pirating.
Reasonably sure Nord is still turning a profit on my sub.
How do you mean?
It is not that difficult to understand. Selling a service that costs money each month to run for a one time price is not sustainable.
Not really. It depends on the pricing.
My issue is that the service have little incentive to keep up a quality standard, unless it’s in the contract…
Oh I see, you meant from the supplier side. I thought you meant it was unsustainable from the consumer side, thanks for clarifying ✌️
Now I’m wondering how costly it is to run Nebula, because they have a 300$ one time payment (equivalent of 5 years of subscription)
Desde los 2000 sin VPN y me he salvado de todas
protonvpn
the free tier doesn’t support P2P
until proton’s ceo was all “o captain my captain” about trump and the “good things” that trump is doing
As much as i hate people who do this, IMO this is not what the parent comment was doing. This is the wrong moment to use this comic.
Mullvad vpn
Mullvad lost me when they stopped allowing port forward
they aren’t free really,.
It’s hella cheaper tho
