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.
10TB per month, is that uploads and downloads combined? If so that's a 1gbps at full speed for 12hours
I do not work there, just referenced the terms of conditions from their website, so you need to ask them the questions, but I think having a 1Gb connection with 30TB of seeding will eat up that pretty fast either way and also cause a mayhem of incoming connections, so it can hardly be considered private use (based on their definition)
Again, I have no reference to the company, so all questions should be forwarded to them not me. I simply gave a possible reasoning of the ban from their terms.
edit: added info about their definition of private use
Wasn't aimed at you, more of an observation, fttp in the UK is usually sold as 150/150 or 900/900(ish) with some areas having the option for 2.5gbps it's like when it first launched and ISPs had usage quotas that could be gone in 3 hours of full usage
sorry, since you asked a question I just felt the need to clarify 🙂
The ISP products you mentioned really don’t seem consumer-friendly. I understand that ISPs might benefit from setting byte limits, since they incur costs for both inbound and outbound traffic to transit providers. However, from a consumer perspective, it's a poor deal—especially since most people don’t have the tools to manage their usage effectively and can burn through their quota far too quickly, just like you pointed out.
It all comes down to costs and earnings in the end for all products unfortunately.