Considering getting Mullvad. Need Help

VPN
1

So I originally wanted to get Express but then I heard a bunch of bad stuff about Express and alot of good stuff about Mullvad so I think I’ll be going with Mull. But I wanted to know stuff first. I know nothing about VPN stuff. After getting a strike notice I’ve been looking for VPN’s that are good for torrenting.

If I get Mullvad, what do I need to do to be completely secure? What settings do I need to implement, or are the default settings enough? Does Mullvad protect me against dns leaks, whatever they are I don’t know? Does Mull have a kill switch? How can I make sure I never get another copyright strike with Mullvad?

2

“Completely secure”? Not likely, my friend. I’m fairly knowledgeable, and I know that I’m not completely secure.

You are taking a step in the right direction if you are trying to browse more “privately and anonymously”, though.

That said, I have been a big fan of Mullvad. It’s really fast and really anonymous, especially if you set up your account by mailing cash to Mullvad. They don’t ask for your email address or any other identifiable information from you. It may take a week or two for your payment to be received (depending on if you mail it overseas) and your account number to become loaded.

Your 16 digit account number is all you use to enable the VPN. I would recommend using their WireGuard protocol. It is lighter on CPU resources than OpenVPN and can have faster speeds, depending on your max network bandwidth.

Keep in mind that if you primarily intend to do location spoofing to stream Netflix, Amazon Prime, or other streaming services in other countries, Mullvad is not a great choice. If you plan on doing something like torrenting, or just browsing privately, Mullvad works great.

If you are interested in torrenting, you should download qBittorrent as your torrenting app. qBittorrent is the best out there - it’s light on resources, no ads, and very configurable. In the qB Advanced settings, change the Network value to the “Mullvad” virtual network adapter. This way, if the Mullvad VPN temporarily drops out (all VPNs do), qB won’t automatically switch to another non-VPN network interface and start accidentally broadcasting your IP address to the world. If the VPN connection drops, your qB internet connection is immediately disconnected at the same time - no “kill switch” required.

If you are interested in browsing privately and anonymously, I would recommend setting up an alternate “VPN Use Only” browser that you only use while on the VPN. Firefox works very well for this, but you can use other browsers. Under that browser’s “Proxy” settings, select a Manual Proxy configuration. For the SOCKS Host, use 10.64.0.1 port 1080, and select SOCKS v5 as your protocol. With Firefox, select “Proxy DNS when using Socks v5” to use Mullvad’s DNS server. Also in Firefox, make absolutely sure you disable “Enable DNS over HTTPS”, or you’ll be scratching your head on why you don’t seem to be able to connect to the internet.

After you finish these setups, it’s time to test your security!

For Firefox, enable your Mullvad VPN, and make sure that you can browse the web. Go to Mullvad.net and make sure that it shows you connected to their VPN servers. Do Mullvad’s leak test. You should pass all tests. After that, disable the VPN, and make sure that Firefox can’t connect to the internet anymore.

For qB, it’s a similar test. Connect to the VPN and see that you can torrent. Then, while torrenting, disable the VPN and watch your torrent download speeds drop down to zero and stay there.

Good luck!

Rick

3

For Mullvad :

  • Use WireGuard
  • Consider using owned servers because they tend to be more secure and have less latency
  • In your browser, enable HTTPS mode only, a VPN does not encrypt unsecured connections, it only encrypts the connection between your device and the VPN server, but not between the VPN server and the website server
  • Check for DNS leaks with this test

For torrenting :

  • Use qBittorrent
  • In the cog icon for options, go to Connexion tab and use TPC as a peer connection protocol and in the BitTorrent tab, enable anonymous mode
  • In the Advanced tab, then under “Network Interface”, select “Mullvad”
4

To be secure change your password and browsing habits. Mullvad is yet another layer to security, not the end all be all. Mullvad does protect from DNS leaks and has a kill switch. Be sure to use wireguard and it’s a great VPN.

5

Also try WireGuardNT for better Windows performance!

“… massively improved throughput on 10Gbps LAN connections—and on many WI-Fi connections, as well.”

https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2021/10/28/try-wireguardnt-better-windows-performance/

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/08/wireguard-goes-fully-windows-native-with-experimental-wireguardnt-driver/

6

This is good advice, can confirm.

7

will Utorrent work just as well?

8

I actually went back to openvpn because their wireguard servers seem too congested in the evenening.

I still hit the same speeds.

9

so you’re saying I should get a second VPN on top of Mullvad?

10

Don’t take this as gospel, it’s more of a vague recollection, but I think people moved away from uTorr a few years ago when they made attempts to monetize. Unwanted software add-ins, A/V flags, etc. qBit is more what uTorr was beforehand. Almost identical gui. I’ve used it for several years and it works well. Can’t speak to the current state of uTorr.

11

qBittorrent is basically the same thing minus the ads and with more settings so just use that

12

so you’re saying I should get a second VPN on top of Mullvad?

No, all modern browsers support HTTPS only mode, which means that HTTP connections are blocked, look in your browser settings, often in the privacy and security tab, all Chromium-based browsers (Google Chrome, Edge, Brave) and Gecko-based browsers (Firefox) should support it, if your browser doesn’t offer you this option, change your browser.

HTTPS only mode has been implemented for all thanks to the efforts of the EFF with its extension, HTTPS Everywhere, it is no longer useful to use it.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/https-only-prefs

https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/10468685#https-only-mode

13

I’d copy this advice word for word if it meant I’d be able to download stuff. I’ll switch to qBittorrents regardless. It seems to be the program most people who have VPN’s go for. These instructions though seem alot complicated

14

Don’t worry, u/cakemakesteak! It’s really not complicated at all.

And, if you run into problems with your setup, you have your friends right here on Mullvad reddit to help you out and get you running! If you see me online, you can send me a chat request.

The only delay will be mailing the cash to Mullvad and waiting for them to activate your account number. Go to mullvad.net, and click on the “Generate Account” button. You’ll get your random account number, and mailing instructions for sending their form and where to send the cash. After a week or so, just start the Mullvad app up once a day, and see if your account number has become active by connecting to the VPN. You’re at the mercy of the mail service and it’s the holiday season, so a little patience is required. If you like Mullvad, you can send them cash in the future well ahead of your cutoff date so that you don’t have a break in service.

Cheers,

Rick