I landed on Mint because it’s a simple no fuss distro that feels familiar to Windows refugees. I game on it just fine and use my computer for a lot of things so wanted something general. I bounced off Ubuntu because it has some decisions that are trying to protect you from actually learning Linux, which is a priority to me.

As a professional spreadsheet pusher, I can confidently say that LibreOffice (the Linux version of MS Office) has been able to do everything I needed that word/excel can, and then some.

But really any distro will be able to install the software you need, and it’s easy to switch. Just try it and have fun.

Thanks for explaining. There is a lot of conflicting information out here - do you have any sources for where I can learn more?

See my response to feebleneedle. No port forwarding limits connections

Were you using a VPN at the time? I was under the impression that the issue is at standard anything involving ports just doesn’t work with a VPN because it would be trying to get to the port on the VPN, which the VPN would rightly refuse unless you’d set it up to forward that port

Do you know where I can learn more about this? That’s a pretty important detail to be as glossed over as it is in this community

Doesn’t that completely defeat the purpose of using a VPN?

Mullvad is great if privacy is your only metric, but it’s not unique in that respect and no port forwarding is a serious limitation in this context. I’ve been looking into alternatives and AirVPN and OVPN both look reputable.

See my response to feebleneedle. It works, but it’s not just that it’s slower. Port forwarding is important for the health of the community.

AirVPN and OVPN are options that seem to be of similar integrity to Mullvad.

I think it’s both? I’m assuming you get fewer seeds you can connect to as well.

Either way, seeding issues are leeching issues, in the grand scheme of things.

Edit: I only stress the seed side because I’ve found I get things plenty fast even with Mullvad, so not explaining the issue and just talking about down speed can make it seem unnecessary, when it is in fact critical to the health of the community.

Without port forwarding you can only connect to those who do have it set up. Doing so yourself allows you to be a better citizen of the internet and share with people who don’t know what it is.

(Caveat: I am one of those people who don’t understand it and am just parroting what was explained to me when I asked about this)

As someone who went with the Mullvad suggestion despite having heard about port forwarding, I think a big part of why is because whenever it comes up people don’t take the time to explain why port forwarding is important. Until I asked in this thread the only thing I’d seen is some vague handwaving about it being faster.

I’ve only just dipped my toes in so maybe this is off base, but the community seems to have an elitism problem. If the people who know are dismissive of ignorant noobs who want to learn, the long term health of the community suffers for it.

Oh yikes. Thanks for explaining!

What’s wrong with not using port forwarding?

It works for me… I think it’s something like it goes faster with port forwarding but to be honest I don’t know the details.

As a general rule, if you’re getting a service for free, you’re the product.

I don’t know much about the downsides of free in the context of VPNs, as I didn’t really get in to the technical ins and outs. But when we’re talking security and privacy I think the cost of supporting something good and sustainable is well worth it.

I’ve heard port forwarding is helpful for speed, and that might be a paid only thing, but to be honest I’m consistently surprised by how fast things go for me just using mullvad.

Another thing you may wish to consider: the Proton CEO has praised Trump which is a huge red flag to me in the privacy space.

These resources are really all you need, but they’re all individually quite focused so for a new person it can be hard to see the forest.

An overview:

For movies, streaming sites are fine.

To start torrenting safely:

• get a paid vpn (i use mullvad)
• download qbittorrent or the like
• find a public tracker from the megathead, general ones are easy/convenient for starting imo
• virus scan/use common sense/be careful