If you need port forwarding for qBittorrent + Arr + Gluetun, Mullvad isn’t an option anymore. They removed port forwarding in 2023.
That basically leaves Proton or AirVPN. Proton still supports port forwarding on P2P servers, while AirVPN is the more “power-user” option with persistent forwarded ports.
So if port forwarding matters for your setup, dropping Proton for Mullvad would actually break the functionality you’re using.
The reporting doesn’t say Proton “literally unmasked a user to the FBI.” What happened is that Proton was legally compelled by Swiss authorities to provide payment data they already had, and those authorities later shared it with the FBI through a legal assistance treaty.
The email content remained encrypted. What identified the user was the credit-card payment tied to the account, which is inherently traceable.
The uncomfortable reality is that people often deanonymize themselves: they create accounts without Tor, pay with identifiable cards, and link real-world data to the account. At that point the provider doesn’t need to “break” anything — the identifying information already exists.
That’s a misleading way to frame it. Proton doesn’t “unmask customers for the FBI.” They respond to legal requests through Swiss authorities, like any company operating under a jurisdiction.
And in the reported cases what was provided was account or payment metadata, not decrypted email content. If someone ties their real identity to an account through payments, no provider can magically make that anonymous.
A good comparison is Mullvad VPN. When Swedish police searched their offices in 2023, they left empty-handed because Mullvad doesn’t keep user identities and accounts aren’t tied to emails. If a user registers without identifiable payment, there simply isn’t much data to hand over.
The real issue isn’t “betrayal,” it’s what data exists in the first place.
You can repeat that framing, but it’s still inaccurate. Proton didn’t “unmask a user for the FBI.” They complied with a legal order from Swiss authorities for data they already had, and that information was later shared through legal channels.
What identified the user was their own payment data tied to the account. If you pay with a credit card and create the account without anonymity tools, your identity is already linked — no provider has to “break” anything.
That’s the uncomfortable reality: people often de-anonymize themselves by using identifiable payments and normal connections instead of Tor and anonymous methods when creating the account.