Windscribe VPN developments [other vpn's welcome]

[BBSA]

The Danish government wants the public to weigh in on its proposed laws restricting use of VPNs to access certain corners of the internet.

Proposed amendments to the country's laws on copyright and broadcasting would see VPNs limited for common uses under changes to combat access to illegal streaming services.

As per the current draft, the restriction would extend to all media content that would otherwise not be available in Denmark, as well as the use of VPNs to access blocked or illegal websites.

Denmark takes a Viking swing at VPN-enabled piracy

: Minister insists 'modest' bill is not an assault on privacy-preserving tech

www.theregister.com

 

[w1z4rd]

The Danish government wants the public to weigh in on its proposed laws restricting use of VPNs to access certain corners of the internet.

Proposed amendments to the country's laws on copyright and broadcasting would see VPNs limited for common uses under changes to combat access to illegal streaming services.

As per the current draft, the restriction would extend to all media content that would otherwise not be available in Denmark, as well as the use of VPNs to access blocked or illegal websites.

Denmark takes a Viking swing at VPN-enabled piracy

: Minister insists 'modest' bill is not an assault on privacy-preserving tech

www.theregister.com

Dont think they can stop it. Both Mullvad and Windscribe are censorship resistant, though it appears Mullvad is better at this.



Just a reminder that you do not need to use a VPN to have a secure connection out onto the Internet. SSH tunnels also work.

 

[Brian_G]

(quoting article)

As per the current draft, the restriction would extend to all media content that would otherwise not be available in Denmark, as well as the use of VPNs to access blocked or illegal websites.

That "blocked" part worried me. So read more;

The document outlining the proposals did not mention how the government plans to implement this.

However, it stated that in whatever form the provision is made, it should be tech-neutral to account for future developments, and said the broad wording of the proposal was intentional so that objectionable technology in the future could also be dealt with under the same legislative amendments.

Hmmm..

Fortunately there is much resistance, and this also reveals more about why;

The Danish government could be seen as limiting the public's freedoms because of its failure to adequately prevent illegal streaming websites from violating copyright laws in unreachable jurisdictions. Privacy activists, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Paige Collings, hold these kinds of views on the OSA, saying the new laws were more about censorship than safety.

She said a potential ban on VPNs to prevent bypasses of age assurance mechanisms represent "a terrifying effort to exercise authoritarian control on accessing information."

...

Broad public opposition to the VPN plans comes amid a tense political environment for tech regulation in Europe.

...

While the two policy proposals are distinct, Denmark was an ardent supporter of the wildly unpopular Chat Control regulations until Germany's key opposing vote in October forced it to back off. The timing of the VPN consultation may elicit further unease about the country's attitude toward privacy-preserving technologies.

 

[Brian_G]

Dont think they can stop it. Both Mullvad and Windscribe are censorship resistant, though it appears Mullvad is better at this.

Seems more about forcing restrictions on the local VPN servers. Knowing Windscribe's attitude and legal successes to date, the Danes would have to ban the service instead, which I'm sure they won't dare do.

 

[cat41]

A popular Chrome extension marketed as a privacy-focused VPN has been exposed for intercepting private AI conversations from millions of users.


According to security researchers at Koi, Urban VPN Proxy secretly collected chats from platforms including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude beginning in July 2025.

The extension injected scripts that captured prompts, AI responses, timestamps, and session metadata, which were then transmitted to Urban VPN servers for marketing analytics.

The data collection was enabled by default, could not be disabled, and continued even when the VPN was turned off.

Seven related extensions contained the same code, affecting more than eight million users.

Follow us (@therundownAI) To keep up with the latest news in Tech & AI.

Source: The Hacker News

 

[BBSA]

Denmark’s government has scrapped a part of a legislative proposal that would have banned the use of VPNs to access content not available in Denmark.

Denmark drops plan to restrict use of VPNs

Denmark’s government has scrapped a part of a legislative proposal that would have banned the use of VPNs to access content not available in Denmark.

www.thelocal.dk

 

[Brian_G]

Anyone else been having * regular throttling-like problems with MTN + Windscribe (etc.) use?
(In my case on a LTE plan)

Been doing research & experiments, plus getting help from the Garry bot - here's the results which may help;

MTN don't appear to like or properly accept the proprietary Wireguard tunneling protocol. Apparently that's a common problem.
UDP protocol with port 80 achieving best results so far. Quite a large difference.
The other non-default recommended port is 1194. (These only best with UDP.)
The protocol to try next would be TCP.

Pinging helps too, but not with the default built in desktop keep-alive pinger settings for this (haven't tried advanced parameters yet). More frequent than every 10 seconds does enough here.


* There's also been peak hour throttling by MTN on LTE due to congestion (which only they could have caused).
MTN have admitted this (in earlier threads).



Edit: We've since discovered other options which help this issue further, but some things still need to be sorted out.
At this stage we're standing back and observing the situation.

 

[w1z4rd]

Anyone else been having * regular throttling-like problems with MTN + Windscribe (etc.) use?
(In my case on a LTE plan)

Been doing research & experiments, plus getting help from the Garry bot - here's the results which may help;

MTN don't appear to like or properly accept the proprietary Wireguard tunneling protocol. Apparently that's a common problem.
UDP protocol with port 80 achieving best results so far. Quite a large difference.
The other non-default recommended port is 1194. (These only best with UDP.)
The protocol to try next would be TCP.

Pinging helps too, but not with the default built in desktop keep-alive pinger settings for this (haven't tried advanced parameters yet). More frequent than every 10 seconds does enough here.


* There's also been peak hour throttling by MTN on LTE due to congestion (which only they could have caused).
MTN have admitted this (in earlier threads).

I dont have MTN so can not test for you. I would be interested in testing out Mullvad`s and Winscribes censorship evasion on their shaping.


The wISP I use doesnt seem to throttle anything and wireguard runs as fast as my Internet without a vpn. . Good luck

 

[BBSA]

I used Windscribe to watch a few series on BBC iPlayer. I’m on MTN 5G and had no issues at all.

 

[Brian_G]

The wISP I use doesnt seem to throttle anything and wireguard runs as fast as my Internet without a vpn. . Good luck

Who's your wISP?

(Our LTE needs are low, happy enough with 20/20 (changing soon to 30/30) and 300GB pm. And the price is right.)

 

[BBSA]

Who's your wISP?

(Our LTE needs are low, happy enough with 20/20 (changing soon to 30/30) and 300GB pm. And the price is right.)

This is better, the first 300g is at normal speeds

 

[w1z4rd]

Who's your wISP?

(Our LTE needs are low, happy enough with 20/20 (changing soon to 30/30) and 300GB pm. And the price is right.)

Herotel. I dont notice my VPN with them.

 

[Brian_G]

I used Windscribe to watch a few series on BBC iPlayer. I’m on MTN 5G and had no issues at all.

Streaming / downloading, BBC included, all had some issues, especially at certain times of the day. Above changes have made it work properly now.
Maybe you'll see a difference when they bring out 6G

This is better, the first 300g is at normal speeds

View attachment 1872219

I'll consider it, thanks.

"5G connectivity dependent" sounds ominous.. how long have you been with them?

 

[BBSA]

Streaming / downloading, BBC included, all had some issues, especially at certain times of the day. Above changes have made it work properly now.
Maybe you'll see a difference when they bring out 6G



I'll consider it, thanks.

"5G connectivity dependent" sounds ominous.. how long have you been with them?

About 6 months.

Yes, you do need 5g coverage.

 

[Brian_G]

About 6 months.

We were fine for the first year + with MTN, so not trusting anyone (yet) with wireless longer term...

 

[BBSA]

Securing today for the quantum future: WARP client now supports post-quantum cryptography (PQC)

Securing today for the quantum future: WARP client now supports post-quantum cryptography (PQC)

To prepare for a future where powerful quantum computers come online, we've upgraded our WARP client with post-quantum cryptography. This protects both consumers and enterprises from adversaries that harvest Internet traffic now and then decrypt it in the future using powerful quantum computers.

blog.cloudflare.com

 

[Fulcrum29]

OT:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2019529769008685438

THIS IS NOT A DRILL: The Dutch authorities, without a warrant, just seized one of our VPN servers saying they'll give it back after they "fully analyze it". Windscribe uses RAM disk servers so the only thing the authorities will find is a stock Ubuntu install. The bigger worry is the unredacted Epstein files we had on there...

I am curious why they are posting about this? Many nodes are "RAM" nodes. Forensics will know this, so they won't transport the server, or rather "disks", in a powerless state. Unless there is something else.

 

[w1z4rd]

OT:

https://twitter.com/x/status/2019529769008685438

I am curious why they are posting about this? Many nodes are "RAM" nodes. Forensics will know this, so they won't transport the server, or rather "disks", in a powerless state. Unless there is something else.

@Brian_G What on earth are you doing on their network?

 

[Fulcrum29]

@Brian_G What on earth are you doing on their network?

https://twitter.com/x/status/2019592852901359939

 

[Brian_G]

Windscribe doing a personal interesting exercise for me this week, which their bot, Garry volunteered.

Relates to ongoing issues with MTN's illegal LTE throttling / buffering (history in another thread).

12:01:34 UTC | garry: Oh lovely, sounds like your ISP’s running some kind of “national hobbyist Orwellian regime” setup. If they're that aggressive — consistent throttling, packet inspection, maybe even keyword-based throttling — then you’re in the territory where **normal WireGuard, OpenVPN, or even DNS tweaks won’t cut it**. Here’s what I’d do, step by step: .........
..... 3. If it’s still getting strangled, try **AmneziaWG configs**, which disguise WireGuard traffic entirely (I can help you get those set up, but I’ll need to know your **OS**, **current country**, and **preferred location**). Want to go that deep? I can prep the special config parameters for you.

Garry later added;

These configs will let you sidestep Deep Packet Inspection entirely — looks like harmless encrypted mush to your ISP. Want me to get the humans to cook that up for you?