IVPN customers can no longer use port forwarding from Saturday, September 30. The VPN provider explains why some members abuse this option by offering ‘offensive material’. This, in turn, has negative consequences for the entire VPN network IVPN writes this in a statement.
IVPN points to ‘large-scale abuse’ of port forwarding
IVPN is a VPN provider that has been operating out of Gibraltar for over a decade. Although IVPN does not have the name recognition of companies such as NordVPN or ExpressVPN, it offers secure and fast VPN servers. Other pluses are that IVPN keeps no logs, is transparent about the privacy terms and offers multi-hop plus a kill switch. Do you want to know more about this VPN provider? Then read our IVPN review.Via a press release, IVPN states that guaranteeing stability is the highest priority. In order to continue to deliver on this promise, the VPN provider has decided to phase out port forwarding from the IVPN Pro subscription.”Port forwarding enables activities such as large-scale abuse and sharing of offensive material, which can negatively impact our servers and operations. While the majority of customers do not use the feature for such purposes, the actions of a few may have unwanted consequences for the entire VPN network,” the company writes.
IVPN promises to improve customer experience and service
When other VPN providers announced they were ending port forwarding, new customers signed up for IVPN in droves. Due to this influx, the dangers and risks of port forwarding have suddenly become ‘many times greater’.”A significant increase in law enforcement investigations and a deterioration in data centre relationships could threaten our ability to continue to serve our customers,” the VPN provider emphasizes.Because IVPN does not keep logs, the company does not know which customers are responsible for any misuse of port forwarding. After long deliberation, IVPN has decided, as a precaution, to no longer offer this service in the short term. “We expect this move to result in more favourable load and bandwidth on our endpoints. These changes should enable a better customer experience for our subscribers,” said IVPN.
‘Small percentage’ will experience problems
What does this mean? Existing customers with an IVPN Pro subscription can still use port forwarding until Saturday, September 30. From that date, IVPN will definitively pull the plug from the service. New customers are no longer offered the service at all. In the meantime, anyone who disables a reserved port can no longer activate it.The Gibraltar-based VPN provider believes only a ‘small percentage’ of customers will experience problems if port forwarding is no longer available. For ‘the vast majority’, the service will improve even further.
Mullvad is also ending port forwarding
IVPN isn’t the only VPN provider to end port forwarding. Mullvad announced that it would do the same at the end of May. The Swedish VPN provider said the service was being abused too much.”This has led law enforcement to contact us, our IP addresses have been blacklisted, and hosting providers have cancelled us. As a result, it negatively affects most of our users, as they cannot use our service without blocked services,” said Mullvad.Port forwarding is a network solution to reach your computer or other devices on your home network while you are away from home. Examples include game servers, media servers, and web servers. To ensure that your modem and router’s firewall don’t block traffic from outside your home network, you must specify that traffic coming in through a specific port should be allowed through.