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Firefox partners with ProtonVPN
- threatofrain 8y ago1. -- 2. Also, is ProtonVPN such a stronger contender than the rest of the field that Mozilla would endorse them? 3. And what is Mozilla's final relationship between you and ProtonVPN? Why are they relevant as a middleman?
- red023 8y agoThey probably "teamed up" because Proton is paying FX a shit load of cash so they promote their higher price model to the all so valued users who are getting brainwashed into Chrome as we speak. Not sure if this "deal" will help with that.
- Yoric 8y agoIt's actually exactly the same price, if you untick the "Anually" button on the ProtonVPN page. Also, Mozilla actually audited ProtonVPN. I have no idea whether any other VPN have been audited by independent third-parties.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- 4aceb14e 8y agoI feel Firefox could be quite a bit more attractive, if it did less. I don't want my browser integrated with one particular VPN. I don't want Pocket on by default and hard to get rid of.
- threatofrain 8y agoI also agree that Firefox needs to work on beautification and marketing. But I'm happy Firefox did Pocket because I view that as a cross-platform readability and bookmark strategy that other companies makeup for through their platform. Even if Pocket ultimately folds, I'd want Mozilla to do something else in that place. Like if Mozilla knows that iOS users by wide margins use Safari, how are they supposed to get their bookmarks to them?
- snek 8y agodamned if they do, damned if they don't
- TheCraiggers 8y agoIt's almost as if giving users options and letting them opt out of things is the way to go. Who would have guessed.
- detaro 8y agoApparently not, since the opening comment complains about an optional VPN offering and a service integration you can turn off.
- itsreallyme 8y agoYou can already opt into Proton VPN. See, it's right here: https://protonvpn.com/ https://protonvpn.com/ So that's the point; don't bake features into my browser that point me to one company when the whole purpose of a browser in the first place is to be able to visit web pages... like https://protonvpn.com/ https://protonvpn.com/. This is about only one thing: money (affiliate sales).
- TheCraiggers 8y agoWhile I'm sure some money exchanged hands, this is obviously not just a marketing move. We live in a world where VPN are a must if you want to have any expectation of privacy. Giving people easier access to these services is not a bad thing. Mozilla has a privacy-minded vision for the internet. Regardless if you agree with their vision, they are at least following it. Also, if it's true that Mozilla is auditing ProtonVPN, that is a huge benefit to everyone. The biggest issue with VPNs are you're forced to trust this new company that they'll do as they say with your data (namely that they don't harvest or store any of it). To me, that's a huge thing.
- spac 8y agoIt's also about evangelization, I think. I bet that there is a substantial amount of users of Firefox that do not know what a VPN is, nor how to choose among the very many providers. Without entering in the merit of the choice of provider, I feel it is a good idea, that aligns with the mission of Mozilla and the need of generating income. If I remember correctly, the Mozilla foundation was mainly supported by Google money: having forms of independent income generation is both necessary for any sustainable non-profit, and desirable to maintain, indeed, independence.
- Yoric 8y agoHave you tried Firefox Lite? (Android only, I believe)
- 4aceb14e 8y agoThat is the version I am running on mobile.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kgwxd 8y agoI assume this still works at the network level and not the browser level? If so, the association with Firefox is just confusing things. If not, it's dumb.
- tenryuu 8y agoLinks to the homepage for me, is this article region specific?
- cift 8y agoSearching around turned up this blog post, looks like it's US only https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2018/10/22/testing-new-ways-to-keep-you-safe-online/ https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2018/10/22/testing-n...
- MordodeMaru 8y agoHow can one subscribe to this?
- nothrabannosir 8y agoBy using a VPN :)
- MordodeMaru 8y agoIt's prolly me that I am dumb and don't get it but I am already a Proton VPN paid user. On top of that I have to pay $10? What the fucking fuck?
- cift 8y agoDid they take the page down? I'm getting redirected to the Firefox homepage
- planderos 8y agoThis is a US-only test. You’re only supposed to get the link through an offer inside Firefox. Direct access to the website just redirects if you’re outside the US at the moment.
- gpm 8y agoI only use firefox. But I don't feel like I can strongly recommend it because of the long list of bad decisions. - Google analytics baked into about:addons - Sending data to Cliqz - Pocket, as a service being added to the topbar - Pocket, as a service being added to the default home/newtab page - Firefox hello - Completely banning unsigned addons - Mr. Robot advert - And now probably this I want a browser that is reliable, high quality, respects my privacy, and nothing else. I don't want addons baked into it. I don't want to be spied on.
- nykolasz 8y agoAgree. Isn't that why we have extensions for?
- PurpleRamen 8y agoMaybe we need a light fork which removes all those problematic parts on each release?
- markstos 8y agoSome of this problematic points are historical and resolved, like the Mr. Robot advert.
- btgis 8y agoThe fact that there are so many points just means we all have to sit and wait to see what the Mozilla Corporation does next. It does not matter if they resolve every grave transgression they do, I already have 0 trust placed on them.
- PurpleRamen 8y agoMaybe with a user-orientated fork the ability which allowed the Mr. Robot-thing would be gone too. As I remember it's a sketchy part which is not neccessary for the basic functionality.
- mtgx 8y ago> Pocket, as a service being added to the topbar > Pocket, as a service being added to the default home/newtab page Is that really worse than Mozilla allowing all of your Google searches (from the new tabs) to go through Google? At least it owns Pocket. Mozilla needs to make money somehow. Promoting its own services doesn't seem nearly as bad as the partnership with Google, in my opinion.
- nykolasz 8y agoThere are multiple extensions and VPN products out there (some better and some worse), so why are they choosing who wins or loses here. I know it is because of $, but I hate the direction they have been taking lately.
- gpm 8y agoIf they did something like search engines, where they have a large list with someone as the default and the ability to add more, I might be ok with it. But certainly not with this sort of advertising. The number of people installing adblock should tell them that their users don't want to see advertising.
- notamerican 8y agoThat money has to come from somewhere; I'd happily pay for Firefox but most people wouldn't and it's not cheap developing a browser. Their outreach, web literacy, and STEM education work is also not cheap and is doing amazing work. It would be nice for them to list two or three VPNs they've audited though. Their endorsement goes a long way for many people and we would still have a choice then.
- markstos 8y agoIf you click Subscribe, you'll see the money goes through Firefox. Why not point directly to Proton's own subscription page?
- markstos 8y agoI generally distrust VPN providers and appreciate a recommendation from a brand that I generally do trust.
- JackC 8y agoI'm really excited about this idea, but I also think it isn't fully baked yet. I'm excited because VPNs are all about shifting trust: I'm no longer trusting Comcast not to sell my data, I'm now trusting SketchyVPN. If SketchyVPN turns out not to be trustworthy, then I'm paying for something that is worth less than $0 to me, and there's no way to detect that as a user. It's like paying more for organic food in a town where farm stands are paid to lace organic food with arsenic -- why would you? For VPN service, I trust Mozilla more than to just about anybody: they're nonprofit, have clear and transparent governance, have many mission-driven employees, and would lose more than they could possibly gain by breaking the terms of service on a VPN. They also have a big enough profile that it takes no extra effort to stay up to date on how trustworthy they are -- they do make missteps, but every misstep hits the front page of HN, which is exactly what I want. If they run a VPN, I'm sold that it's worth more than $0. But the service isn't fully baked yet for me, because they're not explaining how they're enforcing the trustworthiness of ProtonVPN. I have no idea if ProtonVPN is as trustworthy as Mozilla -- maybe it is, but I don't want to learn and stay on top of that. Instead I want premium.firefox.com/vpn/ to convince me that, if I use Mozilla's service, I'm fully benefiting from their trustworthiness.
- Yoric 8y agoSo if I understand correctly, you would want to know the details of how Mozilla audited ProtonVPN, is that it?
- JackC 8y agoRight -- I'm looking for a white-paper level of detail somewhere behind the landing-page level of detail. What threats (internal and external) did you consider, what evidence convinced you they were addressed, and what acceptable risks remain? What would you as an engineer want to be told by another engineer who did the audit, for you to say "great, that's what I would have done, sounds like you did your due diligence, I'll use that"? The white paper won't be read by everybody and shouldn't be targeted at everybody, but it will be read by the most knowledgeable folks and be a source of confidence that filters out to everyone else. This all depends on there actually being an audit -- so far the landing page doesn't even say that! From the text on the page there's no way to tell if Mozilla just read the published policies for a bunch of VPNs and made a recommendation, or has an employee embedded in ProtonVPN's security team and a seat on the board, or somewhere in between. Without knowing the details, it's hard for me to say whether I'm looking for more documentation of the audit that already happened, or a stronger actual relationship behind the endorsement.
- silon42 8y agoDo these services actually provide a (virtual) private network. For example: can I see my home machine and my phone on the same private network? And then connect them using ssh/scp?
- velcrovan 8y agoFirst question: yes, they provide a virtual private network between you and the service endpoint. Second question: no, it's not a general-purpose VPN. It's purely for cloaking traffic to and from anywhere on the internet.
- 0-_-0 8y agoIs there a service that can do the second?
- krisnelson 8y agoZeroTier (https://www.zerotier.com/ https://www.zerotier.com/ ) does this. I use it successfully on Windows, Linux, Mac. I've heard positive things about Tinc as well (https://tinc-vpn.org/ https://tinc-vpn.org/).
- ghostly_s 8y agoTypically if you're trying to provide VPN access to your own private network, you would run your own VPN server on that network.
- woodrowbarlow 8y agowhen considering different VPN services based on privacy criteria, this site is helpful: https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-comparison-chart/ https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-comparison-chart/ for example, i can see the ProtonVPN is hosted in Switzerland, and that Switzerland cooperates with Five-Eyes countries (according to Privacy International) by sharing intelligence information regarding citizens of Five-Eyes countries (including the US). this is a relatively mild concern, compared to VPNs hosted in one of the Fourteen-Eyes countries. i can also see they use AES-256 for all data encryption. good. however, their terms of service and marketing material contain conflicting language regarding what information is logged, and details are not provided about how long logs are kept and whether these logs are personally identifiable. (running a truly "no logs" VPN service isn't really possible.) at the network level, they appear to follow open standards and everything is implemented in a predictable manner. bandwidth looks good, but speeds and pricing are sub-par. i've used ProtonVPN. i appreciate that they expose the details necessary to configure VPN using the built-in OS-level or router-level configuration screens, rather than requiring that you use their custom app. ultimately, the low speed (compared to similarly-priced VPN services) is what turned me away. it is neither the most privacy-conscious, nor most capable, nor highest value solution in the VPN market and i'm surprised to see this offering come through Mozilla. it's a weird endorsement.
- brokensegue 8y agothe proton team has an office in SF negating the advantages of being overseas
- notamerican 8y agoThat being said, you don't need to provide your real identity to sign up; in fact, you're encouraged not to. So, it's a lot harder to identify a particular user. Switzerland has _extremely_ good banking privacy laws so they can't be required to disclose credit card details, so that's an identifying link not available to Five-Eyes. Plus, you can pay in BTC. I'm not sure about what's required for a company in Switzerland to be compelled to share information with Five-Eyes but I expect they would have to be ordered to by the Federal government; a hard feat given how privacy friendly they are, and how the Cantonal government of Geneva have additional privacy laws.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- newscracker 8y agoI trust Mozilla, and if this helps Mozilla (and Firefox) further, I'm all for it. From a different angle though, I'd prefer more decentralized solutions than centralized ones like a single VPN provider. That could be in the form of more Tor infrastructure coming up to make the Tor network faster (I myself am not capable of setting up and running nodes). My other concern with centralized VPN is that Cloudflare, with its appetite seemingly focused on being the biggest pipe (by a large measure) for Internet traffic, might soon come up with a free VPN service and kill most others. I'm certainly not a fan of large companies becoming large enough and entrenched enough to put up insurmountable barriers against disruption (this could end up being a futile hope).
- AndrewConn 8y agoI started using ProtonVPN in the last few weeks. If you run Little Snitch, you can see they're sending data to Google Crashlytics. Doesn't inspire confidence. https://www.dropbox.com/s/t5ciujv55g7l2dj/ProtonVPN-Google-Crashlytics.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/t5ciujv55g7l2dj/ProtonVPN-Google-C...
- Kaveren 8y agoThey confirmed this [0]. I don't like it, but I don't think it's the worst thing in the world if there's no user data being sent. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/a0qiuu/protonvpn_app_for_os_x_questions_regarding/eamstn5/?context=0 https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/a0qiuu/protonvpn...
- kaplun 8y agoIn particular it's in the todo list to migrate to Sentry on premise.
- AndrewConn 8y agoGood to know - thanks! As a privacy company, it seems like a very odd decision by the ProtonVPN product team to use a Google service in the first place and have their brand anywhere close to Google... a company that is the exact opposite of privacy. Regardless, definitely glad they're fixing it.
- russdpale 8y agoI've heard good things about Mulvad but have yet to try it out. https://www.mullvad.net/en/ https://www.mullvad.net/en/ Nord was pretty good but I got rid of them when they removed the ability to see the distances to the servers in their app.
- portmanteaufu 8y agoI was really bummed to see that the partnership only allowed you to subscribe to ProtonVPN at the full $10 per month price. It's $8 per month if you subscribe for a year and $4 per month if you get the Black Friday / Cyber Monday deal. I would love to support Mozilla this way, but I would also like to benefit from a 60% discount.
- yarrel 8y agoIf you want to see this page from outside the US, you'll need a VPN. :-)