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If Firefox included a built-in VPN, they could increase their market share substantially. As long as they keep privacy a priority, they can give Chrome solid co

If Firefox included a built-in VPN, they could increase their market share substantially. As long as they keep privacy a priority, they can give Chrome solid competition.

TylerE 7y ago
People would actually trust a VPN? Seems like the worst kind of false security. It's going to be monetized out the ass, because bandwidth costs money.
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  I trust a non free vpn
  - adsche 7y ago
    Serious question: why? Is there any kind of transparent auditing going on?
  - akho 7y ago
    Why? They have access to the same data, and a similar incentive to monetize. It will just be an _additional_ profit stream, not the only one. (I trust a vpn to not be my isp or someone at the next table at a coffee place with WiFi. I trust paid vpn providers to provide decent performance. I’m not as worried about data mining)
    - gambiting 7y ago
      Because I trust a private company 100x more than I trust the British government which forces all ISPs to keep my browsing history for a year and then gives dozens of agencies warrantless access to this data, including agencies like the Food Standards Agency. At least a private company has a financial incentive to keep my data safe.
      - o-__-o 7y ago
        :thinking_face: is the food standards agency more interested in browsing data from food-based corporations to ensure certain standards over your pleblian google searches? it's possible and sounds like a valid reason for sharing of this data. except it's broken because a loophole is to simply use an offshore VPN (guess that's harder for a corporation to get away with)
        gambiting 7y ago
        Much easier if anything. I work for a French software developer in the UK and all of our traffic goes through a Paris-based gateway as per company policy.
Proven 7y ago
Definition of insanity: using a VPN service provided by a "non-profit" that profits from ads and reselling if (aggregated) information, and expecting better privacy
tastroder 7y ago
> As long as they keep privacy a priority, This whole DNS over HTTP disaster makes it pretty clear to me as an end user that it's not though. I wouldn't trust a free VPN further than I can throw it, no matter who offered.
- ignoramous 7y ago
  > This whole DNS over HTTP disaster makes it pretty clear to me as an end user that it's not though. True. We've got DoT, which is a very viable alternative. Supported at OS level by Android. And there's DnsCrypt with clients on all major platforms. > I wouldn't trust a free VPN further than I can throw it, no matter who offered. Valid point. Though, the present situation is that one pays the ISPs and yet they traffic shape, surveil, censor their users. I fear, after a point, VPNs might be the only way to access censor-free Internet across the globe.
  - tastroder 7y ago
    While I personally trust my ISP more than some random US based entity, that's of course true. The thing with VPN alternatives for me is that the VPN landscape today is already weirdly organized, opaque and would have no real incentive for a free tier. Short of hosting their own, which consumers will not do, I don't see a scenario where VPN providers end up in a position that's more trustful than your average (Western world) ISP is today tbh.
    - incompatible 7y ago
      I don't think any ISP can really be trusted, in most countries, since they are subject to arbitrary government demands. In Australia, for example, that includes data retention, censorship, and assistance with any kind of spying that may be demanded.
      - tastroder 7y ago
        Sure, valid as well. If VPNs get relevant enough to matter to nation state actors none of that really exclusively applies to ISPs anymore though, I feel like we're in a cozy transitioning stage there. They'd either get blocked (see feeble attempts in China) or get the same treatment. Either through similar legislation or technology level interference as we've seen before with the Tor network. At that point it's a game of choosing the nation state control you're most comfortable with in terms of oversight, governmental interference, consumer protection, and business incentive. That'll likely still be my European based ISP over a US VPN to be quite honest, given (theoretically) better consumer protection legislation and generally less equipped/capable surveillance apparatus. Don't get me wrong, VPNs e.g. for access control or untrusted networks are great use cases in my book. I just don't like the snake-oil vibe surrounding VPNs that make it out to be a great way to secure everyday networking for consumers.
oliwarner 7y ago
Sure, but VPNs cost serious money to run. I'd hate Mozilla to run itself into the ground for something like that.
- theturtletalks 7y ago
  Yes I'm not sure how viable it would be, but I know Cloudflare is working on a free VPN: https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-vpn/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-vpn/ But privacy is the main concern and I would only use it if their were assurances that the VPN would not log nor sell user data. Mozilla does get a lot of money to keep Google as the default search engine on Firefox so using a built-in VPN to draw more users may get Google to pay them more.
- o-__-o 7y ago
  > but VPNs cost serious money to run methinks you're talking out of your butthole right now. I run a VPN service. I can get away with about 100 users per dedicated host. That gives me an average CPU of $0.80. If I went with tier-1 datacenters, my cost would triple. Public cloud DCs bring my costs up ~25%. These numbers shrink with scale (e.g. buying dedicated bandwidth, bringing your own bandwidth, colo and increase server density, etc). Also mozilla has $69m in cash as of 2016, without counting assets and investments. They are okay to host few thousand more servers.. https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2016/2016_Mozilla_Audited_Financial_Statement.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2016/2016_Mozilla_Au...
  - oliwarner 7y ago
    It's not 100 users though, it's 250 million users and the infrastructure to balance them. Whether or not you think my anus is more capable than you estimating the cost, for an organisation that relies on soft revenue, this is serious money.

If Firefox included a built-in VPN, they could increase their market share substantially. As long as they keep privacy a priority, they can give Chrome solid competition.

TylerE 7y ago

People would actually trust a VPN? Seems like the worst kind of false security. It's going to be monetized out the ass, because bandwidth costs money.

michaelmrose 7y ago
I trust a non free vpn
- adsche 7y ago
  Serious question: why? Is there any kind of transparent auditing going on?
- akho 7y ago
  Why? They have access to the same data, and a similar incentive to monetize. It will just be an _additional_ profit stream, not the only one. (I trust a vpn to not be my isp or someone at the next table at a coffee place with WiFi. I trust paid vpn providers to provide decent performance. I’m not as worried about data mining)
  - gambiting 7y ago
    Because I trust a private company 100x more than I trust the British government which forces all ISPs to keep my browsing history for a year and then gives dozens of agencies warrantless access to this data, including agencies like the Food Standards Agency. At least a private company has a financial incentive to keep my data safe.
    - o-__-o 7y ago
      :thinking_face: is the food standards agency more interested in browsing data from food-based corporations to ensure certain standards over your pleblian google searches? it's possible and sounds like a valid reason for sharing of this data. except it's broken because a loophole is to simply use an offshore VPN (guess that's harder for a corporation to get away with)
      - gambiting 7y ago
        Much easier if anything. I work for a French software developer in the UK and all of our traffic goes through a Paris-based gateway as per company policy.

Proven 7y ago

Definition of insanity: using a VPN service provided by a "non-profit" that profits from ads and reselling if (aggregated) information, and expecting better privacy

tastroder 7y ago

> As long as they keep privacy a priority, This whole DNS over HTTP disaster makes it pretty clear to me as an end user that it's not though. I wouldn't trust a free VPN further than I can throw it, no matter who offered.

ignoramous 7y ago
> This whole DNS over HTTP disaster makes it pretty clear to me as an end user that it's not though. True. We've got DoT, which is a very viable alternative. Supported at OS level by Android. And there's DnsCrypt with clients on all major platforms. > I wouldn't trust a free VPN further than I can throw it, no matter who offered. Valid point. Though, the present situation is that one pays the ISPs and yet they traffic shape, surveil, censor their users. I fear, after a point, VPNs might be the only way to access censor-free Internet across the globe.
- tastroder 7y ago
  While I personally trust my ISP more than some random US based entity, that's of course true. The thing with VPN alternatives for me is that the VPN landscape today is already weirdly organized, opaque and would have no real incentive for a free tier. Short of hosting their own, which consumers will not do, I don't see a scenario where VPN providers end up in a position that's more trustful than your average (Western world) ISP is today tbh.
  - incompatible 7y ago
    I don't think any ISP can really be trusted, in most countries, since they are subject to arbitrary government demands. In Australia, for example, that includes data retention, censorship, and assistance with any kind of spying that may be demanded.
    - tastroder 7y ago
      Sure, valid as well. If VPNs get relevant enough to matter to nation state actors none of that really exclusively applies to ISPs anymore though, I feel like we're in a cozy transitioning stage there. They'd either get blocked (see feeble attempts in China) or get the same treatment. Either through similar legislation or technology level interference as we've seen before with the Tor network. At that point it's a game of choosing the nation state control you're most comfortable with in terms of oversight, governmental interference, consumer protection, and business incentive. That'll likely still be my European based ISP over a US VPN to be quite honest, given (theoretically) better consumer protection legislation and generally less equipped/capable surveillance apparatus. Don't get me wrong, VPNs e.g. for access control or untrusted networks are great use cases in my book. I just don't like the snake-oil vibe surrounding VPNs that make it out to be a great way to secure everyday networking for consumers.

oliwarner 7y ago

Sure, but VPNs cost serious money to run. I'd hate Mozilla to run itself into the ground for something like that.

theturtletalks 7y ago
Yes I'm not sure how viable it would be, but I know Cloudflare is working on a free VPN: https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-vpn/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/1111-warp-better-vpn/ But privacy is the main concern and I would only use it if their were assurances that the VPN would not log nor sell user data. Mozilla does get a lot of money to keep Google as the default search engine on Firefox so using a built-in VPN to draw more users may get Google to pay them more.
o-__-o 7y ago
> but VPNs cost serious money to run methinks you're talking out of your butthole right now. I run a VPN service. I can get away with about 100 users per dedicated host. That gives me an average CPU of $0.80. If I went with tier-1 datacenters, my cost would triple. Public cloud DCs bring my costs up ~25%. These numbers shrink with scale (e.g. buying dedicated bandwidth, bringing your own bandwidth, colo and increase server density, etc). Also mozilla has $69m in cash as of 2016, without counting assets and investments. They are okay to host few thousand more servers.. https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2016/2016_Mozilla_Audited_Financial_Statement.pdf https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2016/2016_Mozilla_Au...
- oliwarner 7y ago
  It's not 100 users though, it's 250 million users and the infrastructure to balance them. Whether or not you think my anus is more capable than you estimating the cost, for an organisation that relies on soft revenue, this is serious money.