30 ms·

Mozilla VPN

1363 points by caution 6y ago

RandomBacon 6y ago
It uses Mullvad, and is the same price as Mullvad. I am assuming Mozilla gets a cut. When my current Mullvad subscription expires, I will switch over.
- notRobot 6y ago
  Indeed. Can someone explain why it's not available outside of the US, though? I don't see the logic behind that.
  - pixxel 6y ago
    So they can test/ramp up infrastructure rather than open the service up to 8 billion potential customers, and not upset existing customer base.
- LeoPanthera 6y ago
  It's less flexible than Mullvad. This new service is Wireguard-only, and as far as I can tell, requires you to use their custom app. Mullvad additionally supports OpenVPN and other protocols, and is client-agnostic.
  - e12e 6y ago
    > Wireguard-only That's great - less features and options are a plus for vpn services. > requires you to use their custom app. Sounds odd, if it's just using wireguard.
    - toomuchtodo 6y ago
      Might be opinionated to support a high quality user experience. Guard rails can be good depending on your audience.
      - gladskdks 6y ago
        I second this. My family uses ProtonVPN and their own app is so clean and simple that even my mother can use it. They support OpenVPN for when that's needed.
- vpnwire 6y ago
  I’ve been speedtesting a few VPN networks, and the biggest surprise has been how fast Mullvad + Wireguard are. I need to try NordLynx (NordVPN’s flavor of Wireguard) for more of an apples-to-apples comparison, but at least on the speed metric, it looks like Mozilla chose a good partner. Making deeper data exploration possible is a work in progress, but you can see what I have so far here: https://vpnwire.co https://vpnwire.co
  - maxisme 6y ago
    Is Mullvad the only provider you are using with WireGuard?
    - vpnwire 6y ago
      Yep, the rest connect with OpenVPN at the moment
  - Dahoon 6y ago
    How close is Mullvad to your max bandwidth? In other words how much loss of bandwidth do you see?
    - vpnwire 6y ago
      Max bandwidth is about 7 Gbps
dx87 6y ago
Can't wait for this. The PIA extension stopped working in Firefox months ago, and PIA said they have no ETA for a fix.
- notRobot 6y ago
  PIA was also acquired by a malware company: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21679682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21679682
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
deleted
- notRobot 6y ago
  Yeah this comment makes no sense. That would be terrible publicity for Mozilla. Also, Reddit uses HTTPS (like every other mainstream website) so Mozilla/Mullvad can't see what you're posting or even what your username is.
  - devwastaken 6y ago
    As long as there's no leaks over http traffic of course. Advertisers are great at data exfiltration.
  - Jonnax 6y ago
    Essentially their former CEO was/is against gay marriage and donated to some organisation that was campaigning against it. People found out, some employees weren't happy also some sites put up a message when Firefox users visited. OkCupid (a dating site) straight up blocked Firefox users saying that they prefer users to use other browsers. So as Mozilla is a company. They decided to get rid of the CEO. Because he was now bad for business. However for some people in the tech world. This was an unforgivable sin: an attack on free speech.
    - opendomain 6y ago
      I think this was a setup. Brendan Eich is the creator of JavaScript and was the CTO of Mozilla. He is intelligent and works hard on open source. However, he HAD opposed same sex marriage. While he was CTO of Mozilla, no one cared. When he became CEO, there was a smear campaign to get rid of him. I respect his contributions, but not his politics. He has the freedom to say what he believes - I still use Firefox. IMHO this was just an excuse to get ride of him as CEO.
      - kelnos 6y ago
        Yeah, I never really understood all the animosity against Mozilla or Firefox around this. IMO giving money toward homophobic causes is reprehensible, and Eich sounds like someone I wouldn't want to be friends with or work with, but he is not Mozilla and Mozilla is not him. > He has the freedom to say what he believes ... IMHO this was just an excuse to get [rid] of him as CEO. I support the right of employees to hold their executives to high standards, even (especially?) when those standards aren't directly related to the work they do. It was a messy situation and perhaps not handled perfectly, but I don't see anything wrong with the end result being his resignation. Yes, the timing was suspicious (I would have been uncomfortable reporting to him "even" as a CTO), but I would argue more along the lines of "took you long enough" instead of "why is this suddenly an issue now?" > ... but not his politics I really dislike seeing things like this phrased as "politics". Treating other people with respect and giving them equal rights isn't politics, it's basic human decency. I hope in 50 years we look back at this time period and are appalled at how we treated our fellow humans.
saltedonion 6y ago
Given the high ethical standard of Mozilla I’m not sure how popular this will be. For example, a while back there were research showing nord was setting up users as proxies, there by making it impossible for Netflix to block these residential ips. I don’t think Mozilla will do this.
- Semaphor 6y ago
  Well, they use mullvad.net (I’m a customer), and they seem pretty trustworthy while Nord was always the opposite of trustworthy.
haunter 6y ago
Every single time I start researching VPN services I end up more confused and with more questions than before because basically every vouched service has the same amount of negative comments too. Like feels like the whole sector is a honeypot (lol) of shady stuff and also they figthing against each other (or not?). So I just wait until when turns out Mullvad is also one of the bad guys.
- pipermerriam 6y ago
  I use ProtonVPN. Same company as ProtonMail. Highly reputable with a business model around doing privacy and encryption well.
  - helloooooooo 6y ago
    NordVPN shares offices in Estonia with ProtonVPN. For that reason I find it sketchy.
    - gzer0 6y ago
      I would like to read more about this, do you have a source? I cannot find anything reliable that suggests this! Thanks.
      - E5JBK7UJPT 6y ago
        https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/8ww4h2/protonvpn_and_tesonet/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/8ww4h2/protonvpn...
        gzer0 6y ago
        This suggests the opposite of what you say in your original comment.
        krn 6y ago
        https://vpnscam.com/tesonet-data-mining-company-owns-nordvpn-protonmail-protonvpn/ https://vpnscam.com/tesonet-data-mining-company-owns-nordvpn...
devwastaken 6y ago
How do we know this is safe from bad actors? If it's in the U.S. is it safe from discovery? For example Watchtower tried to use 'copyright Infringement' to force reddit to give a usernames IP and account information. https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkdgWccrJAy53-jeBxM3Pk_kcwz7Q9NR5 https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkdgWccrJAy53-jeBxM3Pk_... VPN's are the only way of protecting what should be protected speech. You have to not keep logs or anything that allows a court to find the identity of a user.
- Youden 6y ago
  > How do we know this is safe from bad actors? You don't. You never will. This is the case not just for Mozilla but for all VPN services. Until there's some kind of hardware-level attestation that verifies a server is running a particular software installation, that's going to remain the case. > VPN's are the only way of protecting what should be protected speech. No, if you want safety, a VPN is not the solution. VPN providers have invested a lot of marketing in trying to tell you otherwise but it's simply not true. All a VPN does is move what little trust you're forced to have in your ISP to a different, often less-regulated ISP. The solution if you want privacy and/or anonymity is a technology built for that purpose, like Tor or I2P.
  - nybble41 6y ago
    > to a different, often less-regulated ISP "Less-regulated" is usually the entire point of using a VPN. Regulations force your local ISP to keep detailed logs and reveal who was using a certain IP address at a certain time to various entities based on sketchy circumstantial evidence. If you go through a VPN then anyone trying to track back the IP address has to go through the VPN provider first—who probably doesn't keep such detailed access logs, and may well be in a completely different jurisdiction—before they can even begin to approach your local ISP. You certainly shouldn't rely on it exclusively, but it's an important part of defense-in-depth.
AdmiralAsshat 6y ago
Forget the VPN--I already have a VPN provider and I have no interest in changing. Offer a paid e-mail service, on the other hand, and I'd sign on up Day 1.
- numbsafari 6y ago
  This right here. And a hosted suite of productivity tools that have documented, public formats that contain all of your data (and not just a link to the cloud-hosted copies). Amazing that GSuite's only real competitor in 2020 in Office365.
  - dublinben 6y ago
    Would you consider Zoho a "real" competitor? https://www.zoho.com/ https://www.zoho.com/
  - j_koreth 6y ago
    Would a Nextcloud instance work?
    - cecida 6y ago
      I've checked out Nextcloud a few times, but it really needs a sizeable and trustworthy brand that would host it for you, allow you to point a custom domain at it, and provide zero config email/calendering out of the box. I'd trust Mozilla.
- qchris 6y ago
  I second this wholeheartedly. I would be happy paying at least the $5/mo that they're charging for the VPN to have web-based access to privacy-respecting email service tied to a name I tend to trust like Mozilla (hopefully with a fairly vanilla domain name that doesn't get weird looks). Purism's Librem One suite [0] comes the closest, but I just don't have the trust in them that I'd want before pulling the trigger. They have a history of making grand claims with sub-par delivery, which just doesn't cut it for a service like a primary email provider. They've claimed plans to add features like file storage for ages now with no updates. Email is just too important a part of daily life to risk it. [0] https://librem.one/ https://librem.one/
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
MattGaiser 6y ago
Isn’t $4.99 pricey for a VPN? I pay about 3 for Nord.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- solarkraft 6y ago
  Nord locks locks you into an eternal contract and has a pretty bad reputation for multiple reasons.
  - ternaryoperator 6y ago
    >Nord locks locks you into an eternal contract What do you mean? I paid NordVPM for a 2-year contract, which expires in a few weeks. What does "locks locks" refer to?
    - solarkraft 6y ago
      Sorry, it was meant to be a single "locks". And yep, I'm referring to that type of contract.
- robrtsql 6y ago
  It is a bit pricey compared to the competition (lots of VPNs out there that cost ~$3/month) but apparently Mullvad is the VPN provider for this offering, and they cost $5 a month because they are considered one of the 'best' VPNs in terms of privacy (for example, they will accept cash payments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullvad#Privacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullvad#Privacy ).
  - TurkishPoptart 6y ago
    Is it at all slow? I've found a lot of VPNs actually slow down my connection which makes me less willing to try them.
- tobsmagoats 6y ago
solarkraft 6y ago
It's a rebranding of Mullvad. I'm happy with Mullvad itself, and while I think Firefox is the most important browser I'm not very happy about Mozilla arguably destroying its brand and seemingly pivoting away from maintaining it. I'd directly pay for the development of FF, but not Mozilla's "btw, we now sell $completely_unrelated_product_without_even_an_ethical_business_model". They seem to be relatively safe from forking though, because apparently the code base is too much of a mess. Yay.
- orra 6y ago
  You say that, but not enough people do directly pay for the development of Firefox. Of course, you are welcome to donate to the Mozilla Foundation. Also, your complaint about an ethical business model seems unfounded, especially in this instance.
  - wasmitnetzen 6y ago
    > you are welcome to donate to the Mozilla Foundation. Which does not pay for the development of Firefox.
    - orra 6y ago
      The Mozilla Foundation annual financial statement include its subsidiary Mozilla Corporation. And most of the Foundation's expenditure is staff costs, for the Firefox project. If that doesn't satisfy you, note that targetted donations are also a thing.
      - RandomBacon 6y ago
        Unless everyone does targeted donations, it's pointless. It's like adding water to one end of a pool and expecting the water level at only that end to rise. If only a small percentage of donators ear mark their donation to Project A, then the less money will come out of the general fund for Project A and more from the general fund will go to Project B. The money you just donated didn't increase the budget for Project A, instead the organization just increased the budget for project B. In other words, targeted donations are not a targeted budget increase.
satoshivpn 6y ago
What good is a VPN if you have to reveal all of your personally identifiable information to the vendor? You're better off using Mullvad directly--it looks like they don't require you to fork over personal information to use their service. Shameless plug: SatoshiVPN (https://satoshivpn.com https://satoshivpn.com) gives you access to your own private and anonymous VPN server with Outline pre-installed, no questions asked. Payments in Bitcoin only.
- asimpletune 6y ago
  Might want to make pricing easier to find.
  - satoshivpn 6y ago
    Acknowledged. Thank you!
- dewey 6y ago
  > What good is a VPN if you have to reveal all of your personally identifiable information to the vendor? Because most peoples threat model doesn't include actors that can force a VPN provider to give up their data. They just use it because it's making it easier to not get data stolen in a coffee shop and watch US Netflix.
  - satoshivpn 6y ago
    If you have two equally great user experiences and in one case you have to share your personal information, and in another you don't, which would you choose?
    - dewey 6y ago
      The one where the company behind has a good reputation and seems trustworthy. Like Mullvad where their real address, developers, history and open source projects are available on the website (https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/ https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/) and they have been around for a while without any scandals that I'm aware of. If there's a new provider out with no name, company address, audits or history and tells me they are not sharing personal information I just have to take their word for it. So it's not much better than the alternative if I can't verify it.
surround 6y ago
> At Mozilla, we are working hard to build products to help you control of your privacy and stay safe online. > We know that we are on the right path to building a VPN that makes your online experience safer Commercial VPNs are good for censorship circumvention or location spoofing. It is irresponsible to market VPNs as something which “protects” you online. In reality, they do nothing to improve security, and very little to improve privacy. You do not need a VPN. https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29 https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29 https://schub.io/blog/2019/04/08/very-precarious-narrative.html https://schub.io/blog/2019/04/08/very-precarious-narrative.h...
- ryantgtg 6y ago
  The "Don't use VPN services" argument is weak because it doesn't acknowledge one of the most common reasons for using a VPN: avoiding DMCA notices.
  - surround 6y ago
    That’s what I said. VPNs are good for “location spoofing,” i.e. changing your web-facing IP address to a different region. VPNs are great for this purpose. The issue is, VPN companies (Mozilla included) are marketing their service as one that improves your safety when it doesn’t.
    - ryantgtg 6y ago
      The value of location spoofing is to access geographically-restricted content (like a netflix show that is available through their service in Europe but not the US), not to avoid DMCA notices. VPNs are valuable for avoiding DMCA because it hides from your ISP (the entity serving you the notice) what you are torrenting.
      - Dahoon 6y ago
        If you live in a place where the ISP actually looks at what you torrent and does something about it then you clearly need a VPN. Luckily that mostly happens in places where a DMCA is the least of your worries, like eastern europe and the middle east.
e12e 6y ago
What an odd choice from Mozilla and Mullvad to segment this based on geography. Can you use it while traveling outside the US? Why not simply have a wait list? Mullvad already operates globally - what is the reason for the geofence? Is Mozilla not able to accept payment outside the US? (maybe not able to pay taxes?)
sequoia 6y ago
"For example, over 70% of early Beta-testers say that the VPN helps them feel empowered, safe, and independent while being online." What have these "feelings" got to do with anything? This is a measure of successful marketing and has nothing to do with the product or its efficacy. Personally I use Windscribe and I really like it (I've used PIA & Mullvad in the past). I use it for watching US Netflix and to make it slightly less easy to track me on the net (I know there are many other ways). I also like the idea of not having my IP or the gov't spy on me _as easily_.
- nprateem 6y ago
  People buy on emotions
  - Romanulus 6y ago
    ... and sell!
  - bredren 6y ago
    What was the 500 startup guys phrase? A product has to get you “Made, Paid or Laid“ Where Made was like a sense of positive promotion like a made-man in the mob I think. Emotion is everything. If a product doesn’t make you feel good you’ll only buy it because you have to.
- dx87 6y ago
  I think "feeling" safe is an important component of a product. Of course the product has to also be effective, but if it's effective and people still don't trust it, then they won't use it. A good example of a similar situation is in the US military where we had to do yearly chemical weapons training that involved putting on a gas mask in a room filled with tear gas. The gas masks were already proven to work, but one purpose of the training was to make sure people trusted their equipment to keep them safe, making it more likely for them to use it when needed.
- untog 6y ago
  This is marketing copy. Criticizing it for being marketing copy is surely a little redundant. Besides, feelings matter. If the majority of VPN users felt that the security provided by the VPN was not worth the effort involved in using then that would indicate a failed product. Ignore that at your peril.
koolba 6y ago
Who is the target market for this in the markets it actually operates (US)? The only people I know that uses VPNs do so to download torrents and evade DMCA notices. And in that case it only really works if the VPN provider is itself located outside of US jurisdiction and collects little to no information about you the user.
jrockway 6y ago
I am surprised at how much money exists in the VPN industry. Whenever I watch even a mildly-popular YouTube video, it always has an advertisement for the latest VPN provider. As far as I can tell, there is only one reason there is this much money in the field -- to subscribe to US-based video streaming services from outside the US. But they never ever say that that's the reason, they always say things like "work from home securely" or "avoid being tracked". But, of course, your IT department already has a secure VPN for working from home, and that Facebook cookie works regardless of what your IP address is. In general, the sell of "you can't trust your network provider, so pay for an additional network provider that doesn't keep logs and only accepts payment in Bitcoins," doesn't seem particularly strong to me. Of course you can't trust the network layer. Nobody trusts the network layer. That is why we have TLS. (Anyone remember "wired equivalent privacy" when WiFi was a cool and new thing? Turns out wires don't offer much privacy.) So why people are buying this service confuses me. I am also confused at why people can run these services so cheaply. I looked into doing it myself (I had some ideas for actual value add), and the economics didn't seem that good. There is a lot of software between "ifup wg0" and "collect money from people that want a VPN". It seems expensive to write all that, unless a "yolo" strategy of starting up openvpn and setting up a couple NAT rules actually scales. (At the very least, you need to be able to distribute keys to pre-built clients, and if you want to make it smooth, you are looking at writing your own Windows/Mac/Android/iOS clients. Then you need all the business management software on top of that -- didn't get the Bitcoins so delete their private key, etc.) It seems like quite a bit of work that is quite expensive. But these things exist left and right and have huge advertising budgets. So obviously I am misunderstanding something.
- imglorp 6y ago
  I think you're right, a lot of VPN usage has to do with circumventing some tiered, segmented, bullshit content provider restrictions such as region or schedule or device type. The fact that all these people are paying for a service plus VPN means the services are leaving money on the table. If they would simply offer what we want, when we want, where we want it, on the device we want, on a single service without a hassle, many consumer would be lined up for that.
- alteria 6y ago
flyGuyOnTheSly 6y ago
What is the main benefit of using a VPN? I download music, movie, tv, etc files via torrent using my Canadian IP address and I have never seen anything more than an email from my ISP saying essentially "so and so company thinks you downloaded their material, don't do that ok?". Is the general public so afraid of getting the odd email that paying $5/$10 month to make them disappear is a good deal for them? Why wouldn't people just use TOR for free? It was extremely fast the last I checked.
- flatiron 6y ago
  tor begs you not to use their service for torrenting. it would also be a lot slower than a VPN i use a VPN (to Montreal since it supports port forwarding) because i work from home and i don't want my IP that VPNs to work for a major company also being part of a torrent swarm.
kawsper 6y ago
I wish Mozilla would also offer a DNS-over-TLS service instead of just offloading it to Cloudflare or NextDNS.
Skunkleton 6y ago
When you connect to a VPN you advertise the fact that you are connected to a VPN to your local network, and hide your tunneled traffic. The tunneled traffic emerges elsewhere, with the extra encryption removed and proceeds as normal. Basically all a VPN provides is a mechanism to pretend that your butt is in a different seat. You hide your traffic from one network and expose it on another. If you are on public wifi somewhere and are concerned about traffic that isn't otherwise encrypted (DNS comes to mind), or if your connection is in some way restricted (govt, shitty isp, etc), then a VPN can address these issues. But you have to keep in mind that your new network is similarly untrustworthy. You might argue that by hiding behind your VPN provider, you are gaining anonymity. This might be true under the best circumstances, but this can _very_ easily break down. For example, the moment you load tracking_pixel.png then you are de-anonymized. That is saying nothing about the shady practices of the VPN providers themselves, or the governments that regulate them. When people connect to a VPN, especially lay-people, there is this feeling that the VPN is providing security, and privacy. This is largely marketing BS designed to sell more subscriptions. When I connect to a VPN I might be able to obscure my activity from state actors, or avoid some coffee shops bogus DNS server. What I can't do with a VPN is avoid literally every other form of tracking. And of course if I connect to a VPN, then I should be ok with those same bad-actors knowing I am connecting to a VPN. And I should be OK with the VPN provider being able to monitor my unencrypted traffic. And I should be ok aggregating all of my encrypted traffic into one easy to watch place. So what is a VPN providing the average consumer? If you want privacy install ad block software, https everywhere, enable DoH, don't log into social media sites, and clear your browser's cache frequently. If you want to avoid a state actor, then your best hope is probably something like Tor Browser.
ryanmarsh 6y ago
If it’s terminating at a host you don’t control it ain’t private.
johnklos 6y ago
Why the hell would anyone trust mozilla.org while they work tirelessly to make money? Google, who are unapologetically pro-money, at least listened to feedback about DoH.
- johnklos 6y ago
  Downvote without a response. Seriously - where does this magical trust come from, when we've seen Mozilla do what's against the interests of normal people in favor of doing what they can do to make money or to push traffic towards people who make money?
- kelnos 6y ago
  > Why the hell would anyone trust mozilla.org while they work tirelessly to make money? In what fantasy world do you live where hosting services and building products costs zero dollars? Not sure how Mozilla could operate at all without making money.
r3trohack3r 6y ago
Every time someone mentions a VPN provider in my techie social circles, the "A VPN doesn't protect you" crowd piles in, usually with links to something like: https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29 https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29 I don't understand this argument, but would like to. I run https://everytwoyears.org https://everytwoyears.org, a political non-profit focused on ending the warrantless metadata collection of U.S. citizens' communications. From everything I know about these programs, they are _explicitly_ not collecting content of communications. These programs only collect the metadata about a communication. As citizens, we don't get to have a clear definition of "metadata" (that is classified!) but we can assume anything that isn't the message itself is at risk of being considered metadata, especially if it was shared with a service provider in the normal course of conducting business (i.e. routing a request). For HTTP requests, I assume the body of the request would require a warrant before it can be persisted on a government server. The HTTP headers, if unencrypted, _might_ be considered metadata but I would be surprised. The IPV4 headers are more than likely metadata. DNS queries are more than likely metadata. If you are trying to avoid _active_ surveillance, where your government has a warrant, a VPN isn't going to help you. If you are trying to avoid _active_ surveillance where your adversary doesn't need/want a warrant to search you, a VPN isn't going to help you. But if you are trying to avoid having your internet activity ending up, de-anonymized, in a metadata database that your government does bulk analysis on, a VPN does seem like it would help. It seems like it would help a lot.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  I think you are correct that VPNs are a sort of half-solution. There are a lot of people that think anything less than 100% isn't worth your time, so they suggest TOR - but TOR has all sorts of annoying limitations that preclude daily usage. Absolute solutions are seldom worth the 10x extra effort they frequently require. Another set of half-solutions can be seen here which will make you more secure... https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl/encrypted-sni/ https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl/encrypted-sni/ ESNI, DoH, DNSSEC, and TLS1.3 are fairly easy to setup - and worth your time . Using Firefox with uBlock Origin & PrivacyBadger plus the above gets me to a good enough place. Illegal stuff on the other hand -> TOR. The problem with doing illegal stuff with only half-protections is that the authorities don't need to use the metadata to prove your guilt. After they raid your house they'll have all the parallel construction they need to make it stick. ...then again if you're just buying personal use amounts of drugs - no one at the FBI cares.
jchw 6y ago
Please take notes from Mullvad and give some basic transparency about the data centers and whether the servers are rented or owned and etc. Stuff like that goes a long way for people who are genuinely serious about privacy.
ayoisaiah 6y ago
I won't be switching to this. I've been paying €4.99 monthly for Blokada VPN on Android. It's pretty reliable and offers ad blocking as well. Also supports up to 5 devices.
- nix23 6y ago
  Nice, witch shady Marketing-Firm are you working for? Any point's for 'Blokada' being more trustworthy than AT&T ;)
  - ayoisaiah 6y ago
    Just a happy user :) Blokada is pretty popular for Ad blocking on Android. And it's open source too: https://github.com/blokadaorg/blokada https://github.com/blokadaorg/blokada
    - nix23 6y ago
      Nice...sorry for the aggressive tone, sounded like a advertisement, have fun ;)
29athrowaway 6y ago
If Mozilla cares about privacy then why does this exist: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Beacon_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Beacon_API
- gruez 6y ago
  * you can disable it * sites can already do the same thing with javascript. this simply standardizes it, AND makes it easier to block (since it's a different request type rather than being lumped with other xhr).
romanovcode 6y ago
> You can only subscribe to the VPN from the United States How is this a "launch"? And also, this makes it a bit fishy if you ask me.
DCKing 6y ago
Come on Mozilla, hurry up! I want to give you money for goods and services (I also donate monthly [1]), but I'm not that interested in a VPN (I can and do also pay Mullvad). Give me that real internet stuff - email, calendar, file sync, chat(?) - give me Firefox Premium. Bundle in the Lockwise password manager. I'd pay good money to see a company fill the void of paid, privacy first essential internet services and I think Mozilla is one of the foremost existing players to pull it off. They've started talking about Firefox Premium a while ago now [2] and it's obviously not easy to build all of this in a lean way, but I'll happily pitch in. If only to help make Firefox development less dependant on Google or Yahoo. [1]: https://donate.mozilla.org/ https://donate.mozilla.org/ [2]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/10/18660344/firefox-subscription-paid-service-vpn-cloud-storage-release-date https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/10/18660344/firefox-subscrip...
- petejodo 6y ago
  I don't have much too add, I'm just replying in case Mozilla devs see this. I want this so much as well! I don't mind the VPN though. I pay for it now even though I run mostly Linux
  - qchris 6y ago
    I'm in exactly the same boat. Paying for the VPN to use on exactly one device because everything else is Linux, and would happily put more money towards it if they offered a paid equivalent to GSuite that was privacy-respecting.
    - zrobotics 6y ago
      Question--why does everything else being Linux negate the need for a VPN? AFAIK, aren't the main reasons for a VPN bypassing georestricted content and avoiding ISP snooping? I don't see how running Linux negates any of these, and routing through a VPN certainly doesn't stop win10 from exfiltrating data.
      - rascul 6y ago
miniyarov 6y ago
Public VPN services should not be trusted blindly. Online anonymity is very hard. However, you can still create your own VPN server on cloud providers for at least have some privacy while you are on an untrusted network. Because of this reason, I created https://zudvpn.com https://zudvpn.com - It is a free and open-source mobile application that's used to deploy a private VPN server on major Cloud Providers! Github repo: https://github.com/zudvpn/ZudVPN https://github.com/zudvpn/ZudVPN
- maxisme 6y ago
  But doing this will give you a static IP which will make you even less anonymous.
  - miniyarov 6y ago
    You cannot connect to the internet without an IP address. However, ZudVPN servers are disposable. This means that you can always destroy the server and create another VPN with completely new IP address that is assigned by cloud providers.
Havoc 6y ago
Can you select the region of exit node? Cloudflare VPN and lastpass geolocking was a bad combo...
userbinator 6y ago
This is what they should've done instead of that user-hostile DoH thing (which is already itself a sort of VPN but for DNS traffic only.)
champagnepapi 6y ago
"Mullvad respects your privacy and has committed to not keep logs of any kind." How sure can we be here?
pgt 6y ago
If Mozilla launched Momail or Firemail, I'd pay for it before paying for HEY or Fastmail.
kfreds 6y ago
Every time the VPN service industry is discussed on HN there is a barrage of comments that use keywords like “honeypot”, “snake oil”, and “shady”. I’m not denying that the industry has problems, but in this thread I’d like to focus on how we can improve it. Please tell me - What makes a VPN provider trustworthy, and how do you _know_? Personally I believe a trustworthy provider is _characterized_ by consistent actions that show transparency, honesty, and conscientiousness. Nevertheless, such consistent action doesn’t actually prove trustworthiness. A good VPN honeypot, or reseller of your network traffic, is publicly indistinguishable from a trustworthy one. So what can the users do? What tools, technology, process, or ecosystem do they need to tell honest and dishonest apart? What do we need to build? We all recognize that VPN providers are in a great position of power over their users. How do we tilt the scales in the users’ favor? What are _strong_ signals of trustworthiness? Disclosure: I co-founded Mullvad.
- maxisme 6y ago
  Sorry to go on a tangent (I believe it is word of mouth and actions of the company like you say): What is the deal with Mullvad and Firefox? Are they completely using your services but with their name on it? Would you rather a client directly or through Firefox (bit cheaper now in $ )?
  - kfreds 6y ago
    Thank you. To quote https://fpn.firefox.com/vpn https://fpn.firefox.com/vpn - “The VPN is built by Firefox and runs on a global network of servers powered by our partner Mullvad using the WireGuard® protocol.“ Regarding using us directly or through Mozilla, I think both are good options. If you pay directly to us we will put your money to good use. Same goes for Mozilla. And they are not mutually exclusive. You could also sign up directly with us AND set up a monthly donation to Mozilla for Firefox development :)
- all_blue_chucks 6y ago
  Block all plaintext traffic. Only allow TLS. Be transparent about what you log and what you don't. Publish results of third party audits.
pythonbase 6y ago
And there are countries that force users to get their VPNs registered. https://www.pta.gov.pk/en/media-center/single-media/public-notice---get-your-vpn-registered-080620 https://www.pta.gov.pk/en/media-center/single-media/public-n...
merge 6y ago
an alternative is also the https://librem.one/ https://librem.one/ services run by Purism. VPN, Email and more. All server and client code is at source.puri.sm and it's mostly only rebranded "standard tools".
mulmen 6y ago
This is a hard pass from me. Mozilla controls my browser. I have no interest in giving them control over any other part of my online life. I like how Mozilla is run and hope other organizations emulate them to provide these other essential services.
- pixxel 6y ago
  Couldn’t agree more. Often I see people wishing for Mozilla to add more services. Please just do one complicated thing really well, Mozilla! I guess all these additional services help lure more users to Firefox, so there’s that. Maybe Mozilla can eventually generate enough revenue to stop nuzzling on Google’s money teat. I think I just convinced myself that additional services are good overall for Mozilla. But yes, I’m firmly in the spread your online presence wide camp.
gver10 6y ago
> Although there are a lot of VPNs out there, we felt like you deserve a VPN with the Mozilla name behind it.
lawnchair_larry 6y ago
As a security person, I am somewhat baffled by the popularity of VPNs. I have no idea why anyone would use them for general internet usage, and I suspect the majority of VPN service users are misinformed about what they think they are gaining. Any VPN subscribers want to fill me in? The only thing I can think of is hiding the source of pirated media being shared via bittorrent.
- pomokhtari 6y ago
  A lot of countries block access to websites. US and EU are not the whole world! VPN helps people to circumvent censorship. I use a VPN daily because without it, there is no Twitter/HackerNews/Reddit/Youtube/... .
  - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
    Totally understood for those countries, but it’s still hugely popular in the US. That’s what I’m wondering about.
    - aryonoco 6y ago
      Many ISPs in the US perform DPI, sell anonymized data to marketing companies, slowdown YouTube/Netflix when the backend pipes are congested, etc. If you want your ISP to provide you with a dumb pipe and not interfere with your traffic, a VPN is an easy solution.
      - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
        In practice, you’re almost certainly not getting faster netflix or youtube by adding an extra VPN into the congestion path. There are some weird edge cases where particular peering agreements and anycast routing quirks leave some exceptions to that, but I highly doubt a non-negligible amount of users are actually seeing a consistent speed increase on a VPN, and the vast majority would definitely see a decrease. That VPN is doing more to interfere with traffic than an ISP is. As for tracking you and selling your data, I trust my ISP to behave better in that regard than I do some shady VPN provider. And I don’t even trust my IP that much.
cameronperot 6y ago
A little late in the game, but they're a brand I would hold in higher regard than 99% of the other providers out there. I believe that a lot of people misunderstand what exactly a VPN is and what scenarios it offers benefits of use in. I personally host my own VPN on a lowendspirit server [1] for when I'm on an untrusted WiFi network or I need to have an IP in the US (it comes in handy as a US citizen living abroad). I also use a VPN sometimes when I have a dev server (hosted on the server itself) that I'm developing/testing on since being on the same network as the server makes things easier, e.g. having a container with an API bound to the VPN network so that I can access it easily and without it being public facing. Of course there's also the shady side of VPN use. If you're doing that it might be beneficial to use the VPN within a VM with strict firewall rules, i.e. only allow incoming/outgoing to/from the VPN. Doing so allows you to only send the traffic you want to over the VPN, thus reducing your exposure to any nefarious data collection that the provider might be doing. [1] https://lowendspirit.com/ https://lowendspirit.com/
badrabbit 6y ago
So long as it will never have anything to do with Firefox. Using it for work would be risky if they did that.
classics2 6y ago
I stopped using Firefox when they discontinued RSS support saying “it’s too hard and old and lame! Oh but here’s Pocket (tm) which costs money and has nothing at all to do with cutting RSS support” I wouldn’t expect much different here.
kennystone 6y ago
Really smart from Mozilla; they leverage trust in their brand with a product for which trust is the most important feature. Making a VPN is a non-trivial technology project, but it's pretty straightforward how to do it well.
dikaio 6y ago
I would switch ALL my paid for services to Mozilla in a heart beat if they would just hire a damn UI guy/girl.
loughnane 6y ago
I really like Mozilla, and I like to see them bring some competition for my dollars that are currently going to the proton suite of services.
memexy 6y ago
I currently run a wireguard vpn on digital ocean and it works really well. What is the reason for developers to pay for this service when they can set one up in less than 5 minutes and automate the whole thing with user-init scripts.
cyphar 6y ago
It's disheartening that Mozilla is continuing to actively avoid partnering with the Tor project for problems like this, despite the fact that the Tor project has contributed to Firefox for many years (mostly related to fingerprint resistance). I get that Mozilla needs to make money, but the fact that they still haven't made "private browsing mode" actually private by making it use Tor is a real shame.
- nerdbaggy 6y ago
  The amount of exit nodes would be insane. And I don’t think Mozilla would want the liability of running them.
  - cyphar 6y ago
    I'm not sure how you got "Mozilla should run all the Tor exit nodes" from my comment.
JDDunn9 6y ago
Opera already has a free VPN built into their browser.
fnord77 6y ago
I would love a VPN that would use a different IP address for each site I visit. Just to prevent the backend IP address correlation between sites that trackers use. Technically I know this is probably impossible without tons of virtual NICs
mikedilger 6y ago
I don't use a VPN as I'm pretty sure my traffic identifies me once it pops out the other end. But I do tunnel DNS with a server I trust so that my ISP only ends up seeing encrypted traffic (DNS over ssh, and HTTPS). I don't do DoH because there are only a few providers and so those are hotspots for espionage.
xvilka 6y ago
They should fix their reliance [1] on Python 2 first. They had more than a decade to migrate, but still Python 2 EOL came as a surprise for them. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1496527 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1496527
techntoke 6y ago
How do you call yourself a company that prides itself on open source but you always put support for Linux on the back burner?
wiether 6y ago
Since they are using the infrastructure of Mullvad, what's the point of using Mozilla's software instead of using directly Mullvad's ? Price related I'm paying 5€/month for Mullvad and Mozilla's VPN is at $4.99/month so when it will be available in Europe I expect it to be 4.99€. If they where offering something more, I'll see the point, but here by them developping their own software to use someone else infrastructure seems to be a huge waste. If they wanted to put their Mozilla logo, they should have gone for a white-label product with Mullvad no ?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bigiain 6y ago
<snark>"This is why we built the Firefox Private Network VPN Network which you can use with your Personal PIN Identification Number! Please get some cash out at the Automatic ATM Machine and donate today!" Naming things: one of the truly hard things in computer science... (But come on, you don't have to fail _that_ hard Mozilla, surely?) :sigh:
n1try 6y ago
Is it a general-purpose VPN service or can it only be used from within Firefox? Because that would make it only half as useful.
acd 6y ago
I also want to subscribe to Mozilla. For viewing Mozilla as a foundation that does the right thing. Thankful for many of the Internet standards Mozilla helped develop. Please help making Internet decentralized and private again. * Support for paying content creators without advertising * Decentralized CDN and compute * fast privacy
ss3000 6y ago
I love Mozilla and Mullvad, but 5 simultaneous connections just isn't enough for me. I know they can't allow unlimited devices due to the potential for abuse, but is something like 20-30 connections so I can use it for all my devices/VMs isn't too much to ask for?
ptx 6y ago
> over 70% of early Beta-testers say that the VPN helps them feel empowered, safe, and independent Well, does it make people empowered, safe and independent? Never mind what people feel - the users don't know the details of the implementation, so their belief could be mistaken.
Dahoon 6y ago
I'll live without a VPN as long as it is crazy expensive to find one fast enough to not throttle my connection (so 1gbps) with unlimited data and support for encryption at a level that is okayish secure yet still fast enough to not kill my server or router. I've tried a few that said they could deliver, but none of them could. I have no interest in paying my ISP for bandwidth and then strangle it with a VPN.
jokowueu 6y ago
What type of VPN software are they using ? Hope it has some obfustication
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
>guided by our Data Privacy Principles // A cunning way of not starting any rules used for the VPN. Then they can say "well we were guided by our policy when we secretly kept all your connection details and gave them to a marketing company". How about being guided by your policies on openness and state precisely and fully how data is used/stored/shared. Isn't privacy the/a principle feature of a VPN? The irony of only being able to sign up from outside the USA of you use a VPN is not lost on me.
jsomedon 6y ago
After firefox introduced that megabar UI with no option to turn that off, I started considering switching back to chrome. It's very questionable if they still care about their users, and if that's the case, firefox has ZERO advantage over chrome.
hnanon1 6y ago
Very glad to see Mozilla partner with such a respectable VPN company. However, a caveat I have is Mozilla being a company with an American presence means US LE could potentially get involved in some fashion and target select users. One should sign up directly with Mullvad instead. Sorry, hard pass.

1363 points by caution 6y ago

It uses Mullvad, and is the same price as Mullvad. I am assuming Mozilla gets a cut. When my current Mullvad subscription expires, I will switch over.

notRobot 6y ago
Indeed. Can someone explain why it's not available outside of the US, though? I don't see the logic behind that.
- pixxel 6y ago
  So they can test/ramp up infrastructure rather than open the service up to 8 billion potential customers, and not upset existing customer base.
LeoPanthera 6y ago
It's less flexible than Mullvad. This new service is Wireguard-only, and as far as I can tell, requires you to use their custom app. Mullvad additionally supports OpenVPN and other protocols, and is client-agnostic.
- e12e 6y ago
  > Wireguard-only That's great - less features and options are a plus for vpn services. > requires you to use their custom app. Sounds odd, if it's just using wireguard.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Might be opinionated to support a high quality user experience. Guard rails can be good depending on your audience.
    - gladskdks 6y ago
      I second this. My family uses ProtonVPN and their own app is so clean and simple that even my mother can use it. They support OpenVPN for when that's needed.
vpnwire 6y ago
I’ve been speedtesting a few VPN networks, and the biggest surprise has been how fast Mullvad + Wireguard are. I need to try NordLynx (NordVPN’s flavor of Wireguard) for more of an apples-to-apples comparison, but at least on the speed metric, it looks like Mozilla chose a good partner. Making deeper data exploration possible is a work in progress, but you can see what I have so far here: https://vpnwire.co https://vpnwire.co
- maxisme 6y ago
  Is Mullvad the only provider you are using with WireGuard?
  - vpnwire 6y ago
    Yep, the rest connect with OpenVPN at the moment
- Dahoon 6y ago
  How close is Mullvad to your max bandwidth? In other words how much loss of bandwidth do you see?
  - vpnwire 6y ago
    Max bandwidth is about 7 Gbps

dx87 6y ago

Can't wait for this. The PIA extension stopped working in Firefox months ago, and PIA said they have no ETA for a fix.

notRobot 6y ago
PIA was also acquired by a malware company: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21679682 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21679682

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

deleted

notRobot 6y ago
Yeah this comment makes no sense. That would be terrible publicity for Mozilla. Also, Reddit uses HTTPS (like every other mainstream website) so Mozilla/Mullvad can't see what you're posting or even what your username is.
- devwastaken 6y ago
  As long as there's no leaks over http traffic of course. Advertisers are great at data exfiltration.
- Jonnax 6y ago
  Essentially their former CEO was/is against gay marriage and donated to some organisation that was campaigning against it. People found out, some employees weren't happy also some sites put up a message when Firefox users visited. OkCupid (a dating site) straight up blocked Firefox users saying that they prefer users to use other browsers. So as Mozilla is a company. They decided to get rid of the CEO. Because he was now bad for business. However for some people in the tech world. This was an unforgivable sin: an attack on free speech.
  - opendomain 6y ago
    I think this was a setup. Brendan Eich is the creator of JavaScript and was the CTO of Mozilla. He is intelligent and works hard on open source. However, he HAD opposed same sex marriage. While he was CTO of Mozilla, no one cared. When he became CEO, there was a smear campaign to get rid of him. I respect his contributions, but not his politics. He has the freedom to say what he believes - I still use Firefox. IMHO this was just an excuse to get ride of him as CEO.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      Yeah, I never really understood all the animosity against Mozilla or Firefox around this. IMO giving money toward homophobic causes is reprehensible, and Eich sounds like someone I wouldn't want to be friends with or work with, but he is not Mozilla and Mozilla is not him. > He has the freedom to say what he believes ... IMHO this was just an excuse to get [rid] of him as CEO. I support the right of employees to hold their executives to high standards, even (especially?) when those standards aren't directly related to the work they do. It was a messy situation and perhaps not handled perfectly, but I don't see anything wrong with the end result being his resignation. Yes, the timing was suspicious (I would have been uncomfortable reporting to him "even" as a CTO), but I would argue more along the lines of "took you long enough" instead of "why is this suddenly an issue now?" > ... but not his politics I really dislike seeing things like this phrased as "politics". Treating other people with respect and giving them equal rights isn't politics, it's basic human decency. I hope in 50 years we look back at this time period and are appalled at how we treated our fellow humans.

saltedonion 6y ago

Given the high ethical standard of Mozilla I’m not sure how popular this will be. For example, a while back there were research showing nord was setting up users as proxies, there by making it impossible for Netflix to block these residential ips. I don’t think Mozilla will do this.

Semaphor 6y ago
Well, they use mullvad.net (I’m a customer), and they seem pretty trustworthy while Nord was always the opposite of trustworthy.

haunter 6y ago

Every single time I start researching VPN services I end up more confused and with more questions than before because basically every vouched service has the same amount of negative comments too. Like feels like the whole sector is a honeypot (lol) of shady stuff and also they figthing against each other (or not?). So I just wait until when turns out Mullvad is also one of the bad guys.

pipermerriam 6y ago
I use ProtonVPN. Same company as ProtonMail. Highly reputable with a business model around doing privacy and encryption well.
- helloooooooo 6y ago
  NordVPN shares offices in Estonia with ProtonVPN. For that reason I find it sketchy.
  - gzer0 6y ago
    I would like to read more about this, do you have a source? I cannot find anything reliable that suggests this! Thanks.
    - E5JBK7UJPT 6y ago
      https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/8ww4h2/protonvpn_and_tesonet/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/8ww4h2/protonvpn...
      - gzer0 6y ago
        This suggests the opposite of what you say in your original comment.
        krn 6y ago
        https://vpnscam.com/tesonet-data-mining-company-owns-nordvpn-protonmail-protonvpn/ https://vpnscam.com/tesonet-data-mining-company-owns-nordvpn...

devwastaken 6y ago

How do we know this is safe from bad actors? If it's in the U.S. is it safe from discovery? For example Watchtower tried to use 'copyright Infringement' to force reddit to give a usernames IP and account information. https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkdgWccrJAy53-jeBxM3Pk_kcwz7Q9NR5 https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkdgWccrJAy53-jeBxM3Pk_... VPN's are the only way of protecting what should be protected speech. You have to not keep logs or anything that allows a court to find the identity of a user.

Youden 6y ago
> How do we know this is safe from bad actors? You don't. You never will. This is the case not just for Mozilla but for all VPN services. Until there's some kind of hardware-level attestation that verifies a server is running a particular software installation, that's going to remain the case. > VPN's are the only way of protecting what should be protected speech. No, if you want safety, a VPN is not the solution. VPN providers have invested a lot of marketing in trying to tell you otherwise but it's simply not true. All a VPN does is move what little trust you're forced to have in your ISP to a different, often less-regulated ISP. The solution if you want privacy and/or anonymity is a technology built for that purpose, like Tor or I2P.
- nybble41 6y ago
  > to a different, often less-regulated ISP "Less-regulated" is usually the entire point of using a VPN. Regulations force your local ISP to keep detailed logs and reveal who was using a certain IP address at a certain time to various entities based on sketchy circumstantial evidence. If you go through a VPN then anyone trying to track back the IP address has to go through the VPN provider first—who probably doesn't keep such detailed access logs, and may well be in a completely different jurisdiction—before they can even begin to approach your local ISP. You certainly shouldn't rely on it exclusively, but it's an important part of defense-in-depth.

AdmiralAsshat 6y ago

Forget the VPN--I already have a VPN provider and I have no interest in changing. Offer a paid e-mail service, on the other hand, and I'd sign on up Day 1.

numbsafari 6y ago
This right here. And a hosted suite of productivity tools that have documented, public formats that contain all of your data (and not just a link to the cloud-hosted copies). Amazing that GSuite's only real competitor in 2020 in Office365.
- dublinben 6y ago
  Would you consider Zoho a "real" competitor? https://www.zoho.com/ https://www.zoho.com/
- j_koreth 6y ago
  Would a Nextcloud instance work?
  - cecida 6y ago
    I've checked out Nextcloud a few times, but it really needs a sizeable and trustworthy brand that would host it for you, allow you to point a custom domain at it, and provide zero config email/calendering out of the box. I'd trust Mozilla.
qchris 6y ago
I second this wholeheartedly. I would be happy paying at least the $5/mo that they're charging for the VPN to have web-based access to privacy-respecting email service tied to a name I tend to trust like Mozilla (hopefully with a fairly vanilla domain name that doesn't get weird looks). Purism's Librem One suite [0] comes the closest, but I just don't have the trust in them that I'd want before pulling the trigger. They have a history of making grand claims with sub-par delivery, which just doesn't cut it for a service like a primary email provider. They've claimed plans to add features like file storage for ages now with no updates. Email is just too important a part of daily life to risk it. [0] https://librem.one/ https://librem.one/

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

MattGaiser 6y ago

Isn’t $4.99 pricey for a VPN? I pay about 3 for Nord.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
solarkraft 6y ago
Nord locks locks you into an eternal contract and has a pretty bad reputation for multiple reasons.
- ternaryoperator 6y ago
  >Nord locks locks you into an eternal contract What do you mean? I paid NordVPM for a 2-year contract, which expires in a few weeks. What does "locks locks" refer to?
  - solarkraft 6y ago
    Sorry, it was meant to be a single "locks". And yep, I'm referring to that type of contract.
robrtsql 6y ago
It is a bit pricey compared to the competition (lots of VPNs out there that cost ~$3/month) but apparently Mullvad is the VPN provider for this offering, and they cost $5 a month because they are considered one of the 'best' VPNs in terms of privacy (for example, they will accept cash payments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullvad#Privacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullvad#Privacy ).
- TurkishPoptart 6y ago
  Is it at all slow? I've found a lot of VPNs actually slow down my connection which makes me less willing to try them.
tobsmagoats 6y ago

solarkraft 6y ago

It's a rebranding of Mullvad. I'm happy with Mullvad itself, and while I think Firefox is the most important browser I'm not very happy about Mozilla arguably destroying its brand and seemingly pivoting away from maintaining it. I'd directly pay for the development of FF, but not Mozilla's "btw, we now sell $completely_unrelated_product_without_even_an_ethical_business_model". They seem to be relatively safe from forking though, because apparently the code base is too much of a mess. Yay.

orra 6y ago
You say that, but not enough people do directly pay for the development of Firefox. Of course, you are welcome to donate to the Mozilla Foundation. Also, your complaint about an ethical business model seems unfounded, especially in this instance.
- wasmitnetzen 6y ago
  > you are welcome to donate to the Mozilla Foundation. Which does not pay for the development of Firefox.
  - orra 6y ago
    The Mozilla Foundation annual financial statement include its subsidiary Mozilla Corporation. And most of the Foundation's expenditure is staff costs, for the Firefox project. If that doesn't satisfy you, note that targetted donations are also a thing.
    - RandomBacon 6y ago
      Unless everyone does targeted donations, it's pointless. It's like adding water to one end of a pool and expecting the water level at only that end to rise. If only a small percentage of donators ear mark their donation to Project A, then the less money will come out of the general fund for Project A and more from the general fund will go to Project B. The money you just donated didn't increase the budget for Project A, instead the organization just increased the budget for project B. In other words, targeted donations are not a targeted budget increase.

satoshivpn 6y ago

What good is a VPN if you have to reveal all of your personally identifiable information to the vendor? You're better off using Mullvad directly--it looks like they don't require you to fork over personal information to use their service. Shameless plug: SatoshiVPN (https://satoshivpn.com https://satoshivpn.com) gives you access to your own private and anonymous VPN server with Outline pre-installed, no questions asked. Payments in Bitcoin only.

asimpletune 6y ago
Might want to make pricing easier to find.
- satoshivpn 6y ago
  Acknowledged. Thank you!
dewey 6y ago
> What good is a VPN if you have to reveal all of your personally identifiable information to the vendor? Because most peoples threat model doesn't include actors that can force a VPN provider to give up their data. They just use it because it's making it easier to not get data stolen in a coffee shop and watch US Netflix.
- satoshivpn 6y ago
  If you have two equally great user experiences and in one case you have to share your personal information, and in another you don't, which would you choose?
  - dewey 6y ago
    The one where the company behind has a good reputation and seems trustworthy. Like Mullvad where their real address, developers, history and open source projects are available on the website (https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/ https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/) and they have been around for a while without any scandals that I'm aware of. If there's a new provider out with no name, company address, audits or history and tells me they are not sharing personal information I just have to take their word for it. So it's not much better than the alternative if I can't verify it.

surround 6y ago

> At Mozilla, we are working hard to build products to help you control of your privacy and stay safe online. > We know that we are on the right path to building a VPN that makes your online experience safer Commercial VPNs are good for censorship circumvention or location spoofing. It is irresponsible to market VPNs as something which “protects” you online. In reality, they do nothing to improve security, and very little to improve privacy. You do not need a VPN. https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29 https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29 https://schub.io/blog/2019/04/08/very-precarious-narrative.html https://schub.io/blog/2019/04/08/very-precarious-narrative.h...

ryantgtg 6y ago
The "Don't use VPN services" argument is weak because it doesn't acknowledge one of the most common reasons for using a VPN: avoiding DMCA notices.
- surround 6y ago
  That’s what I said. VPNs are good for “location spoofing,” i.e. changing your web-facing IP address to a different region. VPNs are great for this purpose. The issue is, VPN companies (Mozilla included) are marketing their service as one that improves your safety when it doesn’t.
  - ryantgtg 6y ago
    The value of location spoofing is to access geographically-restricted content (like a netflix show that is available through their service in Europe but not the US), not to avoid DMCA notices. VPNs are valuable for avoiding DMCA because it hides from your ISP (the entity serving you the notice) what you are torrenting.
    - Dahoon 6y ago
      If you live in a place where the ISP actually looks at what you torrent and does something about it then you clearly need a VPN. Luckily that mostly happens in places where a DMCA is the least of your worries, like eastern europe and the middle east.

e12e 6y ago

What an odd choice from Mozilla and Mullvad to segment this based on geography. Can you use it while traveling outside the US? Why not simply have a wait list? Mullvad already operates globally - what is the reason for the geofence? Is Mozilla not able to accept payment outside the US? (maybe not able to pay taxes?)

sequoia 6y ago

"For example, over 70% of early Beta-testers say that the VPN helps them feel empowered, safe, and independent while being online." What have these "feelings" got to do with anything? This is a measure of successful marketing and has nothing to do with the product or its efficacy. Personally I use Windscribe and I really like it (I've used PIA & Mullvad in the past). I use it for watching US Netflix and to make it slightly less easy to track me on the net (I know there are many other ways). I also like the idea of not having my IP or the gov't spy on me _as easily_.

nprateem 6y ago
People buy on emotions
- Romanulus 6y ago
  ... and sell!
- bredren 6y ago
  What was the 500 startup guys phrase? A product has to get you “Made, Paid or Laid“ Where Made was like a sense of positive promotion like a made-man in the mob I think. Emotion is everything. If a product doesn’t make you feel good you’ll only buy it because you have to.
dx87 6y ago
I think "feeling" safe is an important component of a product. Of course the product has to also be effective, but if it's effective and people still don't trust it, then they won't use it. A good example of a similar situation is in the US military where we had to do yearly chemical weapons training that involved putting on a gas mask in a room filled with tear gas. The gas masks were already proven to work, but one purpose of the training was to make sure people trusted their equipment to keep them safe, making it more likely for them to use it when needed.
untog 6y ago
This is marketing copy. Criticizing it for being marketing copy is surely a little redundant. Besides, feelings matter. If the majority of VPN users felt that the security provided by the VPN was not worth the effort involved in using then that would indicate a failed product. Ignore that at your peril.

koolba 6y ago

Who is the target market for this in the markets it actually operates (US)? The only people I know that uses VPNs do so to download torrents and evade DMCA notices. And in that case it only really works if the VPN provider is itself located outside of US jurisdiction and collects little to no information about you the user.

jrockway 6y ago

I am surprised at how much money exists in the VPN industry. Whenever I watch even a mildly-popular YouTube video, it always has an advertisement for the latest VPN provider. As far as I can tell, there is only one reason there is this much money in the field -- to subscribe to US-based video streaming services from outside the US. But they never ever say that that's the reason, they always say things like "work from home securely" or "avoid being tracked". But, of course, your IT department already has a secure VPN for working from home, and that Facebook cookie works regardless of what your IP address is. In general, the sell of "you can't trust your network provider, so pay for an additional network provider that doesn't keep logs and only accepts payment in Bitcoins," doesn't seem particularly strong to me. Of course you can't trust the network layer. Nobody trusts the network layer. That is why we have TLS. (Anyone remember "wired equivalent privacy" when WiFi was a cool and new thing? Turns out wires don't offer much privacy.) So why people are buying this service confuses me. I am also confused at why people can run these services so cheaply. I looked into doing it myself (I had some ideas for actual value add), and the economics didn't seem that good. There is a lot of software between "ifup wg0" and "collect money from people that want a VPN". It seems expensive to write all that, unless a "yolo" strategy of starting up openvpn and setting up a couple NAT rules actually scales. (At the very least, you need to be able to distribute keys to pre-built clients, and if you want to make it smooth, you are looking at writing your own Windows/Mac/Android/iOS clients. Then you need all the business management software on top of that -- didn't get the Bitcoins so delete their private key, etc.) It seems like quite a bit of work that is quite expensive. But these things exist left and right and have huge advertising budgets. So obviously I am misunderstanding something.

imglorp 6y ago
I think you're right, a lot of VPN usage has to do with circumventing some tiered, segmented, bullshit content provider restrictions such as region or schedule or device type. The fact that all these people are paying for a service plus VPN means the services are leaving money on the table. If they would simply offer what we want, when we want, where we want it, on the device we want, on a single service without a hassle, many consumer would be lined up for that.
alteria 6y ago

flyGuyOnTheSly 6y ago

What is the main benefit of using a VPN? I download music, movie, tv, etc files via torrent using my Canadian IP address and I have never seen anything more than an email from my ISP saying essentially "so and so company thinks you downloaded their material, don't do that ok?". Is the general public so afraid of getting the odd email that paying $5/$10 month to make them disappear is a good deal for them? Why wouldn't people just use TOR for free? It was extremely fast the last I checked.

flatiron 6y ago
tor begs you not to use their service for torrenting. it would also be a lot slower than a VPN i use a VPN (to Montreal since it supports port forwarding) because i work from home and i don't want my IP that VPNs to work for a major company also being part of a torrent swarm.

kawsper 6y ago

I wish Mozilla would also offer a DNS-over-TLS service instead of just offloading it to Cloudflare or NextDNS.

Skunkleton 6y ago

When you connect to a VPN you advertise the fact that you are connected to a VPN to your local network, and hide your tunneled traffic. The tunneled traffic emerges elsewhere, with the extra encryption removed and proceeds as normal. Basically all a VPN provides is a mechanism to pretend that your butt is in a different seat. You hide your traffic from one network and expose it on another. If you are on public wifi somewhere and are concerned about traffic that isn't otherwise encrypted (DNS comes to mind), or if your connection is in some way restricted (govt, shitty isp, etc), then a VPN can address these issues. But you have to keep in mind that your new network is similarly untrustworthy. You might argue that by hiding behind your VPN provider, you are gaining anonymity. This might be true under the best circumstances, but this can _very_ easily break down. For example, the moment you load tracking_pixel.png then you are de-anonymized. That is saying nothing about the shady practices of the VPN providers themselves, or the governments that regulate them. When people connect to a VPN, especially lay-people, there is this feeling that the VPN is providing security, and privacy. This is largely marketing BS designed to sell more subscriptions. When I connect to a VPN I might be able to obscure my activity from state actors, or avoid some coffee shops bogus DNS server. What I can't do with a VPN is avoid literally every other form of tracking. And of course if I connect to a VPN, then I should be ok with those same bad-actors knowing I am connecting to a VPN. And I should be OK with the VPN provider being able to monitor my unencrypted traffic. And I should be ok aggregating all of my encrypted traffic into one easy to watch place. So what is a VPN providing the average consumer? If you want privacy install ad block software, https everywhere, enable DoH, don't log into social media sites, and clear your browser's cache frequently. If you want to avoid a state actor, then your best hope is probably something like Tor Browser.

ryanmarsh 6y ago

If it’s terminating at a host you don’t control it ain’t private.

johnklos 6y ago

Why the hell would anyone trust mozilla.org while they work tirelessly to make money? Google, who are unapologetically pro-money, at least listened to feedback about DoH.

johnklos 6y ago
Downvote without a response. Seriously - where does this magical trust come from, when we've seen Mozilla do what's against the interests of normal people in favor of doing what they can do to make money or to push traffic towards people who make money?
kelnos 6y ago
> Why the hell would anyone trust mozilla.org while they work tirelessly to make money? In what fantasy world do you live where hosting services and building products costs zero dollars? Not sure how Mozilla could operate at all without making money.

r3trohack3r 6y ago

Every time someone mentions a VPN provider in my techie social circles, the "A VPN doesn't protect you" crowd piles in, usually with links to something like: https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29 https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29 I don't understand this argument, but would like to. I run https://everytwoyears.org https://everytwoyears.org, a political non-profit focused on ending the warrantless metadata collection of U.S. citizens' communications. From everything I know about these programs, they are _explicitly_ not collecting content of communications. These programs only collect the metadata about a communication. As citizens, we don't get to have a clear definition of "metadata" (that is classified!) but we can assume anything that isn't the message itself is at risk of being considered metadata, especially if it was shared with a service provider in the normal course of conducting business (i.e. routing a request). For HTTP requests, I assume the body of the request would require a warrant before it can be persisted on a government server. The HTTP headers, if unencrypted, _might_ be considered metadata but I would be surprised. The IPV4 headers are more than likely metadata. DNS queries are more than likely metadata. If you are trying to avoid _active_ surveillance, where your government has a warrant, a VPN isn't going to help you. If you are trying to avoid _active_ surveillance where your adversary doesn't need/want a warrant to search you, a VPN isn't going to help you. But if you are trying to avoid having your internet activity ending up, de-anonymized, in a metadata database that your government does bulk analysis on, a VPN does seem like it would help. It seems like it would help a lot.

koheripbal 6y ago
I think you are correct that VPNs are a sort of half-solution. There are a lot of people that think anything less than 100% isn't worth your time, so they suggest TOR - but TOR has all sorts of annoying limitations that preclude daily usage. Absolute solutions are seldom worth the 10x extra effort they frequently require. Another set of half-solutions can be seen here which will make you more secure... https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl/encrypted-sni/ https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl/encrypted-sni/ ESNI, DoH, DNSSEC, and TLS1.3 are fairly easy to setup - and worth your time . Using Firefox with uBlock Origin & PrivacyBadger plus the above gets me to a good enough place. Illegal stuff on the other hand -> TOR. The problem with doing illegal stuff with only half-protections is that the authorities don't need to use the metadata to prove your guilt. After they raid your house they'll have all the parallel construction they need to make it stick. ...then again if you're just buying personal use amounts of drugs - no one at the FBI cares.

jchw 6y ago

Please take notes from Mullvad and give some basic transparency about the data centers and whether the servers are rented or owned and etc. Stuff like that goes a long way for people who are genuinely serious about privacy.

ayoisaiah 6y ago

I won't be switching to this. I've been paying €4.99 monthly for Blokada VPN on Android. It's pretty reliable and offers ad blocking as well. Also supports up to 5 devices.

nix23 6y ago
Nice, witch shady Marketing-Firm are you working for? Any point's for 'Blokada' being more trustworthy than AT&T ;)
- ayoisaiah 6y ago
  Just a happy user :) Blokada is pretty popular for Ad blocking on Android. And it's open source too: https://github.com/blokadaorg/blokada https://github.com/blokadaorg/blokada
  - nix23 6y ago
    Nice...sorry for the aggressive tone, sounded like a advertisement, have fun ;)

29athrowaway 6y ago

If Mozilla cares about privacy then why does this exist: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Beacon_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Beacon_API

gruez 6y ago
* you can disable it * sites can already do the same thing with javascript. this simply standardizes it, AND makes it easier to block (since it's a different request type rather than being lumped with other xhr).

romanovcode 6y ago

> You can only subscribe to the VPN from the United States How is this a "launch"? And also, this makes it a bit fishy if you ask me.

DCKing 6y ago

Come on Mozilla, hurry up! I want to give you money for goods and services (I also donate monthly [1]), but I'm not that interested in a VPN (I can and do also pay Mullvad). Give me that real internet stuff - email, calendar, file sync, chat(?) - give me Firefox Premium. Bundle in the Lockwise password manager. I'd pay good money to see a company fill the void of paid, privacy first essential internet services and I think Mozilla is one of the foremost existing players to pull it off. They've started talking about Firefox Premium a while ago now [2] and it's obviously not easy to build all of this in a lean way, but I'll happily pitch in. If only to help make Firefox development less dependant on Google or Yahoo. [1]: https://donate.mozilla.org/ https://donate.mozilla.org/ [2]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/10/18660344/firefox-subscription-paid-service-vpn-cloud-storage-release-date https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/10/18660344/firefox-subscrip...

petejodo 6y ago
I don't have much too add, I'm just replying in case Mozilla devs see this. I want this so much as well! I don't mind the VPN though. I pay for it now even though I run mostly Linux
- qchris 6y ago
  I'm in exactly the same boat. Paying for the VPN to use on exactly one device because everything else is Linux, and would happily put more money towards it if they offered a paid equivalent to GSuite that was privacy-respecting.
  - zrobotics 6y ago
    Question--why does everything else being Linux negate the need for a VPN? AFAIK, aren't the main reasons for a VPN bypassing georestricted content and avoiding ISP snooping? I don't see how running Linux negates any of these, and routing through a VPN certainly doesn't stop win10 from exfiltrating data.
    - rascul 6y ago

miniyarov 6y ago

Public VPN services should not be trusted blindly. Online anonymity is very hard. However, you can still create your own VPN server on cloud providers for at least have some privacy while you are on an untrusted network. Because of this reason, I created https://zudvpn.com https://zudvpn.com - It is a free and open-source mobile application that's used to deploy a private VPN server on major Cloud Providers! Github repo: https://github.com/zudvpn/ZudVPN https://github.com/zudvpn/ZudVPN

maxisme 6y ago
But doing this will give you a static IP which will make you even less anonymous.
- miniyarov 6y ago
  You cannot connect to the internet without an IP address. However, ZudVPN servers are disposable. This means that you can always destroy the server and create another VPN with completely new IP address that is assigned by cloud providers.

Havoc 6y ago

Can you select the region of exit node? Cloudflare VPN and lastpass geolocking was a bad combo...

userbinator 6y ago

This is what they should've done instead of that user-hostile DoH thing (which is already itself a sort of VPN but for DNS traffic only.)

champagnepapi 6y ago

"Mullvad respects your privacy and has committed to not keep logs of any kind." How sure can we be here?

pgt 6y ago

If Mozilla launched Momail or Firemail, I'd pay for it before paying for HEY or Fastmail.

kfreds 6y ago

Every time the VPN service industry is discussed on HN there is a barrage of comments that use keywords like “honeypot”, “snake oil”, and “shady”. I’m not denying that the industry has problems, but in this thread I’d like to focus on how we can improve it. Please tell me - What makes a VPN provider trustworthy, and how do you _know_? Personally I believe a trustworthy provider is _characterized_ by consistent actions that show transparency, honesty, and conscientiousness. Nevertheless, such consistent action doesn’t actually prove trustworthiness. A good VPN honeypot, or reseller of your network traffic, is publicly indistinguishable from a trustworthy one. So what can the users do? What tools, technology, process, or ecosystem do they need to tell honest and dishonest apart? What do we need to build? We all recognize that VPN providers are in a great position of power over their users. How do we tilt the scales in the users’ favor? What are _strong_ signals of trustworthiness? Disclosure: I co-founded Mullvad.

maxisme 6y ago
Sorry to go on a tangent (I believe it is word of mouth and actions of the company like you say): What is the deal with Mullvad and Firefox? Are they completely using your services but with their name on it? Would you rather a client directly or through Firefox (bit cheaper now in $ )?
- kfreds 6y ago
  Thank you. To quote https://fpn.firefox.com/vpn https://fpn.firefox.com/vpn - “The VPN is built by Firefox and runs on a global network of servers powered by our partner Mullvad using the WireGuard® protocol.“ Regarding using us directly or through Mozilla, I think both are good options. If you pay directly to us we will put your money to good use. Same goes for Mozilla. And they are not mutually exclusive. You could also sign up directly with us AND set up a monthly donation to Mozilla for Firefox development :)
all_blue_chucks 6y ago
Block all plaintext traffic. Only allow TLS. Be transparent about what you log and what you don't. Publish results of third party audits.

pythonbase 6y ago

And there are countries that force users to get their VPNs registered. https://www.pta.gov.pk/en/media-center/single-media/public-notice---get-your-vpn-registered-080620 https://www.pta.gov.pk/en/media-center/single-media/public-n...

merge 6y ago

an alternative is also the https://librem.one/ https://librem.one/ services run by Purism. VPN, Email and more. All server and client code is at source.puri.sm and it's mostly only rebranded "standard tools".

mulmen 6y ago

This is a hard pass from me. Mozilla controls my browser. I have no interest in giving them control over any other part of my online life. I like how Mozilla is run and hope other organizations emulate them to provide these other essential services.

pixxel 6y ago
Couldn’t agree more. Often I see people wishing for Mozilla to add more services. Please just do one complicated thing really well, Mozilla! I guess all these additional services help lure more users to Firefox, so there’s that. Maybe Mozilla can eventually generate enough revenue to stop nuzzling on Google’s money teat. I think I just convinced myself that additional services are good overall for Mozilla. But yes, I’m firmly in the spread your online presence wide camp.

gver10 6y ago

> Although there are a lot of VPNs out there, we felt like you deserve a VPN with the Mozilla name behind it.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago

As a security person, I am somewhat baffled by the popularity of VPNs. I have no idea why anyone would use them for general internet usage, and I suspect the majority of VPN service users are misinformed about what they think they are gaining. Any VPN subscribers want to fill me in? The only thing I can think of is hiding the source of pirated media being shared via bittorrent.

pomokhtari 6y ago
A lot of countries block access to websites. US and EU are not the whole world! VPN helps people to circumvent censorship. I use a VPN daily because without it, there is no Twitter/HackerNews/Reddit/Youtube/... .
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  Totally understood for those countries, but it’s still hugely popular in the US. That’s what I’m wondering about.
  - aryonoco 6y ago
    Many ISPs in the US perform DPI, sell anonymized data to marketing companies, slowdown YouTube/Netflix when the backend pipes are congested, etc. If you want your ISP to provide you with a dumb pipe and not interfere with your traffic, a VPN is an easy solution.
    - lawnchair_larry 6y ago
      In practice, you’re almost certainly not getting faster netflix or youtube by adding an extra VPN into the congestion path. There are some weird edge cases where particular peering agreements and anycast routing quirks leave some exceptions to that, but I highly doubt a non-negligible amount of users are actually seeing a consistent speed increase on a VPN, and the vast majority would definitely see a decrease. That VPN is doing more to interfere with traffic than an ISP is. As for tracking you and selling your data, I trust my ISP to behave better in that regard than I do some shady VPN provider. And I don’t even trust my IP that much.

cameronperot 6y ago

A little late in the game, but they're a brand I would hold in higher regard than 99% of the other providers out there. I believe that a lot of people misunderstand what exactly a VPN is and what scenarios it offers benefits of use in. I personally host my own VPN on a lowendspirit server [1] for when I'm on an untrusted WiFi network or I need to have an IP in the US (it comes in handy as a US citizen living abroad). I also use a VPN sometimes when I have a dev server (hosted on the server itself) that I'm developing/testing on since being on the same network as the server makes things easier, e.g. having a container with an API bound to the VPN network so that I can access it easily and without it being public facing. Of course there's also the shady side of VPN use. If you're doing that it might be beneficial to use the VPN within a VM with strict firewall rules, i.e. only allow incoming/outgoing to/from the VPN. Doing so allows you to only send the traffic you want to over the VPN, thus reducing your exposure to any nefarious data collection that the provider might be doing. [1] https://lowendspirit.com/ https://lowendspirit.com/

badrabbit 6y ago

So long as it will never have anything to do with Firefox. Using it for work would be risky if they did that.

classics2 6y ago

I stopped using Firefox when they discontinued RSS support saying “it’s too hard and old and lame! Oh but here’s Pocket (tm) which costs money and has nothing at all to do with cutting RSS support” I wouldn’t expect much different here.

kennystone 6y ago

Really smart from Mozilla; they leverage trust in their brand with a product for which trust is the most important feature. Making a VPN is a non-trivial technology project, but it's pretty straightforward how to do it well.

dikaio 6y ago

I would switch ALL my paid for services to Mozilla in a heart beat if they would just hire a damn UI guy/girl.

loughnane 6y ago

I really like Mozilla, and I like to see them bring some competition for my dollars that are currently going to the proton suite of services.

memexy 6y ago

I currently run a wireguard vpn on digital ocean and it works really well. What is the reason for developers to pay for this service when they can set one up in less than 5 minutes and automate the whole thing with user-init scripts.

cyphar 6y ago

It's disheartening that Mozilla is continuing to actively avoid partnering with the Tor project for problems like this, despite the fact that the Tor project has contributed to Firefox for many years (mostly related to fingerprint resistance). I get that Mozilla needs to make money, but the fact that they still haven't made "private browsing mode" actually private by making it use Tor is a real shame.

nerdbaggy 6y ago
The amount of exit nodes would be insane. And I don’t think Mozilla would want the liability of running them.
- cyphar 6y ago
  I'm not sure how you got "Mozilla should run all the Tor exit nodes" from my comment.

JDDunn9 6y ago

Opera already has a free VPN built into their browser.

fnord77 6y ago

I would love a VPN that would use a different IP address for each site I visit. Just to prevent the backend IP address correlation between sites that trackers use. Technically I know this is probably impossible without tons of virtual NICs

mikedilger 6y ago

I don't use a VPN as I'm pretty sure my traffic identifies me once it pops out the other end. But I do tunnel DNS with a server I trust so that my ISP only ends up seeing encrypted traffic (DNS over ssh, and HTTPS). I don't do DoH because there are only a few providers and so those are hotspots for espionage.

xvilka 6y ago

They should fix their reliance [1] on Python 2 first. They had more than a decade to migrate, but still Python 2 EOL came as a surprise for them. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1496527 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1496527

techntoke 6y ago

How do you call yourself a company that prides itself on open source but you always put support for Linux on the back burner?

wiether 6y ago

Since they are using the infrastructure of Mullvad, what's the point of using Mozilla's software instead of using directly Mullvad's ? Price related I'm paying 5€/month for Mullvad and Mozilla's VPN is at $4.99/month so when it will be available in Europe I expect it to be 4.99€. If they where offering something more, I'll see the point, but here by them developping their own software to use someone else infrastructure seems to be a huge waste. If they wanted to put their Mozilla logo, they should have gone for a white-label product with Mullvad no ?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

bigiain 6y ago

<snark>"This is why we built the Firefox Private Network VPN Network which you can use with your Personal PIN Identification Number! Please get some cash out at the Automatic ATM Machine and donate today!" Naming things: one of the truly hard things in computer science... (But come on, you don't have to fail _that_ hard Mozilla, surely?) :sigh:

n1try 6y ago

Is it a general-purpose VPN service or can it only be used from within Firefox? Because that would make it only half as useful.

acd 6y ago

I also want to subscribe to Mozilla. For viewing Mozilla as a foundation that does the right thing. Thankful for many of the Internet standards Mozilla helped develop. Please help making Internet decentralized and private again. * Support for paying content creators without advertising * Decentralized CDN and compute * fast privacy

ss3000 6y ago

I love Mozilla and Mullvad, but 5 simultaneous connections just isn't enough for me. I know they can't allow unlimited devices due to the potential for abuse, but is something like 20-30 connections so I can use it for all my devices/VMs isn't too much to ask for?

ptx 6y ago

> over 70% of early Beta-testers say that the VPN helps them feel empowered, safe, and independent Well, does it make people empowered, safe and independent? Never mind what people feel - the users don't know the details of the implementation, so their belief could be mistaken.

Dahoon 6y ago

I'll live without a VPN as long as it is crazy expensive to find one fast enough to not throttle my connection (so 1gbps) with unlimited data and support for encryption at a level that is okayish secure yet still fast enough to not kill my server or router. I've tried a few that said they could deliver, but none of them could. I have no interest in paying my ISP for bandwidth and then strangle it with a VPN.

jokowueu 6y ago

What type of VPN software are they using ? Hope it has some obfustication

pbhjpbhj 6y ago

>guided by our Data Privacy Principles // A cunning way of not starting any rules used for the VPN. Then they can say "well we were guided by our policy when we secretly kept all your connection details and gave them to a marketing company". How about being guided by your policies on openness and state precisely and fully how data is used/stored/shared. Isn't privacy the/a principle feature of a VPN? The irony of only being able to sign up from outside the USA of you use a VPN is not lost on me.

jsomedon 6y ago

After firefox introduced that megabar UI with no option to turn that off, I started considering switching back to chrome. It's very questionable if they still care about their users, and if that's the case, firefox has ZERO advantage over chrome.

hnanon1 6y ago

Very glad to see Mozilla partner with such a respectable VPN company. However, a caveat I have is Mozilla being a company with an American presence means US LE could potentially get involved in some fashion and target select users. One should sign up directly with Mullvad instead. Sorry, hard pass.