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We are removing the option to create new subscriptions

• strickman 4y ago
• kombucha13 4y ago
  Very interesting. Mullvad seems to be the most extreme and reputable VPN service out there when it comes to privacy. At least it seems that way.
  • criddell 4y ago
    A VPN will hide you from your ISP, but that's about it, isn't it? Does a VPN really provide that much real privacy?
    • kombucha13 4y ago
      I mean a properly configured VPN can do a lot more Then hide you from your ISP
      • dymk 4y ago
        Like what? Now you’re just using their ISP.
        • 5e92cb50239222b 4y ago
          Some of us have really crappy ISPs (that also happen to be monopolists) that do things like HTTPS MITM (when they try to force you to install their root CA certificate and HTTPS simply doesn't work unless you do it), block DNS requests unless you use their DNS servers, or store all your traffic (this is being done in Russia, but it's close enough). I very much prefer to cover the precise details of my communications from my ISP and 'outsource' that stuff to Europe.
          • oaiey 4y ago
            I hope you go for a spying incompetent country in Europe :). Especially one which is not partnered with the US .. like the UK and others.
            • deleted 4y ago
              [deleted]
        • advisedwang 4y ago
          Most allow you to chose where the VPN exit is located, so you can have traffic originating in another country.
          • dcow 4y ago
            This is a nice feature and paying for it is a perfectly sane thing to do if you need the utility. It's not exactly privacy, though.
    • yjftsjthsd-h 4y ago
      It also stops sites you visit from seeing your real IP.
      • stjohnswarts 4y ago
        Sure but with fingerprinting that's only a minor nuisance to most advertisers and sites who are tracking you.
        • oaiey 4y ago
          But the cast majority of users will not care about fingerprinting by surveillance industry but about illegally Dow loading stuff. And there, VPNs are quite comfy.
        • pridkett 4y ago
          The newest version of Firefox goes a long way to prevent this with Total Cookie Protection[0]. You’re basically left with fingerprinting as all cookies are site specific - even third party cookies. Combine that with with a DNS that does cname uncloaking like NextDNS and noscript and you’re about as good as you can get without extreme measures. [0]: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-rolls-out-total-cookie-protection-by-default-to-all-users-worldwide/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-rolls-o...
      • Pakdef 4y ago
        I use Tor for that... it's a bit like a free VPN
    • ezfe 4y ago
      Well, yes and no. For most people, they're over-rated. You don't even need a VPN to securely pay your credit card bill on public Wi-Fi. However, there are two cases where they are useful: - IP address hiding (something like iCloud Private Relay for iOS/Mac users does this at the browser level, VPN brings it to the entire system) - Legal protections - Location simulation If you want to hide your IP address, this could be to stay more anonymous and less trackable, any system that relays your connection is fine. If you want to break the law, you'll need something that has safeguards in place against that. Most VPNs do the most they can within the legal limits here. If you want to simulate your location, you'll need a VPN with servers in those locations. --- So really, it just depends on what "real privacy" means to you.
      • 5e92cb50239222b 4y ago
        You forgot the most important use case, unless you're talking about Europeans and USians only. I use a VPN simply because half the internet doesn't work without it (some guy in a suit decided what you can and cannot read, and there's nothing you can do about it). Free tiers provided by various "cloud" services work fine for this one (Oracle is the most generous among them).
        • deleted 4y ago
          [deleted]
        • pastacacioepepe 4y ago
          > unless you're talking about Europeans and USians only Nah. As Europeans we're getting more and more censorship. Just think that most Russian news outlets have been blocked, youtube channels and so on. Plus until recently I couldn't read a good chunk of US news due to them refusing to adapt to GDPR.
    • stjohnswarts 4y ago
      Hiding your activity from your ISP is a Huge Deal in the USA. Can't speak to other countries though.
    • Anunayj 4y ago
      and let me access sites blocked by my country/ISP!
    • throwaway675309 4y ago
      We've had numerous cases of ISPs spying on the domains that you are using and throttling your network usage according to that activity at least in the United States, so a VPN goes a long way towards ameliorating this particular issue.
    • utucuro 4y ago
      "That's about it" corresponds to large swathes of the Internet for some of us living in parts of the world with arbitrarily censored and restricted Internet access.
• spacephysics 4y ago
  The few times where removing ‘features’ (re: privacy holes) is good news
• encryptluks2 4y ago
  Great benefit. I also recommend to find a reputable masked card service provider if you plan to use a credit/debit card. Autopay is just another way for banks and providers to circumvent overdraft protection legislation and hopefully new legislation will remove any "perks" that providers offer for autopay services.
  • azalemeth 4y ago
    I would love to know if there are any of these in the EU – US friends of mine have mentioned privacy.com but I am unaware of a similar service in the UK.
    • pacifika 4y ago
      which is it, EU or UK?
    • Dracophoenix 4y ago
      Privacy.com abides by KYC. So it's not very private.
  • capableweb 4y ago
    No need, just send them cash in an envelope, which works just as well. I wish more services supported this, but I understand it adds a lot of hassle for them as well.
    • TomGullen 4y ago
      How do they handle VAT via cash in an envelope? Do you need to provide a billing address?
      • cmeacham98 4y ago
        Mullvad's advertised pricing already includes VAT is my understanding.
        • 4y ago
• colesantiago 4y ago
  I wish more SaaS companies (especially VPN ones) did this, this is a giant win for in the area of privacy. Go Mullvad!
  • nicce 4y ago
    The opposite is sadly still happening in everywhere else and no change for that is probably coming in the foreseeable future. With subscriptions, you guarantee the revenue. And making it very difficult to unsubscribe, such as some unnamed companies, even a little bit more money is collected.
• charles_f 4y ago
  > convenience comes at a cost and we no longer think this is an acceptable trade-off. In an age where dissertations about what color and position to use for buttons go pages long, that's a courageous position that follows a clear strategy. Kudos!
  • onelovetwo 4y ago
    I think its also good for Mullvad, they push people towards the 1y plan instead. No one is going to put their payment info in every single month.
    • charles_f 4y ago
      They only have a monthly pricing option I believe https://mullvad.net/en/pricing/ https://mullvad.net/en/pricing/
      • prophesi 4y ago
        With one-time payments, you'd send them 5 euros for one month, or 60 for a year, etc.
      • skrebbel 4y ago
        Nop, you choose how many months you wanna pay ahead for
      • tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
        Pricing yes, but you can buy multiple months in advance. You don't get any advantage except convenience.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
• mig39 4y ago
  I've always loved that Mullvad wouldn't let you accidentally compromise your own security. For example, the port-forwarding feature won't work if you have a recurring subscription. This just extends that kind of thinking to the service in general. Been a Mullvad customer for a long time now, and it's always been awesome.
  • Cyph0n 4y ago
    > For example, the port-forwarding feature won't work if you have a recurring subscription. Yep, I had to cancel my subscription recently to get port forwarding working. I've been a customer for a few years now and trusted that they were doing this because it made sense from a privacy standpoint.
  • contravariant 4y ago
    What's the exact reasoning behind that? How does paying via paypall impact the privacy of a forwarded port? Is this something to do with state-level actors?
    • capableweb 4y ago
      Presumably there are details linking together payments coming from Paypal and the account number. And obviously there is a link between account number and forwarded port. So following with that, you'd be able to make the connection between the account number and Paypal account, which is definitely not private nor even pretending to protect your privacy.
      • contravariant 4y ago
        Maybe but doesn't all of that apply equally to just about any payment method other than sending them cash anonymously?
        • shrimpx 4y ago
          I think in the case of a one-time payment there’s a record that you paid Mullvad, but there’s no link to an account number.
• skeeter2020 4y ago
  If you're familiar with the sizeable benefits of the subscription model for a business you'll recognize this is a big deal.
  • yreg 4y ago
    They still use a subscription model it's just a non-recurring one.
    • karaterobot 4y ago
      Part of the advantage of the recurring subscription model is having predictable revenue every month due to it being recurring. And many businesses count on that "gym membership" effect, where people who don't use a service also don't take the time to cancel it for a while.
      • disiplus 4y ago
        that's me and my audible subscription. i should cancel it, but before that i have to use the credits.
        • krallja 4y ago
          Holy cow, that’s evil. https://help.audible.com/s/article/do-i-keep-my-credits-if-i-cancel-my-audible-premium-plus-membership?language=en_US https://help.audible.com/s/article/do-i-keep-my-credits-if-i... Do I keep my credits if I cancel my Audible Premium Plus membership? No. If you end your Audible Premium Plus membership, your credits will be lost with your other membership benefits.
          • dfinninger 4y ago
            I wind up pausing my subscription when I get too many credits. It’s not a full cancellation, but I don’t have to pay.
            • 4y ago
• andrewmunsell 4y ago
  I've been using Mullvad ever since PIA was bought out. Never had an issue with them (other than when I forget to top up and my VPN connection dies :) ) with speed or reliability. I've always used the top up functionality rather than a subscription, but it's great to see how committed they are to reducing the attack surface for the users that need the most privacy.
  • wyager 4y ago
    Earlier this year I was changing some firewall configs and my torrent jail on my home server stopped working. I spent like an hour debugging, only to realize that my 1-year mulvad subscription had expired in the middle of messing with my firewall. Oops! Mulvad is awesome and super fast. I reliably get in excess of 300mbps while torrenting.
• ascar 4y ago
  That's great news and they just got a huge boost in reputation for me. Definitely the go to service if I need a good VPN again. Especially strong decision since this will certainly cost them a lot of revenue and I don't think the boost in reputation will counter that in the long run.
  • leaflets2 4y ago
    I guess they'll notice after a month or a year What'll happen. I suppose there is a "middle" group of users who want a VPN a bit but not super much, and long term now might leave Anyway I like Mullvad's mindset Hi Mullvad, I hope you'll post a follow-up a year later :-) What if you, as part of the payment flow, included adding a calendar reminder X months later
• CodesInChaos 4y ago
  If they don't keep the link between accounts and payments, doesn't that mean they can't revoke an account when a chargeback happens?
  • cmeacham98 4y ago
    Sure, but they can ban your payment method, and they care about privacy enough to eat this (probably small) cost. Also, they do actually keep a link for 40 days, but it seems like some card card networks allow chargebacks past that.
  • bombcar 4y ago
    > In order to provide refunds and the ability to recover lost accounts we need to store some record of a payment, at least for a short time. As soon as we do not need the data to enable refunding a payment we scrub the record of anything that can link the payment or the account to any personally identifiable information kept by the payment processor (this could be your bank, for example). So they hold your info and link for however long the chargeback period is (or the average one, probably 30-60 days is fine) and then lose it. If you're more worried about privacy than convenience they offer other payment methods: Which payment methods do you accept? We accept cash, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Monero, bank wire, credit card, PayPal, Swish, Giropay, Eps transfer, Bancontact, iDEAL, and Przelewy24. https://mullvad.net/en/pricing/ https://mullvad.net/en/pricing/ And you can pay for a decade in advance. (What is Pretzel24 I wonder?)
    • zulln 4y ago
      Selecting Pretzel24 as payment method redirects to https://go.przelewy24.pl/ https://go.przelewy24.pl/ where in turn you choose between different banks. I guess it is a Polish service for direct bank payments?
      • jwilk 4y ago
        Wait, does it actually say "Pretzel" somewere, or did you both misspell it? "przelewy" means "wire transfers" in Polish: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/przelew https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/przelew Nothing to do with pretzels. :)
• causality0 4y ago
  Have Mullvad's privacy guarantees been tested by subpoena?
  • znpy 4y ago
    This does not apply. They’re european, a subpoena from the us government wouldn’t have any effect on them.
    • bragr 4y ago
      Europe has courts, subpoenas, warrants, police, and all that too so I don't see how that affects the question? The US as mutual legal aid treaties with most European countries as well.
    • stjohnswarts 4y ago
      that's not true, the USA has agreements to exchange information on citizens with the vast majority of European countries. While a local yokel might have a rough time, the federal government would only have to put in a request and wait a while. The only cost is the effort to file for it.
  • tacker2000 4y ago
    They are based in Sweden, which could be an issue since they are part of the 14-eyes alliance. https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mullvad-review-solid-security-and-privacy-but-swedish-jurisdiction-is-concerning/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mullvad-revi...
    • INTPenis 4y ago
      Yeah I think that's why they're trying to minimize the amount of data they have on store, because they know that a repeat of the TPB raid can happen any time. If the Swedish courts find sufficient reason to do so, they will go in without warning and seize what they feel like.
  • wfhordie 4y ago
    If your threat model includes nation state intervention, a 5 Euro VPN isn't going to help you. In fact, no VPN is going to help you. The best you can get is probably Tor + Tails, but even then you better be looking over your shoulder.
• shafyy 4y ago
  This is a great idea! In practice, how would you go about this e.g. if you're using Stripe? After a few weeks, delete the customer information in Stripe?
  • Bilal_io 4y ago
    That's a very good question. I wonder why companies don't push hard to disallow third-party services from storing their customers' data. I had this issue as an employe. My employer used a third-party service for onboarding. This service had a breach and my data (including my SSN) was leaked. I've been begging my employer (one reason I wish I lived in California) to take action and have them remove my data, because another breach is inevitable. They've finally sent a request to delete all employees' data. Now I am waiting.
    • shafyy 4y ago
      If you accept payment, it's very hard not to relay some information to a third party, except if you build your own payment provider service... But I'd love to see Stripe make more effort here and e.g. start allowing EU hosting for EU customers and so on.
      • Bilal_io 4y ago
        I don't mind sending data to the service, but the moment the information is no longer needed, we should have the expectation that you delete the data.
  • londons_explore 4y ago
    Even if you delete it in Stripe, I very much doubt that stripe or the credit card providers will be deleting the data. Someone will know that Mr Smith has a mulvad VPN subscription. They just won't know his username on the service.
    • shafyy 4y ago
      Probably true. So, how does Mullvad handle this?
• rlv-dan 4y ago
  Would it be possible to store subscription data without actually linking it to the account that is affected? Sort of like a one way encryption.
  • londons_explore 4y ago
    When the subscription was cancelled, you would have no way to know which account to disable. Perhaps a better model is the client stores the necessary data, and presents it when trying to connect?
  • bombcar 4y ago
    You'd have to have some form of connection, but it might be possible to design it in such a way that it could be plausibly denied. Holomorphic? All the ways I come up with (giving out keys) have the problem of how do you renew the key, and how do you cancel it, without knowing which is which.
    • heartbeats 4y ago
      Couldn't you give them short-lasting keys, that they can use to sign session keys? e.g. 1. Connect to Mullvad over Tor, authenticate with real-world user ID 2. Use this to sign a blinded token 3. Use this to connect to Mullvad anonymously after some delay The first run would be kind of dodgy, but after that you could get new session keys on a fixed schedule and switch them out at a random interval. If they see that user A authenticates and 10 minutes later, key A comes online, that can be traced, but if you then wait a week, authorize key B, and then wait a few more days to start using it, you should be good. In practice, this has way too many issues to work in practice. It still requires you to trust them not to e.g. log IPs and correlate it that way, so it's all just snake oil.
      • jaywalk 4y ago
        It seems like you're trying to solve a totally different problem that doesn't exist. If you have a subscription, that means Mullvad must store information that ties your account to the subscription payment processor. That is the information they don't want to store anymore, because they want their users to be anonymous. Their system is already setup so that users can't be correlated with VPN activity.
• Linda703 4y ago
  [dead]
• _fat_santa 4y ago
  Highly commendable position. Mullvad is leaving a ton of money on the table by doing this, but in the sea of shady VPN providers, having a provider do something proactive like this makes me want to switch.
  • potency 4y ago
    Who are you using now?
    • iKlsR 4y ago
      Been using PIA for the past few years. Tried Proton but this looks really good and having the entire thread sending +1s is major. Will def give it a try.
      • WithinReason 4y ago
        What's wrong with Proton?
      • nzgrover 4y ago
        re PIA, have you seen this? https://restoreprivacy.com/kape-technologies-owns-expressvpn-cyberghost-pia-zenmate-vpn-review-sites/ https://restoreprivacy.com/kape-technologies-owns-expressvpn...
• rglover 4y ago
  Wow. Hadn't heard of Mullvad before reading this, figured I'd give it a try. That is hands down the BEST onboarding experience for an app (let alone a VPN) I've had in I don't know how long. Took me maybe 2 minutes to go from no account to a working VPN connection. I love that everything is anonymous (down to the account credentials just being a randomly generated token).
  • sph 4y ago
    Of all their features, I love that they have an Android TV app so I can watch F1TV on my couch. They're worth more than the 5 euros I give them per month.
    • ignoramous 4y ago
      Aren't OTT streaming services notorious for blocking VPN IP ranges? How is Mullvad getting around those? Surely, they don't buy / lease / steal residential IP addresses [0]? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9614993 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9614993
      • sph 4y ago
        Probably Mullvad is still unknown to most. They're not the one doing the sponsorships on YouTube.
    • StopHammoTime 4y ago
      OH MY GOD. I've had to stop watching F1 in Australia because the only app that has licensing is like $27.50 a month and I don't love it that much. This is a fantastic idea! Thanks mate!
      • sph 4y ago
        Be aware: I share an account with someone in a country with F1TV. If you register from abroad and use your credit card, they'll see you're from AU, block your account and you'll have to contact customer services for a refund. Exclusivity deals are a cancer.
• potency 4y ago
  That's amazing. When so many companies go in the opposite direction, it's incredibly refreshing to see a company make strides toward reducing their customer's identifiable data footprint.
• seibelj 4y ago
  FYI they take monero, the most private cryptocurrency.
  • pxeger1 4y ago
    That's a pretty sweeping statement to make with no evidence.
    • heartbeats 4y ago
      Monero has the largest anonymity set of any cryptocurrency, so the statement is true.
      • syzygyhack 4y ago
        It's not just about the anonymity set, there are more factors than that. That said, I concur with the conclusion.
    • cmcconomy 4y ago
      there is irrefutable evidence that they take monero
      • ezfe 4y ago
        And we both know that wasn't the point of issue here - "the most private cryptocurrency" was
  • freiherr 4y ago
    Tor -> buy mullvad for xmr -> use it for clearnet ip after Tor Best for privacy, best for abuse. Arent there any problems like captchas everywhere because the ip was overused? Or CP distribution lawsuits towards mullvad?
• hunter2_ 4y ago
  For customers who don't go to great length to protect their own privacy when paying (i.e., all subscribers, I assume) Mullvad should persuade them to replace their subscription with the "bill pay" feature of most checking accounts -- maybe even offer tutorials for common banks. I'm not an expert in the implications of a subpoena and if banks get involved, but it seems like it would at least be a way to keep the revenue stream nearly as healthy (recurring automatically) while also meeting their goal of not maintaining subscription data.
  • usr1106 4y ago
    Banking is highly national. It does not even work very uniformily in SEPA (Single European Payment Area). Of course there are mandatory SEPA features that every bank in every country must support. But there are other national features which are used in some countries by practically all businesses basically making everything incompatible again. And of course there are many countries completely outside of SEPA.
    • hunter2_ 4y ago
      I'm in the US and I'm not familiar with banking elsewhere, but the "bill pay" feature I'm talking about will try some electronic system first, and if the recipient doesn't support it, the bank simply mails a check. The recipient could be as small/offline as any person at a residential address. I assume writing a check and mailing it is a fairly typical thing everywhere, and having the bank do this on a repeating schedule doesn't seem like a huge hurdle, but I could be wrong.
      • AnssiH 4y ago
        > I assume writing a check and mailing it is a fairly typical thing everywhere It absolutely is not. The only time I've seen a check was a gift from my grandfather in the 00s, and I don't think paying bills by mailing checks was ever a thing here. Checks also often become very difficult and expensive to cash when going cross-border. E.g. most banks here (Finland) refuse to cash foreign checks altogether.
• Arubis 4y ago
  My only concern with Mullvad is that, as their profile and reputation increase, they become a bigger target. That’s mostly a vote of confidence, though the concern is a real one.
  • INTPenis 4y ago
    But what is also great about Mullvad is that they're actively working to make their remote and local security better. They're involved in the stboot[1] project for example. 1. https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2022/1/12/diskless-infrastructure-beta-system-transparency-stboot/ https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2022/1/12/diskless-infrastructur...
  • kvathupo 4y ago
    Perhaps a Swede can chime in, but I'd imagine Sweden has a lax regulatory approach, e.g. compare the fates of PRQ and Megaupload. It's, admittedly inexplicably, concerning that we've driven people to foreign companies (from American ones) due to government surveillance. It begs the question: under what conditions would a consumer be fine ceding privacy? Transparency? Remuneration?
    • htgb 4y ago
      Not really. See the trial against the founders of The Pirate Bay for example, and the controversies surrounding it. Also, the FRA surveillance. Also, according to the ISP Bahnhof, the police at least used to submit lots of data requests without a court order and for non-serious crimes. AIUI, Bahnhof and other VPN providers stay in the clear by avoiding storage of data in the first place. They can be compelled to hand over any data they have, but not to log any additional data. (ISPs etc are forced to log more data IIRC.) At least there's nothing like the Australian laws for forcing and gagging developers.
      • nichch 4y ago
        Could you elaborate on the Australian laws?
• arein3 4y ago
  If I'll ever use a VPN I will check out mullvad, this kind of attitude is almost non existent now
• seanw444 4y ago
  Been using Mullvad for a year, give or take, and I'm very happy. Zero care to find another VPN provider. Simple, fast, and anonymous sign-up. The apps function perfectly. Never experienced a bug in the Android or Linux apps. And the Wireguard profiles work perfectly. Connections are fast and not throttled (IME). And the UI of the website and apps is minimal and to-the-point. I hope Mullvad keeps on its current course. It's one of the most respectable companies right now, with a respectable product, and its one of the few I care to pay for on a consistent basis.
  • stjohnswarts 4y ago
    The only issue I have is on my phone. Whenever I leave my home wifi, it gets slow as hell and I have to do a reconnect to get to a new server. Usually the reconnect speeds things up a LOT.
• roldie 4y ago
  Another happy Mullvad customer. Been using them for a couple years now, and couldn't be happier with the ease, speed, and privacy.
• cersa8 4y ago
  I like this a lot even though my primary reason is unexpected subscription renewal. I started a membership site and tried to use every single thing I would want as a customer. One of the things was a reminder that my yearly membership was about to expire, and by doing nothing this would indeed happen. No automatic renewal (but keeping the account in an inactive state). Confident customers can renew for 3 years with a discount, but nothing will automatically renew. Turns out, customers love this attitude and happily renew when it's time.
  • tailspin2019 4y ago
    This is a nice approach. Have you considered giving customers the option to turn on automatic renewal? There are certain specific things that I would want always to auto renew (like domain names, hosting related stuff etc) If I ever get round to building a subscription SaaS I might consider “off by default” auto-renewal and leave it to customers to turn it on if want it… though this does add a bit of complexity I guess.
    • cersa8 4y ago
      Have considered and have been told many times this is costing me revenue (which I think might be true). But I've never had a customer ask for it. Which is an important signal for me to consider a feature. Online payments are very easy for my target audience (mostly Dutch retail customers) with iDEAL so the benefits of automatic renewal is low.
  • zdkl 4y ago
    In some circles that'll count against you if you try to sell the product/company. Investors are interested in recurring revenue and will value it very differently than your loose-relation clients. Not saying it's a thing you should always do, but worth keeping in mind.
    • kalleboo 4y ago
      Right, if your product is your company, this is the wrong attitude. But if you product is your product, then it's fantastic.
• toma_caliente 4y ago
  Wonder how this affects MozillaVPN subscriptions.
• yieldcrv 4y ago
  Do they take crypto? I’ve funded some virgin addresses from Tornado Cash notes, running from my own local node Thats sufficient and definitely less cumbersome than Monero.
  • 5e92cb50239222b 4y ago
    Man, checking this one takes like 10 seconds. Not only they do take "crypto", they also have a 10% discount if you pay with it.
    • yieldcrv 4y ago
      I actually did take 10 seconds, scrolled down and saw the pricing page, decided not to click that because so many services only show the janky crypto payment option during a janky checkout process so decided not to bother and just ask here in the remaining 2 seconds. It worked.
  • nunez 4y ago
    yes, with a discount even
  • johnbatch 4y ago
    Yes. [0] " Which payment methods do you accept? We accept cash, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Monero, bank wire, credit card, PayPal, Swish, Giropay, Eps transfer, Bancontact, iDEAL, and Przelewy24. " also Cash "Can I really pay with cash? You bet, and please! Stay anonymous all the way. Just put your cash and payment token (randomly generated on our website) in an envelope and send it to us. We accept the following currencies: EUR, USD, GBP, SEK, DKK, NOK, CHF, CAD, AUD, NZD. " [0] https://mullvad.net/en/pricing/ https://mullvad.net/en/pricing/
    • yieldcrv 4y ago
      Ohh ok so no Ethereum or EVM assets With virgin addresses I can get bitcoin and monero (or anything incl cash) anonymously from the tornado cash notes via the bridges, or via exchanges and staying below KYC limits But Tornado Cash notes decrypt only to EVMs where Tornado Cash is deployed. It would be more convenient for Ether and some ERC20 tokens to also be used directly, instead of bridges or exchanges. Are you all beholden to a specific payment processor or implementation? People pay the most to use Ethereum for over half a decade now, which is best projection we have for activity and potential interest in merchants that aren't crypto native services.
• INTPenis 4y ago
  This is just like Mullvad to care about your privacy. But I think it's a bit overkill to completely remove the subscription option. They could have accomplished the same educating of end users with a simple recommendation or opt-out at sign up. Still providing subscription for those users who find that most convenient.
• fady 4y ago
  Been a mullvad user for more than 4 years and love it. Thanks guys and keep up the good work.
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  Mullvad is awesome from top to bottom. From strict adherence to their values to the apps that they make and the service that they provide. I've been an extremely happy customer for years. Keep up the good work!
• dcow 4y ago
  Why are VPNs what people flock to when they think they want privacy? Moreover they kinda break the internet so it's not a scalable solution. It's cool to see a good one selling a privacy message and doing it at level 11, but it seems kinda disingenuous to me to tell users that they're more private because they use a VPN. Private from your current ISP, sure, but not from Mullvad (they're your new ISP, you're just moving the problem of who to trust, not acquiring privacy) and especially not so much from the service level tracking and collection of data which is arguably the real problem short of being targeted by nation-states. Also it seems all I need to do as an "attacker" is subpoena (or whatever the Swedish equivalent is) Mullvad while your payment record is on file and I get the info I want. If Mullvad really wanted to go hardcore why not only sell little top up cards cash-only at kiosks? Now, choosing where you want your traffic to geographically egress onto the public network does have marginal utility and it's a perfectly sane feature for VPN providers to market and consumers to pay for--VPNs aren't useless. It's just not privacy. EDIT: add bit about how Mullvad is your new ISP to clarify the point
  • GekkePrutser 4y ago
    It's just one of the many layers of good opsec of you care about privacy. You shouldn't rely on this alone. And breaking the internet? I think centralisation by parties like Amazon, Google, CloudFlare does that a lot more. And if you want you can even send them cash in an envelope. Or monero or whatever.
    • dcow 4y ago
      I don't disagree that centralized services are also bad for the internet, but that's not a rebuttal to my point (also, what is a VPN service if not a "centralized ISP with different egress options"). A VPN does not add a layer of privacy. That's a misunderstanding of the concept and unfortunately a popular one even among security folks and even more-so among security marketing folks. A VPN allows you to effectively choose a different ISP. You are not private from Mullvad. You just have their promise that they're better and more transparent than your alternatives and that they won't sell your DNS queries and connection logs to advertisers. It's not bad to align with an ISP that shares your values, but it's not privacy outright. > And if you want you can even send them cash in an envelope. Or monero or whatever. So why not only allow payments in privacy perfect currency if they're so concerned about privacy?
• GekkePrutser 4y ago
  Really good initiative, they clearly care about privacy. Most companies are going out of their way to introduce autorenewing subscriptions. But here they make privacy more important than pleasing the investors. Kudos. Glad I'm a customer.
• mbg117 4y ago
  I use this style of writing often, in conjunction with markdown documents. Also, I find that using bullet points helps to visualize the sentences better, especially when used hierarchically.
  • 333c 4y ago
    Did you mean to post in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31808093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31808093 ?
  • peddamat 4y ago
    You might be interested in logseq, a bullet-oriented MD editor: https://logseq.com/ https://logseq.com/
• oaiey 4y ago
  Clickbait .. but a rightfull one :)
• huslage 4y ago
  I, personally, care a large amount about convenience. I don't want to think about bills at all. I've been a Mullvad subscriber for years on a PayPal recurring payment. It works so well that I don't even think about it. I just use it. Having to think about paying a bill every month is really a pain to me. I get the privacy ideals, but the tradeoffs are not ridiculous. I should be able to make a decision about how private I want to be, not have Mullvad decide for me so that they can feel better about themselves. I will probably move over to Mozilla VPN now, since they will continue to rely on Mullvad for their infrastructure but allow me to pay them in a convenient way. I guess compromises are in order.
  • GekkePrutser 4y ago
    You don't have to pay every month. You can just pay them a lump sum in advance. As far as I understand you can still do this like before.
  • kbouck 4y ago
    > "Having to think about paying a bill every month" Others can correct me, but I believe each payment just adds a month of time to your balance. So a number of months can be added at once.
    • cmeacham98 4y ago
      You can pre-pay an entire year at once as well.
  • flodcw 4y ago
    So just pay once for an entire year, if you use them often, or the flat monthly rate, whenever you need. This doesn't sounds too much of a hassle, especially considering the price.
• einpoklum 4y ago
  So, I don't quite get it. They supposedly accept one-time payments, but their pricing page only shows recurring periodic payments. What gives?
  • jacooper 4y ago
    There is no automatic recurring payment, its 5€ per month, you can pay it in one go for a specific period, or monthly manually.
• hairofadog 4y ago
  Anyone have thoughts about the privacy and security aspects of TunnelBear? I've been using them for a few years, wondering if I should switch to Mullvad.
  • jacooper 4y ago
    The top porper privacy focused VPNs are in no specific order: - ProtonVPN - Mullvad - IVPN More details here on why: https://www.privacyguides.org/vpn https://www.privacyguides.org/vpn I personally picked Mullvad even though i use Proton Mail because they have a fully featured Linux app, unlike Proton's which is very very basic and they support IPv6.
• jacooper 4y ago
  Even though I use protonmail, I still bought Mullvad due to their Linux app which has actual per-App split tunneling.
• tr1ll10nb1ll 4y ago
  I tried Mulvad, I love their outlook on privacy. However, maybe this is just my experience but the speed I was getting with Mulvad was slow, for some reason. Much slower than my regular ~200 mbps connection. Had to switch back to Nord (would not recommend it, though) again.
  • jacooper 4y ago
    I use mullvad and haven't had this issue, but the try ProtonVPN, which has many more servers with faster connections too. Its almost the same in terms of privacy protections.
  • sph 4y ago
    I can max out my 330 Mb connection with them, and latency is pretty good. I'm in Europe and I use a couple different countries as exit.
• wdb 4y ago
  I can't renew my plan. As I forgot my account number :(
  • jacooper 4y ago
    Its listed in the app.
• sascha_sl 4y ago
  Mullvad already did this for anyone who wanted port forwards, because those people are more likely to be the target of legal demands. They seem to never actually associate the account number with any payments except at the moment the account gains time. This keeps them from having to respond to any legal demands with useful data. I wonder if the iOS subscriptions are affected. Technically they could just not associate your payment with your account number. Then the app can submit the transaction ID and your account number that was stored locally to the service to extend your time.
• pridkett 4y ago
  Thankfully, they still support my favorite way to pay: dropping an envelope filled with various cash currencies and your account number on a slip of paper in a mailbox at a random airport.
• ouid 4y ago
  This is PR and the comments are astroturfed to absolute hell. VPN is the most heavily advertised business I am aware of. There are a lot of reasons to mistrust this behavior. 1) it doesn't cost mullvad very much to not autorenew subscriptions. People dont forget to renew their subscriptions to a service that breaks your connection to youtube when you forget to pay. It's closer to the world of warcraft model. 2) Customers are now rightfully wary of renewing subscriptions. Given horror stories of how difficult it is to cancel your subscription to a service, I suspect that you lose upwards of 50% of potential customers if you only offer subscription models. 3) No VPN has any incentive at all to "protect your privacy". It is perfectly legal for them to lie to you about not keeping logs and then turn them over to state actors, provided they are operating out of the right state. In fact, state actors would encourage such a thing. Perhaps some of these VPNs do something to protect your privacy, but it is not because they are incentivized to.
  • colonwqbang 4y ago
    In which state is it legal to lie about the service you are delivering? I.e. in your marketing say that you will deliver something and then instead deliver something less valuable.
    • ouid 4y ago
      Its possible you dont know what state means. But the US has plenty of mass warrants that require companies to keep logs even in the presence of promises that they dont. In fact, they are obligated not to reveal that they are now keeping logs. Warrants supercede contract.
      • exyi 4y ago
        Mullvad is based in Sweden, they seem to be privacy friendlier in general (even allowing sites like sci-hub on their TLD)
      • colonwqbang 4y ago
        Even in the US I think you can't advertise a service that you are not legally allowed to provide. Does the first warrant make you immune to fraud allegations? I'm not an expert and am ready to accept that I may be wrong. If you know any sources on the matter, it would be interesting to read.
• xipho 4y ago
  Is it me (likely), or are a huge range of comments here exactly what you'd expect from a company anticipating blow-back based on their changes? I mean it could really be that good, but this feels a little too clean. I.e. are there shill posters here? I suppose someone could look at all the users who posted, get their karma, and created on dates, and build some estimation calculation. Probably could be greatly improved by adding factor such as wether the user has posted recently in other threads, whether potential shills are responding to parent shills, etc. Arms race ...
  • sixhobbits 4y ago
    "Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
    • xipho 4y ago
      A completely rational guideline. My mistake, apologies.
• syntaxing 4y ago
  Serious question, what are people using their VPN for? I used PIA before the buyout then shifted to Windscribe but I don't think I will renew after this year. I rarely use it and if I want soemthing safe (like using public wifi), I use tailscale instead.
  • dannyw 4y ago
    Torrenting.
  • shrimp_emoji 4y ago
    Existing on the Internet without my landlord/ISP knowing what I'm doing or injecting HTTP ads into my Steam browser
• AtNightWeCode 4y ago
  These services will likely not be around in 5 years if things continue as they do today. I work with clients who ban any ASN that hosts these kinds of services. Not sure what Mullvad can do to not become a new Tor or North Korea. At many companies they already are. I am not for it. Just the way the lands lie right now.
  • colinsane 4y ago
    are your clients consumer ISPs? or are they like edge CDNs doing www stuff? the impact on these VPN services would be tremendously different in each case.
    • AtNightWeCode 4y ago
      Consumer services. Not uncommon for companies to sign enterprise deals that includes subsidiaries. Then sec provision firewall rules across many different sites even for just a single customer.
• gspr 4y ago
  I love those guys. I really wanna start using them, but there's one missing feature for me: currently, I can mail them a few hundred euros, and get a number of years of service. That's great. But currently you only get one block of service. I'd very much like to be able to pause my credit. Now, I totally understand that letting people pause with super fine temporal resolution would crush their business model. I'm not asking for that. But I would like to buy say 30 months of service, flick a switch draining say one month of my credit (and having the service for a month), then pausing again.
• smoovb 4y ago
  I tried Mullvad for a year and loved the approach and onboarding. Sadly the connectivity issues and mobile app don't measure up to what I was used to with NordVPN. Not sure why a savvy someone would use a subscription with a VPN, so not sure what the news is here.
• dustractor 4y ago
  Heck of a convincing advertisement, even if it's not meant to be one.
• toss1 4y ago
  Awesome - someone in real life treating user-identifying data as the toxic brew that it is!! Refreshing and definitely a good reason to switch.
• LtdJorge 4y ago
  When I tried it, they didn't have an iPad app, but it was fine because they give you the configuration and I plugged it into the OpenVPN app.
  • maxxam 4y ago
    They have an iPad app now. Makes it easier to switch server but aside of that, no major advantage over WireGuard app. I use WireGuard app since it can auto connect on wifi or cellular.
• dijonman2 4y ago
  I think Firefox resells a custom Mullvad product, which I would probably use. I just don’t have a need for security at this layer.
  • john2x 4y ago
    Ditto. It's cheaper too. And added bonus by supporting Mozilla (or just their CEO :P)
    • ComradePhil 4y ago
      > And added bonus by supporting Mozilla (or just their CEO :P) Why would you ever want to do that?
• mrshadowgoose 4y ago
  My paranoid interpretation of this is that they have already been, or are expecting to be served with some kind of order compelling them to silently hand over billing information. I will admit that I know absolutely nothing of the Swedish legal system.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• pilgrimfff 4y ago
  I was so worried they were winding down or something. I really love Mullvad and would hate to have to find a new VPN. This decision makes me like them even more.
  • generalizations 4y ago
    They took payment in BTC back when it was several orders of magnitude less valuable. They can probably run the company indefinitely off their crypto savings.
    • cmeacham98 4y ago
      They almost certainly are converting the vast majority of their crypto back to fiat money to pay their bills and employees. Given the relative volatility I'd be surprised if they have any meaningful long term holding of cryptocurrency.
• Trias11 4y ago
  Kudos!
• corytheboyd 4y ago
  Mullvad is badass, tried it out for a month and it was glorious, so I just recently pre-paid a full year.
• gesman 4y ago
  Tip: This portable secure travel router supports MullVad (and Azire-VPN) out of the box: https://www.amazon.com/GL-iNet-GL-MT1300-Wireless-Pocket-Sized-Repeater/dp/B08MKZXGBY/ https://www.amazon.com/GL-iNet-GL-MT1300-Wireless-Pocket-Siz... Just input your Mullvad account number and it will upload all WireGuard configurations for all MullVad servers worldwide automatically. Perfect to use to connect to any unsecure Wi-Fi and drive all traffic via VPN in hotels, airports, coffee shops, etc...
  • donkarma 4y ago
    I'd pay a lot of money for an Ethernet device that sits between the jack and the router that would make a tunnel for me. Is that what this is for WiFi??
    • JustFinishedBSG 4y ago
      No need to pay good money, just replace your router with something more configurable with OpenWRT / OPNSense / Mikrotik and set it up so that all routing goes through the VPN
    • gesman 4y ago
      It sits between your router and your endpoints (computers, laptops). It can connect directly via ethernet cable or broadcast it's own WiFi SSID's to which you can connect. You configure it to always connect to VPN of your choice using OpenVPN or WireGuard protocols. Then you may connect to this device SSID and your traffic always be routed via VPN connection. This is way better, secure and more reliable than "VPN software" or "VPN apps" solutions. Not sure if i answered your question?
    • 4khilles 4y ago
      Good news, you need less than $250. Just buy a Protectli appliance, install OPNSense on it with the wireguard plugin. Setup Mullvad config and route all traffic through the tunnel. That's it! I've been running a similar setup for a couple years now. It's been great.
      • 4y ago
• mchusma 4y ago
  Refunds and disputes can happen way after a week right? I've seen disputes 120+ days after a transaction. I mean, maybe they won't be affected by this but they sort of suggest after a few weeks you could dispute the charge and they would have no idea it was you.
  • 1123581321 4y ago
    They have a 30 day refund policy. Their credit card partner stores transaction information for 40 days. https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/#payments https://mullvad.net/en/help/no-logging-data-policy/#payments
    • mchusma 4y ago
      So I read through this, and it appears pretty clear that stripe holds all the normal transaction data on your behalf, and they store just the link to the transaction. But they mention removing the stripe charge I'd from their records so I guess that could mean they would have no idea how to respond to disputes, hence lose them all. Maybe that is fine, just a cost of doing business for them. But it is definitely atypical. Never heard of someone who would be completely unable to respond to disputes before.
      • 1123581321 4y ago
        I’m curious, too. I want to test it on a throwaway account and card. One thought is that their offering is so uniform that they could provide the same information in response to every request, regardless of days passed since the transaction. They would only need to mark pre- and post- certain changes to terms and screens, which they could record without keeping identifying information. They may also be using Stripe’s chargeback insurance, which relieves the need for the merchant to respond at all.
• anjel 4y ago
  A big prob with the big VPNs like kape companies is their IP addresses are recognized. Does mullVad, ovpn and or ivpn suffer from the same?
• eins1234 4y ago
  This leads me to wonder... Is there an easy way for regular consumers to set up recurring payments in a "push" configuration (i.e. from my bank to someone else's) rather than "pull" configuration (i.e. most subscriptions where the service charges a credit card on an interval)? I split a T-Mobile multi-line plan with a few friends where I'm the payer, and I remember looking into this a while back to help them pay their share on time and without hassle, but coming up empty. Feels like it would be useful for paying for something like Mullvad too, but I feel like there are benefits to that model that reaches beyond the individual use cases I mentioned. It'd allow me to manage money going out of my account from 1 centralized location, making money flow more predictable and less chaotic than the status quo where a random amount of money is pulled out of my account from various credit cards every month, and I have to log into each account separately to figure out how much.
  • softgrow 4y ago
    Your bank/financial institution should be able to do this at least from a bank account to a bank account. I have "pull" payments for organisations I'm ok with and "push" for others. The only issue I have is the "push" amounts are fixed and must be renewed every two years. (Edit: I don't think this will work with the VPN though as it needs a domestic account to push to, otherwise fees are high)
• peterkelly 4y ago
  > At Mullvad VPN we strive to know as little as possible about our users. We are constantly looking for ways to reduce the amount of data we store while still providing a usable service. I wish more companies had this attitude.
• mjmahone17 4y ago
  I wonder if a lower cost service like VPNs could reasonably create an “endowed” account: basically pay enough up front that when invested, the returns on the up front cost are about the same as the monthly cost. If you’d need to make €60/yr, you could probably achieve this with a one-time €1,500 payment. Does it make sense for anyone to pay that much up front? Maybe not. But for people that REALLY want to see the business model succeed and/or are way too wealthy considering their mental laziness, adding an option to pay a totally absurd amount once and then forget about it might be useful, even if that payment is way higher than any normal person would pay.
• matiasfernandez 4y ago
  Been a happy customer of Mullvad for years now. It's a great product.
• spicyramen_ 4y ago
• ansmithz42 4y ago
  I would love to look at Mullvad. Every time I try to connect to their website using Firefox 101 it fails with Error code: SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG. Is anyone else experiencing this?
  • ranguna 4y ago
    Not on my side on android and Linux (Ubuntu 20 and arch)
  • johannesch 4y ago
    I had the same and found out that my router was messing with the connection. I had to deactivate the Malicious Content Filter from Trend Micro to be able to connect.
• DavideNL 4y ago
  Note that a major issue with Mullvad is the long standing open issue which prevents iCloud syncing on macOS [1] I've noticed this is not really a Mullvad specific issue, as the same thing happens when i apply their "killswitch" config (= pfctl firewall rules under the hood) while using other VPN services, like ProtonVPN. Apple seems to be blocking some of the proxy ip's or some iCloud service process is misbehaving somehow. [1] https://github.com/mullvad/mullvadvpn-app/issues/2401 https://github.com/mullvad/mullvadvpn-app/issues/2401
• xbenjii 4y ago
  I love that you can literally just send an envelope of cash with your account number to pay.
• gtf21 4y ago
  I've been using Mullvad for years as a permanently-connected VPN and I find it excellent. I do use a subscription, but I have a friend who sends them cash in an envelope by snail mail and loves it.
• bratwurst3000 4y ago
  Does someone know if they are splitting the dns request and the traffic? Or do they need to decrypt my traffic to get to my dns request?
• zajio1am 4y ago
  Why not just subscriptions with random persistent pay reference? They could be safe against adversary that has access to Mullvad data, while still offering convenience of subscriptions. It is not safe against adversary that has access to banking data, but even independent payments are not safe against that adversary, if they are often enough.
• april_22 4y ago
  payments are truly one of the areas where privacy suffers most. I hope this decision inspires more privacy-focused companies to not store payment information continuosly.
• Night_Thastus 4y ago
  Sweden is part of 14-eyes. I realize this may be naive or already answered, but I don't see why I should trust any service in one of those 14 countries. When things are down to the wire, can anything in Sweden really guarantee any greater level of privacy?
  • 4khilles 4y ago
    See: https://mullvad.net/en/help/swedish-legislation/ https://mullvad.net/en/help/swedish-legislation/. Also, the Swedish government can't compel Mullvad to divulge information that it doesn't have.
  • newscracker 4y ago
    I'd like to know which email provider(s) you use outside the 14-eyes, assuming you're not self-hosting. There are some privacy focused and relatively cheaper ones that avoid the five-eyes, but end up being in the nine-eyes or 14-eyes countries. Note: I'm not considering ProtonMail (Switzerland) as relatively cheap. I came to know about CTemplar (Iceland), but that shutdown a month ago.
    • Night_Thastus 4y ago
      $4.22 (USD) a month is really not that bad for Protonmail, fwiw. (12 month, cheaper for 24-month) That's nothing compared to a Netflix or HBO max subscription.