12 ms·

Mullvad Leta: A search engine used in the Mullvad Browser

284 points by pnt12 3y ago

threeseed 3y ago
Not sure by what definition this is a search engine. It's a caching proxy for Google Search and could well just be Squid. I assume it also doesn't interact well with Google's location services.
- piaste 3y ago
  Strange question. Why on Earth would a privacy service want to "interact well" with Google location tracking in the first place? It's a bit like asking if you can install Cortana on Trisquel GNU/Linux.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    Because if I am searching for a review of cafe or want to know where a movie is showing I would prefer it to be in the same continent as me. I am not expecting it to know my exact GPS location but would be nice if it could at least bring state or country level tailored search results.
    - adr1an 3y ago
      You may add 'near Cityname, Countryname' to your query ;)
      - jwmcq 3y ago
        It's never even occurred to me not to do this. I wonder if that's just because I grew up on the internet before geolocation methods were widespread/good.
    - piaste 3y ago
      I just checked, and there's an optional country selection box you can use. But for local results, I'd just prepend $cityname to your search query. Faster, unless you live in Llanduwhatsthattowninwales.
      - samizdis 3y ago
        Ah, that would probably be Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyll
        zorrolovsky 3y ago
        Humorous question: Could moving there be a privacy advantage? I can imagine insanely long locations break a good bunch of databases and CRMs, specially legacy ones... I would give my location to every spammer and scammer and refuse to spell it. "Oh yeah... I'm super interested in your product. But you gotta ship it to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. Is that ok?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taumatawhakatangi%C2%ADhangakoauauotamatea%C2%ADturipukakapikimaunga%C2%ADhoronukupokaiwhen%C2%ADuakitanatahu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taumatawhakatangi%C2%ADhangako...
        stavros 3y ago
        This is the xkcd with the 1III1II1 plates, it's "oh, that Welsh town with the long name".
  - marginalia_nu 3y ago
    User profiling is a huge reason why Google works as well as it does. Location data is just one part of that, but a pretty big one. If you remove that, it's as bad (or worse) than most of its competition.
    - rcoveson 3y ago
      User profiling is a huge reason why Google works the way that it does. I remember a time when my wife was trying to look up a fix for Mass Effect on a 21:9 monitor. Terms like "ultrawide mass effect" and such. Google would not stop returning Blizzard help pages on how to configure the resolution for Heroes of the Storm, another game that she played. Not a single page related to the actual search terms. The more we poked at it the more I couldn't believe it. Bing, of course, just did the dumb, obvious, correct thing and returned a bunch of web pages containing the search terms, which were helpful. Google seems to do this infuriating thing where it reduces search terms to basic "synonyms" (which are often more general than the original word, e.g. "Mass Effect" becomes "Video Game") and then injects personal search history related to the synonym (which is how Heroes of the Storm ends up as part of the query). Most of the time it's just subtly enraging; you know the page you're looking for exists, and you know your search is extremely precise, but Google keeps giving you overly-generalized results with a skew towards your "profile". Anyway, all that is to say that I feel exactly the opposite of what you feel about the relationship between this Google "feature" and the quality of its results.
- Kiro 3y ago
  So DDG is not a search engine either?
- i_read_news 3y ago
  I consider these either proxy-search engines or meta-search engines. Either way, it still accomplishes the goal of a search engine for the end user, even if it’s not the one doing the heavy lifting.
Etheryte 3y ago
As a paying customer, I think this is a really good way to use the resources. While it does rely on Google not pulling the plug on using the API that way, I think for the time being it's a great way to reduce your online footprint. Very few of my searches need freshest data by the hour and I can always either make the search string more specific to cache bust or go back to Google for search.
pgl 3y ago
Mullvad really does have a commitment to privacy. Some key points: - Acts as a Google proxy, removes tracking links and caches results - Only available for Mullvad paid users - 100 free direct searches a day, unlimited cached searches (further search result pages count towards limit) - Results cached over all users for 30 days
- keyle 3y ago
  I'm sorry but besides your first point, what is substantial in the claim that they have a commitment to privacy? Also why would I trust them over Google?
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    - The offer many types of payment, some that can be anonymous. - They have strong commitment to open source and have put their finances into that in addition to releasing code. - They are doing a lot in terms of transparent infrastructure: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2022/1/12/diskless-infrastructure-beta-system-transparency-stboot/ https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2022/1/12/diskless-infrastructur... > Also why would I trust them over Google? For Google your data is the product, for Mullvad you pay for a service.
    - lagniappe 3y ago
      You can send a carrier pigeon with a tenner and a sticky note holding your account number and they'll take it.
      - piaste 3y ago
        Buying a Mullvad scratch card is probably the most practical anonymous method. Usually the fact that you are using Mullvad at all isn't a secret (your ISPs can see you connecting), so outside of a very overcomplicated scenario where Amazon/$yourlocaltechstore are colluding with Mullvad to track individual scratch cards, it's fine. Mailing cash in an anonymous envelope has a certain charm, but OTOH I have consistently had terrible experiences with the Swedish postal service and that seems to be a widespread opinion.
danpalmer 3y ago
I remember ~10 years ago that Google said 40% of searches were unique. Just searching for that again now I can see this[1] tweet that suggests it's 15% as of 2022, that's with billions of users. I wonder how well the caching actually works for a user base of the size that Mullvad has. This could be tackled with a different UX, perhaps rather than showing predictive search, instead showing similar queries that are in the cache? I'm not a customer so can't see the product, can any customers give any input as to what the UX is and whether it might be improving their cache hit rate? [1]: https://twitter.com/Google/status/1493681643290300425 https://twitter.com/Google/status/1493681643290300425
- zjnevnf 3y ago
  There's a checkbox to only search in cached results, although in my experience so far it had no results except for very generic searches like "google". Even "python" didn't show anything.
- pnt12 3y ago
  Good question: I see one way it may work and another it may not. I think the profile of their users is less diversified: mostly tech savvy people. "Normies" are using those vpns advertised in YouTube, or not using any at all. This may result in similar interests and lower the number of unique queries. On the other hand, we may produce more unique queries than other people: who will receive-use the cached "how to fix ValueError on main.py:67"?
- bentcorner 3y ago
  As far as I can tell there's no predictive search. UI is a simple search box, optional country selector dropdown and an "Only search in cache" checkbox. Smoke test shows the cache checkbox works - apparently nobody else has searched for "dog" in the US. The country dropdown is interesting as far as the cache goes - not selecting a country is meaningful as far as the cache is concerned. My prior "dog" query in the US does not return hits if I don't select a country. Not selecting a country and searching the cache appears to return english results (with a few sample searches). It's interesting that you can explore the cache with this checkbox. Not sure if there are any privacy concerns with this feature - considering cache searches are "free" you can kind of scrape what other users are searching for, maybe with enough users it doesn't really matter. I suppose there could be rate limiting and such to prevent this kind of attack, but that's just a guess. It may be useful to have an option to opt-out your search from cache.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
I'm still very disappointed with the discontinuation of port forwarding and wish they would be more transparent about their reasoning.
- honeybadger1 3y ago
  Seems like a way to curb costs..It is quite common that plex server enthusiasts will run their entire piracy automation over good always-on VPN services and that requires port forwarding to do so. AirVPN still does it and I have had an account with them for far longer than any other VPN service.
  - rashkov 3y ago
    Now that you mention it, I’m amazed that charging $5 a month is enough to cover unlimited bandwidth across a user pool with these kinds of high bandwidth usage patterns
    - sixothree 3y ago
      Pretty sure the existence of VPNs like this demonstrates the low cost of bandwidth. Or more so, how ISPs overcharge for bandwidth.
  - humid9059 3y ago
    [dead]
- mritzmann 3y ago
  It was communicated transparently: it was abused too often. It's not a secret that a no-log policy also attracts abuse. https://mullvad.net/de/blog/2023/5/29/removing-the-support-for-forwarded-ports/ https://mullvad.net/de/blog/2023/5/29/removing-the-support-f...
  - theossuary 3y ago
    Cool, I have 8 months prepaid for a service I can no longer use because they have a months notice they're removing a feature I need. And they refuse to refund crypto, the payment method they supposedly prefer. What I get for trusting mullvad I guess.
infinitedata 3y ago
When you access it while using Mullvad, it still asks you for your account number. Service should automatically detect you are on VPN and let you search, why the need for the extra step?
- coffeeri 3y ago
  It is good that this does not work. As one IP might be shared by multiple accounts. A cache of the mapping IP --> AccountNo is also not favorable in terms of privacy.
  - piaste 3y ago
    > As one IP might be shared by multiple accounts. No "might" about it, that's one of the most important traits of this type of service.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - coffeeri 3y ago
      Yes indeed, but it's not guaranteed that there'll be multiple clients connected to one server at a time, even if it's unlikely.
- piaste 3y ago
  To enforce the usage limits.
  - varispeed 3y ago
    Can you guess someone else's account id or sort of brute force to find valid ids and then run malicious searches against them? Seems like a security risk.
    - galleywest200 3y ago
      I would bet money that Mullvad heavily rate limits incorrect ID entries. Also its a 16 digit number, good luck.
ipsum2 3y ago
What happens if someone searches their home address or a place nearby? If it's automatically cached, it could be a data leak. Some sufficiently motivated person can correlate it with someone who connects to Mullvad servers.
- swores 3y ago
  Well that would only show (if indeed it can leak somehow) that somebody used Mullvad to search for that - if using it for yourself it wouldn't be hard to say "cafe near 49 my street" rather than "44 my street", or whatever, so a) that's probably the kind of caution you should always use if wanting to protect privacy or your house number since there's essentially no downside, unless you're literally ordering something to be physically delivered and b) it gives plausible deniability that anyone whose house address were known to have been searched doesn't really mean the person living there is the one who searched it. (But of course, ideally they would have something in place to prevent such a leak at all, and perhaps they do somehow?)
- philprx 3y ago
  As I understand it, it's the result to a given search string that is cached. Sure, If I search for "44 little poney street", then the result itself is cached at Mullvad, and someone needs to search himself/herself for "44 little poney street" by entering precisely this search string to access the cached page. So I don't see a leak with caching... There are leaks anyway: the search term sent to Google, if someone compromises Mullvad, etc... But not one specific with caching and related to other users.
- Musky 3y ago
  This has also been noted by Assured AB when they did their security audit of the service [0]. > 3.4.1 Note Plaintext search queries in cache database > Assured recommended hashing search terms before insertion / lookup in the cache database. Since search term cache lookups are only performed with exact matching, this should not affect functionality. > Mullvad: We are now hashing (and salting) the search terms before they are added to Redis [0] - https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/5/16/security-audit-of-our-letamullvadnet-search-service/ https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/5/16/security-audit-of-our-...
AHOHA 3y ago
Mullvad VPN, Mullvad browser, Mullvad search engine.. never ever put all your eggs in one basket, so much data and meta data can be collected and cross referenced to your ID.
- piaste 3y ago
  It's a bit more nuanced. Let's keep it simple and say you produce 3 data sets when browsing and clicking on results: search queries, DNS queries, HTTPS queries. If it takes a correlation of the 3 datasets to identify you, then it is better to use 3 different providers. However, if any one of those datasets is sufficient to ID you, then it is better to choose a single provider.
  - AHOHA 3y ago
    Unfortunately it isn’t that simple, from the moment your device connect to the wifi for example, every sigle information/packet/etc. shared or stored can be used to identify you, the more you share, the more can be collected to identify you. Now VPN alone by concept isn’t meant for privacy as you always have to trust the unregulated provider (contrary to your ISP for example), when all your data is tunneled through their servers, that’s a lone is big risk based on a trust only, however, and due to the nature of these shared IP vpns, sometimes maybe (keyword maybe) it’s challenging to pinpoint a specific client, and here comes the others, a browser that can have unique fingerprint, and now search queries that can add an extra source of information to further pinpoint you, especially as others mentioned below that you still need to enter your VPN code to use that search engine.. I haven’t tried it yet to give my personal experience as I stopped using mullvad, but if I did I will update this post further.
- hammock 3y ago
  Google DNS, Google Chrome, Google search...
  - AHOHA 3y ago
    Exactly, it’s never a good idea to do that, the only difference is google doesn’t advertise itself as a privacy advocate so when someone use all these google services they don’t really care about the collected data, on the other hand, the userbase of mullvad will have that false sense of security and privacy while putting more and more trust in Mullvad, it’s just a matter of time until some bad news drops.
Thorentis 3y ago
Mullvad was the darling of the Vpn world, up until they removed support for Port forwarding. Would be really curious to see if their subscriber numbers have tanked since then.
- Hakkin 3y ago
  As a 10+ year paying Mullvad customer, it hasn't changed my experience using the product at all, and I recently deposited another years worth of credit. While I did occasionally use port forwarding, it certainly wasn't a "must have feature" for me. I mostly found it useful for temporarily exposing services publicly, but there are plenty of alternatives that accomplish the same thing these days. The only Mullvad unique-ish feature (I believe some other VPNs offer something similar) I use regularly is their SOCKS5 endpoints, it's very convenient to be able to connect to any of their exit nodes from any server. Otherwise I mostly just want a bog standard Wireguard VPN. It seems the people this most affected were the ones using VPNs primarily for torrenting, which I've always just used a VPS or dedicated server for. Though, even in that case, it's not like it's impossible to torrent without port forwarding, millions of people do it every day behind their NAT. It is unfortunate they had to remove the feature, but I have to assume the abuse of the feature was at the level where it was threatening the service as a whole, if I had to choose between Mullvad without port forwarding or no Mullvad at all, I'd obviously choose the former. They also do seem to be refunding people who request it, so it doesn't really seem like any kind of "rug pull" or anything.
  - Gasp0de 3y ago
    Why would I need port forwarding to torrent? I've been using it for ages without.
    - Hakkin 3y ago
      It seems to be a widespread misconception amongst commercial VPN users that port forwarding is required for torrents to work. While port forwarding can be beneficial in certain situations, as you said, it's certainly not a requirement, especially for well seeded torrents like I'm sure the large majority of people are downloading.
rmi_ 3y ago
Wonder how it compares to other privacy-minding Google-proxies, such as startpage.com
- piaste 3y ago
  At a quick glance: - Leta is much faster than Startpagw - Startpage offers a lot more of Google's features, eg date range filter, image search, and so on I would guess that both differences are due to Startpage not doing any caching. Startpage also has a neat "Anonymous View" feature where they proxy the request for you, acting as your HTTP client. If you trust Startpage, it's probably a pretty good ad-hoc anonymity tool.
moss2 3y ago
I looked over there list of "achievements" in their About page. They state that in 2022 they stopped accepting subscription payments because it forces them to store data about their users for long periods of time. Now they only accept one-time payments for monthly memberships. They really are committed to privacy.
- z3c0 3y ago
  They've truly demonstrated something I believed untrue prior, and that's the notion that a company can keep growing while maintaining very strong opinions and principals. I switched to Mullvad after PIA's acquisition, thinking it would be a temporary stop until they inevitability alienated their original userbase. But nope, they've only gotten better.
  - chefandy 3y ago
    I'm not a business guy so I might be full of shit, but I think they're playing the long game and know who their audience is. They're trying to distinguish themselves from a bazillion fly-by-night VPN providers: not doing the current standard 'vacuum up every conceivable bit, nibble, and byte in case it's useful for marketing or resale later' is a great way to a) get a great word-of-mouth rep from credible people, and b) get a customer base more compelled by marketing real improvements to your core ecosystem than totally BS super flashy marketing and ad budgets. Flashy marketing might be super effective in the short term, but if genuine improvements to your core offering are your biggest selling point, that seems like it would directly contribute to long-term sustainability. Given, this is assuming everything they say is legit. It's kind of hard to not be jaded these days.
DemiGuru 3y ago
This service is not ubiquitous which is something I expect of a search engine. From my perspective the limitations lie with the fact you need to be logged-in to their VPN service in order to use it. Yes, it's a way to ensure that only paid customers can use it. But those paid customers will only be able to use it on their personal devices. Nowhere else. Most if not all work environments block third party VPNs.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  And that's fine. You're on a work network and using work hardware -- you don't get to use whatever you want, even if we have a Guest Network.
yuumei 3y ago
Have been using Mullvad for a few years now. Has been working well, this search actually looks useful. But one suggestion: can I pay for a dedicated, non advertised, residential IP please Mullvad? Lots of places are blocking VPNs now, like cloudflare.
- Hakkin 3y ago
  I would think it would be extremely difficult to provide residential IPs in a privacy-preserving way, from what I've heard most services that offer them are quite sketchy in how they go about "acquiring" those IPs. The very nature of "residential" IPs means your traffic is flowing through some random person's home internet, which certainly isn't something I would want, even these days where almost everything is encrypted. There would be no way Mullvad could provide any kind of privacy guarantee if they don't control the endpoints.
  - miohtama 3y ago
    Providing residential IP as a service would be breaking some agreements, or lying somewhere. I don’t Mullvad can do this, because they are committed to openess and transparency. For resident IP thru malware services you need to look up other dishonest competitors.
- _rs 3y ago
  I suppose this isn’t a highly requested feature because as soon as you have a dedicated IP you become easily trackable. I wonder if there’s any middle ground to prevent that
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  using residential IPs for commercial purposes is expressly forbidden by most ISPs.
rhim 3y ago
What is the difference to a self-hosted version of: https://github.com/searxng/searxng https://github.com/searxng/searxng ?
- pvitz 3y ago
  I guess that you couldn't be fingerprinted by Google.
- humid9059 3y ago
  I am going to use public Searxes for comparison. The difference is that there is less noise from other users as it is limited to Mullvad subscribers, and there is presumably a smaller user base. Otherwise, there is probably little to no difference, considering that Searxes are not used by many in the same vein. However, self-hosting is the equivalent of directly using the search engine under your own IP, just without javascript. There is no noise from other users looking up unrelated queries.
aorth 3y ago
I'm a Mullvad customer and will check this out. I can already see that this is not so convenient for when you're on a device or network where your Mullvad connection is not active. For example, I'm typing this from my work laptop on the corporate network as we speak. :P On a related note, I am also a happy Kagi customer. It's a paid, privacy-focused search engine that gives you a "magic" session link to allow easily searching from multiple devices. Very happy with the search there. Haven't used Google more than a handful of times for several months!
- dharmab 3y ago
  The magic session link was such a great idea. I could easily add a session to my work computer.
- d4mi3n 3y ago
  Both a customer (and now investor!) if Kagi’s and can’t say enough nice things about the product. It’s refreshing to have a search engine that will give you relevant results rather than shoveling ads down your throat.
- unshavedyak 3y ago
  Same, love Kagi. I think the biggest surprise for me was that it is getting frequent improvements. I'm so used to Subscriptions being just a drain. You "buy" the product, and then you pay just to keep using it. Which can feel, emotionally, a bit unappetizing because i'd rather just purchase it fully. The subscription just feels like a money sink with no added value. Conversely i've not had that opinion with Kagi. Not only am i happy with the product, but the frequent[1] improvements[2] make me feel like i'm buying something newer and better each month. Developments on FastGPT, increasing what i get for my dollar, integration of more features in general. I frankly assume i just joined at a good time, because this pace can't keep up.. right lol? Regardless my Kagi subscription has felt like i'm getting more value each month. From other companies i'd feel lucky to get these advancements, and if i did i'd expect it to cost me more. "5 new features? Welp, i guess i get to buy a Pro subscription tier to access it" or w/e, is what i'd expect. Really can't praise Kagi enough. [1]: within the last couple months, at least, as i'm new to the product and have only been subscribed for 2 months. [2]: You can see some here: https://blog.kagi.com/blog https://blog.kagi.com/blog
celtoid 3y ago
As a longtime Mullvad customer, I'll use this. Using any VPN company and its services in this age of surveillance capitalism is always a sketchy affair. Mullvad is the least sketchy of the non-DIY options that I can find.
hammeiam 3y ago
Does Google TOS allow for caching of results? A lot of APIs (esp map/geo apis) do not
okso 3y ago
I am curious about the technical reasons motivating the requirement to login with a Mullvad account number while already using Mullvad VPN to reach Mullvad Leta. The Mullvad website and the https://mullvad.net/en/check https://mullvad.net/en/check page show that Mullvad already has tools to detect users of its VPN.
adultSwim 3y ago
Finally, a site that's more usable, instead of less, when on a VPN.

284 points by pnt12 3y ago

Not sure by what definition this is a search engine. It's a caching proxy for Google Search and could well just be Squid. I assume it also doesn't interact well with Google's location services.

piaste 3y ago
Strange question. Why on Earth would a privacy service want to "interact well" with Google location tracking in the first place? It's a bit like asking if you can install Cortana on Trisquel GNU/Linux.
- threeseed 3y ago
  Because if I am searching for a review of cafe or want to know where a movie is showing I would prefer it to be in the same continent as me. I am not expecting it to know my exact GPS location but would be nice if it could at least bring state or country level tailored search results.
  - adr1an 3y ago
    You may add 'near Cityname, Countryname' to your query ;)
    - jwmcq 3y ago
      It's never even occurred to me not to do this. I wonder if that's just because I grew up on the internet before geolocation methods were widespread/good.
  - piaste 3y ago
    I just checked, and there's an optional country selection box you can use. But for local results, I'd just prepend $cityname to your search query. Faster, unless you live in Llanduwhatsthattowninwales.
    - samizdis 3y ago
      Ah, that would probably be Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyll
      - zorrolovsky 3y ago
        Humorous question: Could moving there be a privacy advantage? I can imagine insanely long locations break a good bunch of databases and CRMs, specially legacy ones... I would give my location to every spammer and scammer and refuse to spell it. "Oh yeah... I'm super interested in your product. But you gotta ship it to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. Is that ok?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taumatawhakatangi%C2%ADhangakoauauotamatea%C2%ADturipukakapikimaunga%C2%ADhoronukupokaiwhen%C2%ADuakitanatahu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taumatawhakatangi%C2%ADhangako...
        stavros 3y ago
        This is the xkcd with the 1III1II1 plates, it's "oh, that Welsh town with the long name".
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  User profiling is a huge reason why Google works as well as it does. Location data is just one part of that, but a pretty big one. If you remove that, it's as bad (or worse) than most of its competition.
  - rcoveson 3y ago
    User profiling is a huge reason why Google works the way that it does. I remember a time when my wife was trying to look up a fix for Mass Effect on a 21:9 monitor. Terms like "ultrawide mass effect" and such. Google would not stop returning Blizzard help pages on how to configure the resolution for Heroes of the Storm, another game that she played. Not a single page related to the actual search terms. The more we poked at it the more I couldn't believe it. Bing, of course, just did the dumb, obvious, correct thing and returned a bunch of web pages containing the search terms, which were helpful. Google seems to do this infuriating thing where it reduces search terms to basic "synonyms" (which are often more general than the original word, e.g. "Mass Effect" becomes "Video Game") and then injects personal search history related to the synonym (which is how Heroes of the Storm ends up as part of the query). Most of the time it's just subtly enraging; you know the page you're looking for exists, and you know your search is extremely precise, but Google keeps giving you overly-generalized results with a skew towards your "profile". Anyway, all that is to say that I feel exactly the opposite of what you feel about the relationship between this Google "feature" and the quality of its results.
Kiro 3y ago
So DDG is not a search engine either?
i_read_news 3y ago
I consider these either proxy-search engines or meta-search engines. Either way, it still accomplishes the goal of a search engine for the end user, even if it’s not the one doing the heavy lifting.

Etheryte 3y ago

As a paying customer, I think this is a really good way to use the resources. While it does rely on Google not pulling the plug on using the API that way, I think for the time being it's a great way to reduce your online footprint. Very few of my searches need freshest data by the hour and I can always either make the search string more specific to cache bust or go back to Google for search.

pgl 3y ago

Mullvad really does have a commitment to privacy. Some key points: - Acts as a Google proxy, removes tracking links and caches results - Only available for Mullvad paid users - 100 free direct searches a day, unlimited cached searches (further search result pages count towards limit) - Results cached over all users for 30 days

keyle 3y ago
I'm sorry but besides your first point, what is substantial in the claim that they have a commitment to privacy? Also why would I trust them over Google?
- panick21_ 3y ago
  - The offer many types of payment, some that can be anonymous. - They have strong commitment to open source and have put their finances into that in addition to releasing code. - They are doing a lot in terms of transparent infrastructure: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2022/1/12/diskless-infrastructure-beta-system-transparency-stboot/ https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2022/1/12/diskless-infrastructur... > Also why would I trust them over Google? For Google your data is the product, for Mullvad you pay for a service.
  - lagniappe 3y ago
    You can send a carrier pigeon with a tenner and a sticky note holding your account number and they'll take it.
    - piaste 3y ago
      Buying a Mullvad scratch card is probably the most practical anonymous method. Usually the fact that you are using Mullvad at all isn't a secret (your ISPs can see you connecting), so outside of a very overcomplicated scenario where Amazon/$yourlocaltechstore are colluding with Mullvad to track individual scratch cards, it's fine. Mailing cash in an anonymous envelope has a certain charm, but OTOH I have consistently had terrible experiences with the Swedish postal service and that seems to be a widespread opinion.

danpalmer 3y ago

I remember ~10 years ago that Google said 40% of searches were unique. Just searching for that again now I can see this[1] tweet that suggests it's 15% as of 2022, that's with billions of users. I wonder how well the caching actually works for a user base of the size that Mullvad has. This could be tackled with a different UX, perhaps rather than showing predictive search, instead showing similar queries that are in the cache? I'm not a customer so can't see the product, can any customers give any input as to what the UX is and whether it might be improving their cache hit rate? [1]: https://twitter.com/Google/status/1493681643290300425 https://twitter.com/Google/status/1493681643290300425

zjnevnf 3y ago
There's a checkbox to only search in cached results, although in my experience so far it had no results except for very generic searches like "google". Even "python" didn't show anything.
pnt12 3y ago
Good question: I see one way it may work and another it may not. I think the profile of their users is less diversified: mostly tech savvy people. "Normies" are using those vpns advertised in YouTube, or not using any at all. This may result in similar interests and lower the number of unique queries. On the other hand, we may produce more unique queries than other people: who will receive-use the cached "how to fix ValueError on main.py:67"?
bentcorner 3y ago
As far as I can tell there's no predictive search. UI is a simple search box, optional country selector dropdown and an "Only search in cache" checkbox. Smoke test shows the cache checkbox works - apparently nobody else has searched for "dog" in the US. The country dropdown is interesting as far as the cache goes - not selecting a country is meaningful as far as the cache is concerned. My prior "dog" query in the US does not return hits if I don't select a country. Not selecting a country and searching the cache appears to return english results (with a few sample searches). It's interesting that you can explore the cache with this checkbox. Not sure if there are any privacy concerns with this feature - considering cache searches are "free" you can kind of scrape what other users are searching for, maybe with enough users it doesn't really matter. I suppose there could be rate limiting and such to prevent this kind of attack, but that's just a guess. It may be useful to have an option to opt-out your search from cache.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

I'm still very disappointed with the discontinuation of port forwarding and wish they would be more transparent about their reasoning.

honeybadger1 3y ago
Seems like a way to curb costs..It is quite common that plex server enthusiasts will run their entire piracy automation over good always-on VPN services and that requires port forwarding to do so. AirVPN still does it and I have had an account with them for far longer than any other VPN service.
- rashkov 3y ago
  Now that you mention it, I’m amazed that charging $5 a month is enough to cover unlimited bandwidth across a user pool with these kinds of high bandwidth usage patterns
  - sixothree 3y ago
    Pretty sure the existence of VPNs like this demonstrates the low cost of bandwidth. Or more so, how ISPs overcharge for bandwidth.
- humid9059 3y ago
  [dead]
mritzmann 3y ago
It was communicated transparently: it was abused too often. It's not a secret that a no-log policy also attracts abuse. https://mullvad.net/de/blog/2023/5/29/removing-the-support-for-forwarded-ports/ https://mullvad.net/de/blog/2023/5/29/removing-the-support-f...
- theossuary 3y ago
  Cool, I have 8 months prepaid for a service I can no longer use because they have a months notice they're removing a feature I need. And they refuse to refund crypto, the payment method they supposedly prefer. What I get for trusting mullvad I guess.

infinitedata 3y ago

When you access it while using Mullvad, it still asks you for your account number. Service should automatically detect you are on VPN and let you search, why the need for the extra step?

coffeeri 3y ago
It is good that this does not work. As one IP might be shared by multiple accounts. A cache of the mapping IP --> AccountNo is also not favorable in terms of privacy.
- piaste 3y ago
  > As one IP might be shared by multiple accounts. No "might" about it, that's one of the most important traits of this type of service.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - coffeeri 3y ago
    Yes indeed, but it's not guaranteed that there'll be multiple clients connected to one server at a time, even if it's unlikely.
piaste 3y ago
To enforce the usage limits.
- varispeed 3y ago
  Can you guess someone else's account id or sort of brute force to find valid ids and then run malicious searches against them? Seems like a security risk.
  - galleywest200 3y ago
    I would bet money that Mullvad heavily rate limits incorrect ID entries. Also its a 16 digit number, good luck.

ipsum2 3y ago

What happens if someone searches their home address or a place nearby? If it's automatically cached, it could be a data leak. Some sufficiently motivated person can correlate it with someone who connects to Mullvad servers.

swores 3y ago
Well that would only show (if indeed it can leak somehow) that somebody used Mullvad to search for that - if using it for yourself it wouldn't be hard to say "cafe near 49 my street" rather than "44 my street", or whatever, so a) that's probably the kind of caution you should always use if wanting to protect privacy or your house number since there's essentially no downside, unless you're literally ordering something to be physically delivered and b) it gives plausible deniability that anyone whose house address were known to have been searched doesn't really mean the person living there is the one who searched it. (But of course, ideally they would have something in place to prevent such a leak at all, and perhaps they do somehow?)
philprx 3y ago
As I understand it, it's the result to a given search string that is cached. Sure, If I search for "44 little poney street", then the result itself is cached at Mullvad, and someone needs to search himself/herself for "44 little poney street" by entering precisely this search string to access the cached page. So I don't see a leak with caching... There are leaks anyway: the search term sent to Google, if someone compromises Mullvad, etc... But not one specific with caching and related to other users.
Musky 3y ago
This has also been noted by Assured AB when they did their security audit of the service [0]. > 3.4.1 Note Plaintext search queries in cache database > Assured recommended hashing search terms before insertion / lookup in the cache database. Since search term cache lookups are only performed with exact matching, this should not affect functionality. > Mullvad: We are now hashing (and salting) the search terms before they are added to Redis [0] - https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/5/16/security-audit-of-our-letamullvadnet-search-service/ https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/5/16/security-audit-of-our-...

AHOHA 3y ago

Mullvad VPN, Mullvad browser, Mullvad search engine.. never ever put all your eggs in one basket, so much data and meta data can be collected and cross referenced to your ID.

piaste 3y ago
It's a bit more nuanced. Let's keep it simple and say you produce 3 data sets when browsing and clicking on results: search queries, DNS queries, HTTPS queries. If it takes a correlation of the 3 datasets to identify you, then it is better to use 3 different providers. However, if any one of those datasets is sufficient to ID you, then it is better to choose a single provider.
- AHOHA 3y ago
  Unfortunately it isn’t that simple, from the moment your device connect to the wifi for example, every sigle information/packet/etc. shared or stored can be used to identify you, the more you share, the more can be collected to identify you. Now VPN alone by concept isn’t meant for privacy as you always have to trust the unregulated provider (contrary to your ISP for example), when all your data is tunneled through their servers, that’s a lone is big risk based on a trust only, however, and due to the nature of these shared IP vpns, sometimes maybe (keyword maybe) it’s challenging to pinpoint a specific client, and here comes the others, a browser that can have unique fingerprint, and now search queries that can add an extra source of information to further pinpoint you, especially as others mentioned below that you still need to enter your VPN code to use that search engine.. I haven’t tried it yet to give my personal experience as I stopped using mullvad, but if I did I will update this post further.
hammock 3y ago
Google DNS, Google Chrome, Google search...
- AHOHA 3y ago
  Exactly, it’s never a good idea to do that, the only difference is google doesn’t advertise itself as a privacy advocate so when someone use all these google services they don’t really care about the collected data, on the other hand, the userbase of mullvad will have that false sense of security and privacy while putting more and more trust in Mullvad, it’s just a matter of time until some bad news drops.

Thorentis 3y ago

Mullvad was the darling of the Vpn world, up until they removed support for Port forwarding. Would be really curious to see if their subscriber numbers have tanked since then.

Hakkin 3y ago
As a 10+ year paying Mullvad customer, it hasn't changed my experience using the product at all, and I recently deposited another years worth of credit. While I did occasionally use port forwarding, it certainly wasn't a "must have feature" for me. I mostly found it useful for temporarily exposing services publicly, but there are plenty of alternatives that accomplish the same thing these days. The only Mullvad unique-ish feature (I believe some other VPNs offer something similar) I use regularly is their SOCKS5 endpoints, it's very convenient to be able to connect to any of their exit nodes from any server. Otherwise I mostly just want a bog standard Wireguard VPN. It seems the people this most affected were the ones using VPNs primarily for torrenting, which I've always just used a VPS or dedicated server for. Though, even in that case, it's not like it's impossible to torrent without port forwarding, millions of people do it every day behind their NAT. It is unfortunate they had to remove the feature, but I have to assume the abuse of the feature was at the level where it was threatening the service as a whole, if I had to choose between Mullvad without port forwarding or no Mullvad at all, I'd obviously choose the former. They also do seem to be refunding people who request it, so it doesn't really seem like any kind of "rug pull" or anything.
- Gasp0de 3y ago
  Why would I need port forwarding to torrent? I've been using it for ages without.
  - Hakkin 3y ago
    It seems to be a widespread misconception amongst commercial VPN users that port forwarding is required for torrents to work. While port forwarding can be beneficial in certain situations, as you said, it's certainly not a requirement, especially for well seeded torrents like I'm sure the large majority of people are downloading.

rmi_ 3y ago

Wonder how it compares to other privacy-minding Google-proxies, such as startpage.com

piaste 3y ago
At a quick glance: - Leta is much faster than Startpagw - Startpage offers a lot more of Google's features, eg date range filter, image search, and so on I would guess that both differences are due to Startpage not doing any caching. Startpage also has a neat "Anonymous View" feature where they proxy the request for you, acting as your HTTP client. If you trust Startpage, it's probably a pretty good ad-hoc anonymity tool.

moss2 3y ago

I looked over there list of "achievements" in their About page. They state that in 2022 they stopped accepting subscription payments because it forces them to store data about their users for long periods of time. Now they only accept one-time payments for monthly memberships. They really are committed to privacy.

z3c0 3y ago
They've truly demonstrated something I believed untrue prior, and that's the notion that a company can keep growing while maintaining very strong opinions and principals. I switched to Mullvad after PIA's acquisition, thinking it would be a temporary stop until they inevitability alienated their original userbase. But nope, they've only gotten better.
- chefandy 3y ago
  I'm not a business guy so I might be full of shit, but I think they're playing the long game and know who their audience is. They're trying to distinguish themselves from a bazillion fly-by-night VPN providers: not doing the current standard 'vacuum up every conceivable bit, nibble, and byte in case it's useful for marketing or resale later' is a great way to a) get a great word-of-mouth rep from credible people, and b) get a customer base more compelled by marketing real improvements to your core ecosystem than totally BS super flashy marketing and ad budgets. Flashy marketing might be super effective in the short term, but if genuine improvements to your core offering are your biggest selling point, that seems like it would directly contribute to long-term sustainability. Given, this is assuming everything they say is legit. It's kind of hard to not be jaded these days.

DemiGuru 3y ago

This service is not ubiquitous which is something I expect of a search engine. From my perspective the limitations lie with the fact you need to be logged-in to their VPN service in order to use it. Yes, it's a way to ensure that only paid customers can use it. But those paid customers will only be able to use it on their personal devices. Nowhere else. Most if not all work environments block third party VPNs.

red-iron-pine 3y ago
And that's fine. You're on a work network and using work hardware -- you don't get to use whatever you want, even if we have a Guest Network.

yuumei 3y ago

Have been using Mullvad for a few years now. Has been working well, this search actually looks useful. But one suggestion: can I pay for a dedicated, non advertised, residential IP please Mullvad? Lots of places are blocking VPNs now, like cloudflare.

Hakkin 3y ago
I would think it would be extremely difficult to provide residential IPs in a privacy-preserving way, from what I've heard most services that offer them are quite sketchy in how they go about "acquiring" those IPs. The very nature of "residential" IPs means your traffic is flowing through some random person's home internet, which certainly isn't something I would want, even these days where almost everything is encrypted. There would be no way Mullvad could provide any kind of privacy guarantee if they don't control the endpoints.
- miohtama 3y ago
  Providing residential IP as a service would be breaking some agreements, or lying somewhere. I don’t Mullvad can do this, because they are committed to openess and transparency. For resident IP thru malware services you need to look up other dishonest competitors.
_rs 3y ago
I suppose this isn’t a highly requested feature because as soon as you have a dedicated IP you become easily trackable. I wonder if there’s any middle ground to prevent that
red-iron-pine 3y ago
using residential IPs for commercial purposes is expressly forbidden by most ISPs.

rhim 3y ago

What is the difference to a self-hosted version of: https://github.com/searxng/searxng https://github.com/searxng/searxng ?

pvitz 3y ago
I guess that you couldn't be fingerprinted by Google.
humid9059 3y ago
I am going to use public Searxes for comparison. The difference is that there is less noise from other users as it is limited to Mullvad subscribers, and there is presumably a smaller user base. Otherwise, there is probably little to no difference, considering that Searxes are not used by many in the same vein. However, self-hosting is the equivalent of directly using the search engine under your own IP, just without javascript. There is no noise from other users looking up unrelated queries.

aorth 3y ago

I'm a Mullvad customer and will check this out. I can already see that this is not so convenient for when you're on a device or network where your Mullvad connection is not active. For example, I'm typing this from my work laptop on the corporate network as we speak. :P On a related note, I am also a happy Kagi customer. It's a paid, privacy-focused search engine that gives you a "magic" session link to allow easily searching from multiple devices. Very happy with the search there. Haven't used Google more than a handful of times for several months!

dharmab 3y ago
The magic session link was such a great idea. I could easily add a session to my work computer.
d4mi3n 3y ago
Both a customer (and now investor!) if Kagi’s and can’t say enough nice things about the product. It’s refreshing to have a search engine that will give you relevant results rather than shoveling ads down your throat.
unshavedyak 3y ago
Same, love Kagi. I think the biggest surprise for me was that it is getting frequent improvements. I'm so used to Subscriptions being just a drain. You "buy" the product, and then you pay just to keep using it. Which can feel, emotionally, a bit unappetizing because i'd rather just purchase it fully. The subscription just feels like a money sink with no added value. Conversely i've not had that opinion with Kagi. Not only am i happy with the product, but the frequent[1] improvements[2] make me feel like i'm buying something newer and better each month. Developments on FastGPT, increasing what i get for my dollar, integration of more features in general. I frankly assume i just joined at a good time, because this pace can't keep up.. right lol? Regardless my Kagi subscription has felt like i'm getting more value each month. From other companies i'd feel lucky to get these advancements, and if i did i'd expect it to cost me more. "5 new features? Welp, i guess i get to buy a Pro subscription tier to access it" or w/e, is what i'd expect. Really can't praise Kagi enough. [1]: within the last couple months, at least, as i'm new to the product and have only been subscribed for 2 months. [2]: You can see some here: https://blog.kagi.com/blog https://blog.kagi.com/blog

celtoid 3y ago

As a longtime Mullvad customer, I'll use this. Using any VPN company and its services in this age of surveillance capitalism is always a sketchy affair. Mullvad is the least sketchy of the non-DIY options that I can find.

hammeiam 3y ago

Does Google TOS allow for caching of results? A lot of APIs (esp map/geo apis) do not

okso 3y ago

I am curious about the technical reasons motivating the requirement to login with a Mullvad account number while already using Mullvad VPN to reach Mullvad Leta. The Mullvad website and the https://mullvad.net/en/check https://mullvad.net/en/check page show that Mullvad already has tools to detect users of its VPN.

adultSwim 3y ago

Finally, a site that's more usable, instead of less, when on a VPN.