8 ms·
Blog posts like this (instead of endless YouTube sponsorships like their competitors do) are what made me choose them as my VPN service.
by pqdbr 2y ago
Blog posts like this (instead of endless YouTube sponsorships like their competitors do) are what made me choose them as my VPN service.
- bloopernova 2y agoI use and recommend Mullvad. However I'm worried that their goodwill and values will become more valuable to some private equity corp that buys them to asset strip and squeeze their customers.
- input_sh 2y agoWhy do you think they'd accept an offer? They openly said it's not for sale: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2021/9/16/ownership-and-future-mullvad-vpn https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2021/9/16/ownership-and-future-m... Not everyone's in it for the money. Assuming they're not operating at a loss, even less so.
- Groxx 2y agoNot everyone telegraphs if they're in it for the money. In some lines of business, like (purely hypothetically) security, it might actually be a bad thing for your business if you do. I also use mullvad because I don't really think this is the case, but bad actors are generally hard to conclusively identify by design. And VPNs are pretty far out in the "just trust me bro" realm of handing over all your browsing habits with no ability to check their real behavior.
- reaperman 2y agoI think legally they would have to change their ownership directive document in Switzerland to allow the board of directors to allow the two founders to sell more than 50% of their shares. So you might get a heads up!
- blowfish721 2y agoThey arent based in Switzerland but in Sweden.
- yencabulator 2y agoMullvad is trying pretty darn hard to be as far from "just trust me bro" as is feasible. If you do take their word for how they run their systems (/are working toward), their servers are diskless (what logs?), will only run software signed by their infrastructure team, and will remotely attest that their software has not been tampered with. This is so very, very, far away from the typical VPN company that any such comparison sounds ridiculous to me. Just the pretense of doing all this work costs so much that a greedy biz bro simply wouldn't. https://github.com/mullvad/system-transparency https://github.com/mullvad/system-transparency https://www.system-transparency.org https://www.system-transparency.org https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29903695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29903695
- kfreds 2y agoThank you for noticing! System Transparency is taking way longer to figure out, design and build than I expected. On the other hand the project is quite ambitious, and our work on ST has sprouted two additional OSS projects: - https://www.sigsum.org https://www.sigsum.org (a transparency log with witness cosigning) - https://tillitis.se https://tillitis.se (an open-source hardware FPGA-based security key with measured boot)
- fragmede 2y ago> a greedy biz bro simply wouldn't. On the other hand, if it were an NSA honeypot, doing all that work would easily be worth the cost. Personally, I don't think they are, so I'm merely pointing out that there are angles other than totally above-board honest legitimate reasons, and "greedy biz bro".
- yencabulator 2y agoFor sure. Them being Swedes with a long track record decreases that probability a lot.
- kfreds 2y ago> VPNs are pretty far out in the "just trust me bro" realm of handing over all your browsing habits with no ability to check their real behavior. Yes. It is quite an interesting situation, really. It's also a fun challenge! To what extent can we prove that we are trustworthy, and using what tools? Do those tools exist or do we have to invent them?
- fragmede 2y agoYou'd have to invent this one at least, as it currently doesn't exist. As the DNS server operator, you can view all my DNS queries. In a zero-trust environment where I don't trust you not to log all user queries and forwards them to the NSA, you'd need to use homomorphic encryption and create a DNS client and server than can do a lookup, without you, the DNS server operator, from finding out what the DNS lookup was of. https://github.com/menonsamir/spiral-rs https://github.com/menonsamir/spiral-rs claims to have implemented this at a level that's practical for real world applications, with a demo for a wikipedia server, but it's far too slow, as demoed, for use as DNS server. Now, the fact of the matter is that you can map my account ID back to the IP I'm connecting from, but with very limited way to map from my IP to my identity protects that in many ways, but data-mining at scale, knowing how many users connecting to one proxy server from city X, would be worth something to advertising and related companies who are more interested in large habits of users. If it turns out no one uses the pirate bay anymore, but use torrent site XYZ, I know where I'd place my advertising dollars for, say, a VPN product. This is on the extreme end, but you asked for a fun challenge! :)
- kfreds 2y agoThanks! :) I should've been more clear. The questions I posed above are rhetorical. I've spent well over half a decade obsessing over them. See my mention of System Transparency, Sigsum and Tillitis elsewhere in this thread.
- fragmede 2y agoThank you for your hard work. You've spent way more time on the problem than I. Didn't realize it was rhetorical! Mostly I wanna see homophobic encryption happen in practice. :p
- selectodude 2y agoThere are billboards for Mullvad all over Chicago which kind of weird me out.
- ziddoap 2y agoThey do traditional advertising (billboards being one example) instead of paid reviews, affiliate/influencer advertising, etc. https://mullvad.net/en/help/policy-reviews-advertising-and-affiliates https://mullvad.net/en/help/policy-reviews-advertising-and-a...
- neuronexmachina 2y agoOh wow, I wish more companies had pages like that summarizing what sort of marketing/advertising they do/don't use.
- ziddoap 2y agoI’m fanboying at this point, but I honestly believe Mullvad should be the poster child for a lot of things other companies should be doing. Transparency, accountability, data minimization, thorough documentation, publicly available audits, etc.
- hughesjj 2y agoI've been a happy expressvpn customer since dec 2016 but I'm sincerely considering switching to mullvad at this point
- nick238 2y ago[flagged]
- ziddoap 2y agoHoly unsubstantiated accusations, batman. This can be instantly disproved by examining the cases where valid warrants were presented to them by LEAs and they were unable to provide any user data.
- wepple 2y agoThey’re in it for the money. They’ve made some claims that are downright lies, I chuckle at the idea anyone would trust them. The NYC subway ads state that they save you from online web ad systems; blatantly false. I’ll take a photo next time I see the ad to store away.
- cjaybo 2y ago> They’ve made some claims that are downright lies Which claims are you referring to?
- Rastonbury 2y agoWhat were the lies?
- wepple 2y agoFrom my above post: > The NYC subway ads state that they save you from online web ad systems; blatantly false.
- fooqux 2y agoA very cursory search online shows that it's actually your statement which is blatantly false. They've offered ad blocking for years. While it's true they've not always offered this, it's on you when making such claims to ensure you're still factual.
- 2y ago
- ph0ny 2y agoThey are making bank. Thank you open Swedish data: https://www.allabolag.se/5592384001/mullvad-vpn-ab https://www.allabolag.se/5592384001/mullvad-vpn-ab
- radicality 2y agoI’ve been using and still using Mullvad but also getting worried. I live in nyc and in the last few months I’ve seen a _lot_ of ads from them. Huge billboards in high-traffic areas. Full-sized ads on a side of a bus. A whole subway car just with mullvad ads. Some of the ads also felt deceptive making it seem like it will prevent all your online tracking, even though we know that’s not the case.
- fernandotakai 2y agothey do advertise, but they try to keep traditional (instead of influencers) https://mullvad.net/en/help/policy-reviews-advertising-and-affiliates https://mullvad.net/en/help/policy-reviews-advertising-and-a...
- kfreds 2y ago> Some of the ads also felt deceptive making it seem like it will prevent all your online tracking, even though we know that’s not the case. I'm sorry to hear that. For what it's worth our marketing colleagues make a big effort to minimize the risk of such interpretations. Sometimes a really snappy string of words can be interpreted multiple ways. There's also only so many words we can put on an ad before it gets messy. We do try hard to make the nuances clear on our website, which ultimately is where any new users will have to go in order to buy the service.
- woodruffw 2y agoI’m a big fan of your service, but I agree with GP. I rode the subway yesterday and saw a Mullvad ad that strongly implied that a VPN is adequate protection against data brokers and data collection on websites. It certainly wasn’t the most egregious VPN ad I’ve ever seen, but it was disappointing to see Mullvad imply privacy properties for VPNs knowing that ordinary people don’t understand cookies, sessions, fingerprinting, or JavaScript.
- kfreds 2y agoDid the ad in fact talk about the VPN by itself, or in conjunction with the Mullvad Browser? In any case we make the most important nuances clear on our landing page, and in other places on our website.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y agoI was an extremely happy user until they removed port-forwarding. That forced me to switch unfortunately :(
- Gormo 2y agoHow were you using port forwarding with an external VPN?
- fullspectrumdev 2y agoA lot of VPN’s allow you to forward a port from local to “listening” on one of their servers, to make it easier to use P2P filesharing and such. Mullvad and a few others have had to disable this feature because it turns out it’s super useful for hosting malware C&C servers, phishing pages, etc
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Gormo 2y agoI sort of understand their reasoning, then, because acting as a reverse proxy for externally-initiated inbound connections is not typically within the scope of VPN services per se, and especially outside the scope of Mullvad's particular mission of offering VPN services for the purposes of protecting privacy and suppressing censorship. There are other solutions for your use case, with or without a third-party VPN, that wouldn't require port forwarding. There are also other VPN services that do offer this functionality.
- epcoa 2y agoIt’s typically for BitTorrent.
- nicce 2y agoWhat was the reasoning for removal?
- 2y ago
- uneekname 2y agoI was a bit surprised to walk onto a DC Metro car last weekend to find the walls plastered with ads for Mullvad. Just wanted to note that Mullvad is spending money on traditional advertising, as well as blog posts like this.
- watermelon0 2y agoFYI they are transparent about buying outdoor ads: https://mullvad.net/en/help/policy-reviews-advertising-and-affiliates https://mullvad.net/en/help/policy-reviews-advertising-and-a...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bragr 2y agoI was surprised this week to see a big yellow Mullvad ad on LA Metro bus. They must be on an advertising push.
- SpaceManNabs 2y agoI saw mullvad vpn ads on the L train (nyc) this week!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- zevra 2y agoI saw them on metro north going into nyc
- 2y ago
- sli 2y agoThey don't do YouTube sponsors but they sure plastered their ads all over Chicago. Literally everywhere.