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Where does Mullvad get all this money? I've seen physical ads in different places in the world, audits, etc. I'm not suggesting a conspiracy, but is the VPN bu
by mmooss 2y ago
Where does Mullvad get all this money? I've seen physical ads in different places in the world, audits, etc.
I'm not suggesting a conspiracy, but is the VPN business that good? Are they funded by a privacy group?
- kdmtctl 2y agoThey provide white label for Mozilla, Tailscale and may be some others I am not aware of. Plus they really sell a lot of subscriptions.
- rsyring 2y agoNit: they have a partnership with Tailscale to offer the VPN as a part of a tailnet that subscribes to the service. But, it's not white label. White label implies it would be Tailscale VPN (or similar) with no reference to Mullvalad in their docs or marketing. But that's not what is happening with their offering.
- kdmtctl 2y agoFair point. This is a collab.
- nikcub 2y agoand they've been accepting bitcoin since 2010. I assume they've done very well from that (I'm afraid to calculate what the present value of my mullvad subscription would be)
- wallaBBB 2y agoHave you cared to check the tiers they offer? Hint: not that many, and no free ones. And knowing that mullvad doesn’t come close to the mainstream marketing others (well in essence one) VPN providers, your comment comes of as malicious.
- chris_wot 2y agoI don't think its helpful to say that the comment you responded to was in any way malicious. It was a reasonable question.
- shiroiushi 2y agoEspecially from someone who doesn't know all that much about the VPN business beyond seeing ads for it in some public locations and the very basics of what it is.
- wallaBBB 2y agoIt had a vary suspicions statement. They stated that they see specifically a lot of Mullvad ads. Not general VPN ads. That is what makes is sound malicious. Mullvad is not even close to being in the group of biggest marketing spenders. You need a minute on their website to see that they have a very simple approach to funding their business. No "life time subscription" exclusive offers, no BS privacy claims... Also this is HN, not a comment section on something like Yahoo news, really hard to consider people commenting here as being detached from tech trends and news.
- defrost 2y agoMullvad has a small number of well targeted ads in my experience. If the person above frequents certain torrent trackers, reads Torrent Freak, or travels in other small VPN adjacent circles then it's no stretch to imagine they have seen Mullvad mentioned a great deal, both through ads and through unsponsered forum members ranking Mullvad high on their HOWTO safely do {X} guides.
- 2y ago
- MangoCoffee 2y ago>is the VPN business that good? One of my use cases for VPN is to watch free, legal anime on YouTube from Muse-Asia. I use a VPN to connect to Indonesia, which allows me to watch anime like Dandadan. a US IP won't show anything on their Youtube page. I'm using Mullvad VPN.
- chris_wot 2y agoDandadan is on Netflix... and Crunchy Roll.
- shiroiushi 2y agoNetflix costs a lot more per month than 5 euros. Plus you can use the VPN for countless other things.
- symlinkk 2y agoOh so you’re stealing. Got it.
- shiroiushi 2y agoThat's a very stupid and offensive response, considering the OP explicitly wrote: "One of my use cases for VPN is to watch free, legal anime on YouTube from Muse-Asia."
- hashmush 2y agoBut it's not free and legal where they are from, obviously, since they wouldn't need the VPN in that case.
- shiroiushi 2y agoThey specifically said it's free and legal. Do you have proof otherwise? Obviously, this stuff is merely geo-locked. There's nothing illegal about using a VPN to get around stupid geo-locking restrictions.
- wasmitnetzen 2y agoSince they're a Swedish company, their yearly report is public: [1]. 25% profit margin (Vinstmarginal) does sound quite nice. [1]: https://www.bolagsfakta.se/5592384001-Mullvad_VPN_AB https://www.bolagsfakta.se/5592384001-Mullvad_VPN_AB
- 4ad 2y ago> Where does Mullvad get all this money? From their customers.
- bubblethink 2y agoIt has reasonable margins. $5 is quite a lot of money to just route traffic.
- gagabity 2y agoCIA
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoor KGB. Or both :)
- GuB-42 2y agoThere is that small country called China... You are probably aware of the "Great Firewall of China" that blocks access from mainland China to Google, Meta, etc... Which means that if you are a westerner in China and want to access the internet as you know it, or if you are Chinese and access the rest of the world, then you need some kind of VPN to bypass the restrictions. The Great Firewall is quite advanced, and you need some layers of stealth not to be detected and blocked. Furthermore, they actively search for VPN endpoints and block their IP addresses. It limits your choice of VPNs, and Mullvad is one of the good ones for that purpose, along with Astrill and LetsVPN.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agoNot in China, but in a similar country using DPI inspections to block. Neither Mullvad nor any other rank and file VPN works. Need to use something like xray to bypass.
- Loranubi 2y agoVarious VPNs allow to tunnel over SSH. If they don't want to block all SSH traffic, DPI is useless.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 2y agodo you mean, xray to a vps and install mullvad on that vps? Tried that, but as soon as I install mullvad on a vps, I'm no longer able to ssh into it. Gave up, too complex.
- GuB-42 2y agoWhat I understand is that they are using machine learning techniques to detect access patterns. Even if they don't understand the bytes because it is encrypted, they can match the sizes and timing of packets. So if the tunnel over SSH technique is common, and they detect a SSH connection that behaves in a specific way, for example because of fixed-size handshake packets, they can guess it is tunneling a VPN.