I used Mullvad for a long time, but hearing about one of the two CEOs actively supporting and financing swedish Nazis, I’m looking to put my money elsewhere. That’s the second one after Private Internet Access (who supported Gab).
I had AirVPN and Surfshark being recomnended, how do people here feel? What do you use?
I just dont get why anyone would willingly tunnel all their traffic to some party they dont know the inner workings of.
Because it’s only one point you don’t have to trust instead of every point along the way
I am not a mullvad user, but I recently found https://njal.la/. Curious if anyone has used it before and their experience
Been using PIA for over a decade now. I started with them by paying with a random gift card I had laying around (Walmart maybe?) and have been paying with crypto ever since. They’ve never asked for any personal details (used a burner email address) and the service has been solid the entire time. Clients on Windows and Linux both work great and are open source with pretty decent documentation. In short, sometimes I want to reliably remain anonymous online and it has worked out well for me.
I know that a lot of people here hate on PIA but I haven’t seen any justification. So if anyone here knows why I shouldn’t be using the service, I’d love to hear about it; I’d be happy to switch to something else if it works at least as well.
PIA is owned by Israel. https://hackread.com/private-internet-access-pia-vpn-sold-israel-privacy-concerns/
EDIT: Updated link to be source article instead of shiddit post
Mostly it’s a US based company and has to comply with US laws/surveillance
Does that matter if they have none of my data? I mean, they could log unencrypted traffic but for web browsing you should be forcing https wherever possible, so traffic logs would be mostly irrelevant. No doubt, they can see what you torrent but I can’t imagine it matters that much if they have no data about you. They could certainly build a fingerprint based on torrents and unencrypted traffic but I feel like it may be too weak to be relevant. Maybe people worry about using the official clients? But you don’t need to use them either, you can just establish a raw OpenVPN tunnel.
It’s an Israeli and US company. If anyone is somehow MITM snooping your TLS traffic, it’s them.
I had SurfShark years ago but really do not recommend them. Constant problems with all traffic just stopping and then I had to call someone up to cancel my subscription as there was no option online.
Switched to AirVPN which I don’t see talked about much but it’s great. The Android app is looking a little dated (the icon in the app drawer is in a tiny circle because they have added support for adaptive icons still) but functionally I can’t complain.
+1 for AirVPN. I’m a little worried of what happens if it becomes more mainstream (see what happened to mullvad and their port forwarding features), but they’re rock solid and still support port forwarding for p2p. They also do good black friday sales every year, you can get a steal on the 3yr package around that time.
Bern using Tunnelbear with some success, but mainly to circumvent geoblocking.
I use nym. Works well in my experience, though my Linux experience hasn’t been the best. I run a hardened system though, so take that with a grain of salt.
I’ve heard good things about this service. Haven’t tried it myself though.
It’s Mullvad. This whole thing, in my eyes, overreaction to one asshole being an asshole, and not anywhere near as bad as so many other assholes.
That’s my opinion, you’re 100% valid in voting with your wallet and I respect everyone that draws the line here.
For me, though, Mullvad is the only one worth their salt if you actually want the best of the best for privacy, and there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism so this feels like an exercise in futility.
Have we really reached a point in which we have to stick with the “least bad” option? I don’t like this.
Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp. We’ve been there for a while. People suck.
Being in the proton ecosystem I use their VPN, and it’s been working great thus far.
Weird to say Proton is the lesser of the two evils, but not by much.
Mullvad donated to a actual right-wing fascist party.
Proton’s owner complimented the US government and gave away customer data.
there was an article today about the entire mullvad company being blindsided by this and a lot of people being upset. with any luck the guy will leave or get thrown out.
also i think they’re technically nazbols.
Cofounder, and 50% owner. For him to get kicked out would take a lot.
he could be a rational human about it and see that it’s bad for the brand. considering he was willing to work with a guy that actively dislikes what he did he may have a few braincells left.
That kinda seems unlikely to me. I’m certain that he’s aware that supporting ethnic cleansing (albeit not overtly violent) is not compatible with having customers.
they don’t tend to see it like that from my experience. but yeah the chance is slim.
I think “would take a lot” might be understating it.
It’s likely he’d have to be bought out by the other guy with an attractive offer.
This is the only reason for why I haven’t demanded a refund of my remaining balance yet. I’m holding out for a dismissal or something.
I’m giving it a week or two to see if anything happens while also researching alternatives
There are many options. It’s important to do some research on these options. It’s also important to know why you want to choose a certain provider. Check their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy at the very least. For now, I’m looking into IVPN.
Demanding a refund could add to the pressure though, you could always renew after he (hopefully) goes. I can’t get a refund since mine has just run out but I’m not making any long-term decisions until the dust has settled.
I totally agree! It’s just that I have two routers setup with them, running 24/7, and I have configured mom’s devices with my account and I don’t have the time to reconfigure all this with something else at the moment. 😩
National Bolsheviks, in essence merging nazism with communism.
Nazism+
what an awful idea
Yes! Alternatively you can just put an Z there too, same meaning.
A Nazi, basically.
It stands for “national bolshevism,” so tankies minus the leftism, which… yeah.
from the same paper that did the original reporting. swedish and paywalled unfortunately, but the first few paragraphs are readable.
Extracted with firefox reader mode and machine translated:
Internal crisis at Mullvad: “Drags down the company” Jacob Lundberg 4–5 minutes
Last week, Flamman was able to reveal that tech profile Daniel Berntsson is the main financier of the Örebro Party, which is running for parliament with demands for “large-scale remigration”.
The news was presented to employees late on Friday evening, and according to several sources with insight, the information has led to an internal rebellion at the IT company Mullvad, where Berntsson is the owner and CEO.
Around a quarter of the employees gathered in an internal chat over the weekend, where they aired criticism of both the donation and the company’s handling of the disclosure.
“I was shocked and sad, and at first surprised,” writes an employee to Flamman.
Another person says that it is both a “deep disappointment” and an “insult” to the company’s employees with a foreign background.
Berntsson himself commented on the news to employees during a meeting on Monday, where employees were allowed to ask questions. Sources to Flamman described the atmosphere before the meeting as tense.
To Flamman, Berntsson justified the donation with “resistance to corruption and dysfunction, creativity and the will to actually solve problems.” Regarding the party’s demand for “comprehensive remigration,” he said that it is needed in view of “today’s miserable situation.”
Several sources tell Flamman that Berntsson has emphasized at recent staff meetings that there are dividing lines among employees in their views on immigration.
“It was like a puzzle piece fell into place,” says an employee, after the revelation about the donation.
Another source says that he has not seen anyone among the staff express support for the donation. At the same time, the chat group for critical discussion still only brings together a minority of the staff.
However, another source believes that the critical group is probably larger.
“I suspect that not everyone dares to show what they think and feel,” he writes to Flamman.
The employees are critical of the donation for several reasons, including that many of the employees themselves are immigrants and “take this very personally.”
Several employees also point out that the Örebro Party’s attitude towards surveillance is at odds with Mullvad’s, as they have advocated increasing the number of surveillance cameras and enabling secret wiretapping in the hunt for criminals.
“Many of the staff believe that this disqualifies Daniel as the leader of a company like Mullvad,” the source writes.
The person also says that many have applied to Mullvad for ethical reasons, that the management’s handling of the issue “definitely damaged trust” among the staff, and that several employees “in light of the donation are considering quitting”. One person says that they will “look around for alternatives”.
“My trust in the leadership is at rock bottom”, says a third person.
The source also says that they see no other way forward than for Daniel Berntsson to step down as CEO. However, another employee sees it as unlikely that Berntsson, who owns 50 percent of the company, will step down on his own. At the meeting, he is also said to have rejected the idea.
“My guess is that he will stay just as before. If you look at how the official response is worded, it is about Mullvad standing for freedom of opinion. They are trying to emphasize that it is something he did as a private person, and that it is therefore not so bad.”
However, the person remains critical:
“It’s one thing to have opinions that don’t match mine, but to make such a gigantic donation without realizing that he is bringing down both himself, Mullvad as a company and all employees at the same time. It makes me doubt his ability as CEO and manager.”
Flamman has sought out Daniel Berntsson.
List of vpns not to use
NordVPN
Facebook Onavo
ExpressVPN
Private Internet Access
Everything Kape Technologies
HolaVPN
PureVPN
ZenMate
CyberGhost
What’s wrong with PIA? I thought they have shown that they do not store any data more than once.
Imagine someone unironically using Facebook’s VPN service.
I don’t want to be mean to you, as it might be just ignorance.
But my dude, why did you decide to use Inaccessible photo instead of using text or at the very least Text +photo?
If I suffer from any condition that affect my vision or my reading /understanding… how am I supposed to read this?
You included AirVPN in that list even though they aren’t mentioned in either of your screenshots… maybe a typo? I’ve never heard of them being associated with Kape so am curious why you lumped them into all that.
NordVPN is interesting because it was less about them handing over data to the government, and them just not being transparent about an attack. All the others in that post clearly were in cahoots with big gov.
NordVPN’s defense was technically coherent: because the company doesn’t store activity logs, no user browsing data was exposed. The breach was framed as a vendor problem. The attacker had gotten in through an insecure remote management system that the data center had left open. NordVPN said it hadn’t even known the system existed.
That may all be accurate. But the eighteen months of silence is the actual story.
Sharing this because I think it’s funny, but someone opened an issue on Mullvad’s github about the questionable donations of one of the cofounders: https://github.com/mullvad/mullvadvpn-app/issues/10685
I’ve been using Windscribe for 10 years and have been nothing but impressed. Always surprised they don’t get mentioned more in these posts.
It’s like picking an airline. No matter who you choose somebody has a story of how they’re varying degrees of awful.
I’m on Proton. I disliked when that one guy made that social post comment about how Republicans are easier to deal with. I’m not offended enough to roll the dice with another provider only to later discover they’re literal nazis, their founder has Epstein connections or they discriminate against trans people.
(Which is to say, if you want to switch from Mullvad I get it.)
I use Proton but I’m also in their ecosystem (ie, I also pay for ProtonMail and get the rest of their suite alongside it)
Wasn’t Proton’s CEO in some hot water a year or so ago, or was that a bunch of hooey? I know it’s impossible to find an ethical CEO, but just curious.
…sure I could look it up, but my phone battery sucks and it helps boost activity.
He made a couple of supportive tweets about a Trump anti-trust appointment (who was later fired by Trump) and the Republican Party that offended some people, mainly the American left. People seem to forget that he is not American, nor is Proton an American company, so none of this actually means anything. He cannot vote, he and his company do not fund the American right in any way and he is not someone with a huge online presence, so it’s unlikely he has much influence.
More recently a far right influencer in France signed up for Proton’s affiliate program and promoted Proton on his channel, which led to some misleading claims about Proton “funding Nazis”. Proton immediately removed him from the affiliate program upon being notified of this and apologised for what it claims was an oversight.
Personally I’m very sick of the purity tests and cancel culture on the left and wish people would slow down a bit and really consider whether these “controversies” are actually worth burning it all down for. Proton provides mainstream, easy to use alternatives to big tech and is better existing than not. Its VPN is also one of the few that retains port forwarding, which can be useful for piracy. After the attempts to cancel Proton, the left hard shilled for Mullvad and now it turns out that’s objectively worse in terms of its political influencing. Mullvad is another company that does more good in the world than bad, are we going to cancel it too?
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/
I use Proton. but I find it suss how they are trying to do it all, so I don’t use most of their products
They made a very naive comment suggesting a authoritarian regime supports privacy
And doubled down then changed their comments as if the way back machine doesn’t exist in order to backtrack without having to admit they were wrong.
Technically it is true, it makes easier to spread their propaganda in other countries by using bots.
So some of anti-age verification agenda is generated by russia and china etc. to make easier to create bot accounts.
Same boat, really don’t want to keep supporting them, because of the reasons others have mentioned. But I have something like four or five emails, not to mentioned hundreds of relays, it would be really hard to lose if I ditched them as my provider.
Same here, the cost is just way more worth it if you already pay for other Proton services.
Does seem like IVPN is closer to Mullvad in how it works though for people who just want to pay for a VPN separately. No email needed for an account, similar price, open-source clients. Also debubks misinformation used by VPN peddlers to convince people to buy VPNs who don’t need one.
here’s an interview with IVPN with techlore:
https://odysee.com/@techlore:38/ivpn-breaks-industry-silence-on-logs,:b
This honestly seem pretty good, they even offer mail aliasing. I think I’m gonna migrate to them once my one year subscription to Mullvad end.
