Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

premium.firefox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 129 posts

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#31

Post by nmy »

gpm wrote: post #16

I only use firefox. But I don't feel like I can strongly recommend it because of the long list of bad decisions. - Google analytics baked into about:addons - Sending data to Cliqz - Pocket, as a service being added to the topbar - Pocket, as a service being added to the default home/newtab page - Firefox hello - Completely banning unsigned addons - Mr. Robot advert - And now probably this I want a browser that is rel…

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. These are minor things compared to having no other good choice but the Google browser.

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#33

Post by itsreallyme »

detaro wrote: post #19
fooqux wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as if giving users options and letting them opt out of things is the way to go. Who would have guessed.

Apparently not, since the opening comment complains about an optional VPN offering and a service integration you can turn off.

You can already opt into Proton VPN. See, it's right here: https://protonvpn.com/

So that's the point; don't bake features into my browser that point me to one company when the whole purpose of a browser in the first place is to be able to visit web pages... like https://protonvpn.com/.

This is about only one thing: money (affiliate sales).

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#34

Post by 4aceb14e »

detaro wrote: post #19
fooqux wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as if giving users options and letting them opt out of things is the way to go. Who would have guessed.

Apparently not, since the opening comment complains about an optional VPN offering and a service integration you can turn off.

Yeah, in the about:config, which you are told not to meddle with by the browser. I agree, it's better than nothing. But it might as well be missing for the average user.

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#35

Post by velcrovan »

silon42 wrote: post #32

Do these services actually provide a (virtual) private network. For example: can I see my home machine and my phone on the same private network? And then connect them using ssh/scp?

First question: yes, they provide a virtual private network between you and the service endpoint.

Second question: no, it's not a general-purpose VPN. It's purely for cloaking traffic to and from anywhere on the internet.

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#36

Post by falcolas »

mtgx wrote: post #24
gpm wrote: post #16

I only use firefox. But I don't feel like I can strongly recommend it because of the long list of bad decisions. - Google analytics baked into about:addons - Sending data to Cliqz - Pocket, as a service being added to the topbar - Pocket, as a service being added to the default home/newtab page - Firefox hello - Completely banning unsigned addons - Mr. Robot advert - And now probably this I want a browser that is rel…

> Pocket, as a service being added to the topbar > Pocket, as a service being added to the default home/newtab page Is that really worse than Mozilla allowing all of your Google searches (from the new tabs) to go through Google? At least it owns Pocket. Mozilla needs to make money somehow. Promoting its own services doesn't seem nearly as bad as the partnership with Google, in my opinion.

It's a fairly straightforward configuration change in the primary configuration screen to switch search providers. It's an advanced about:config change (when even possible) to change those others.

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#37

Post by 4aceb14e »

Yoric wrote: post #10
4aceb14e wrote: post #3

I feel Firefox could be quite a bit more attractive, if it did less. I don't want my browser integrated with one particular VPN. I don't want Pocket on by default and hard to get rid of.

Have you tried Firefox Lite? (Android only, I believe)

That is the version I am running on mobile.

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#38

Post by woodrowbarlow »

when considering different VPN services based on privacy criteria, this site is helpful:

https://thatoneprivacysite.net/vpn-comparison-chart/

for example, i can see the ProtonVPN is hosted in Switzerland, and that Switzerland cooperates with Five-Eyes countries (according to Privacy International) by sharing intelligence information regarding citizens of Five-Eyes countries (including the US). this is a relatively mild concern, compared to VPNs hosted in one of the Fourteen-Eyes countries.

i can also see they use AES-256 for all data encryption. good. however, their terms of service and marketing material contain conflicting language regarding what information is logged, and details are not provided about how long logs are kept and whether these logs are personally identifiable. (running a truly "no logs" VPN service isn't really possible.)

at the network level, they appear to follow open standards and everything is implemented in a predictable manner. bandwidth looks good, but speeds and pricing are sub-par.

i've used ProtonVPN. i appreciate that they expose the details necessary to configure VPN using the built-in OS-level or router-level configuration screens, rather than requiring that you use their custom app. ultimately, the low speed (compared to similarly-priced VPN services) is what turned me away. it is neither the most privacy-conscious, nor most capable, nor highest value solution in the VPN market and i'm surprised to see this offering come through Mozilla. it's a weird endorsement.

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#39

Post by Wowfunhappy »

zaarn wrote: post #29
gpm wrote: post #16

I only use firefox. But I don't feel like I can strongly recommend it because of the long list of bad decisions. - Google analytics baked into about:addons - Sending data to Cliqz - Pocket, as a service being added to the topbar - Pocket, as a service being added to the default home/newtab page - Firefox hello - Completely banning unsigned addons - Mr. Robot advert - And now probably this I want a browser that is rel…

Well, unsigned addons are banned in the branded release browser. If you use the developer edition, nightly or compile Firefox yourself then you can install unsigned addons into Firefox. The last option also enables you to turn of Pocket and a variety of other services.

Does anyone maintain a branch with precompiled builds that has sideloading turned on + no Pocket / other services? Preferably with autoupdate still working?

Firefox is my primary browser on Windows, and I'd love to have this stuff removed, but I'm really not at a point where I can be compiling the code myself.

Post reply on HN