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Latest Mozilla VPN features

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Re: Latest Mozilla VPN features

#151

Post by givemeanaccount »

acatton wrote: post #74

I genuinely don't understand what is the incentive for using Mozilla VPN? I'm a Mozilla and Firefox fanboy, but this new product had me sceptical since the beginning. They literally bring nothing to the table except their brand name. They don't even do the server side, but just resell Mullvad's infrastructure with their brand. I'm already a Mullvad customer, and if I were to switch to Mozilla VPN: * It would not be a…

>* I would have to pay with my credit card, instead of cash-by-mail. (Great privacy improvement! /s)

Do you download your configurations from the Mullvad website over Tor via their onion service 100% of the time?

Do you connect to Tor before connecting to Mullvad in your VPN client?

Re: Latest Mozilla VPN features

#152

Post by xvector »

potency wrote: post #110
kfreds wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as I know, in a lot of country (like France) it is a legal obligation to keep logs and be able to identify one of your customer if the police demands it. Not for all types of services. ISPs are sometimes under obligation to log, but VPN services don't belong in that category. I can't speak for others but we have contacts with legal experts (in a few jurisdictions) that alert us to changing laws. Ultimately i…

I would love to use Mullvad, but I need split tunneling on a per-process basis (Windows), since there is the occasional website that hates VPN-based servers. I have a special browser installation I use for such occasions, but few VPN providers offer per-process VPN exceptions. Any chance Mullvad is considering this feature?

Have you considered running a SOCKS proxy outside of Mullvad (ie on a Raspberry Pi or in the cloud?)

You could then use Firefox Multi-Account Containers to bind a container to the SOCKS proxy, and whenever you need to access a site that doesn’t support a VPN you can just open it with in said container.

Re: Latest Mozilla VPN features

#153

Post by xvector »

qw3rty01 wrote: post #134
cyberlab wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> TOR is explicitly not private, only anonymous It depends on how you use Tor. For example, visiting your own personal homepage and then using the same relay to visit a NSFW site would be bad OPSEC. Also, Tor comes pre-installed with HTTPS Everywhere, and you can toggle a setting that disables all http traffic if you're worried about sketchy exit nodes analyzing your plaintext traffic. Remember: Tor can't read your m…

The caveats you're mentioning are exactly why tor is a bad tool if privacy is your main goal. None of those concerns would be an issue with a service that focused on privacy. Also HTTPS everywhere isn't enough; you also need ESNI, which requires server support.

And even if ESNI was ubiquitous, a malicious exit would simply perform a reverse DNS lookup and have very high certainty about which sites you’re visiting.

Re: Latest Mozilla VPN features

#154

Post by xvector »

dgellow wrote: post #27
maeln wrote: post #21

I feel like most of those VPN services are using very borderline marketing and like to keep a lot of information blurry. As far as I know, in a lot of country (like France) it is a legal obligation to keep logs and be able to identify one of your customer if the police demands it. Therefore, if you have server in France or any country with similar rules, you can't operate a "0 log" service. And since those kinds of s…

The entire VPN industry is really shady. Their marketing is entirely based on creating literal FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) and sell their service as the perfect and cheap solution. The presence they have on youtube ads and other mainstream platform ads is really disturbing.

Mullvad doesn’t do this, most providers do but I agree that this generalization is unfair to the VPN being discussed here.

Re: Latest Mozilla VPN features

#155

Post by ivanhoe »

lucideer wrote: post #90
Fergusonb wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're using mullvad you have likely already done a lot of research on which provider you want to use. A lot of consumers are interested in a quality VPN but wouldn't do this kind of research. Mozilla provide additional eyeballs and billing support, and mullvad provides the service itself. It's a mutually beneficial transaction. They're not in competition for your money, they're targeting different demographics.

> they're targeting different demographics This is the question though: who are these demographics? I know Mozilla likely have a lot more data on this than I, but who is using Firefox / interested enough in Mozilla to read their marketing & research their VPN offerings, but is simultaneously not someone who would research VPN providers in general / use Mullvad? What is this techie/non-techie interested/not-interested…

I for one would trust far more to Mozilla foundation's brand than any random small VPN company to not abuse the user's trust or lie about its actual practices. From what I've been reading most of VPNs on the market actually have some level of privacy flows, so it's not such an easy choice as it might seem - especially for people outside of US.

Re: Latest Mozilla VPN features

#156

Post by gsich »

CharlesW wrote: post #117
kyawzazaw wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of consumers are interested in a quality VPN but wouldn't do this kind of research. In that case, they will probably use NordVPN or ProtonVPN

Wait, is NordVPN something an educated VPN consumer should not use? I switched from PIA after their acquisition, so now I'm wondering what I missed.

Depends. If you only need a VPN to get around geo-restrictions you can use anything.

Re: Latest Mozilla VPN features

#157

Post by lucideer »

ruined wrote: post #104
lucideer wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're targeting different demographics This is the question though: who are these demographics? I know Mozilla likely have a lot more data on this than I, but who is using Firefox / interested enough in Mozilla to read their marketing & research their VPN offerings, but is simultaneously not someone who would research VPN providers in general / use Mullvad? What is this techie/non-techie interested/not-interested…

that demographic is huge. most people under 40 today have grown up watching the surveillance industry establish itself, and those with any consciousness of their own vulnerability want to take action to minimize their surface area. until recently that's been extremely difficult and technical, but now firefox with container extensions, adblockers, and a VPN are all easily approachable for the average person, and they'…

> now firefox with container extensions, [...] are all easily approachable for the average person

I think you might be in a bubble of you think the average person is using container extensions. There aren't even that many average people using Firefox anymore, least of all any extensions beyond adblockers (which still only reach at most 20% in general, including the all round more average Chrome users)

Add to that there aren't even any container extensions that work well: the official Mozilla one doesn't support management of domain lists, and the best alternative (Containerise) is still limited and poorly supported (has outstanding bugs with things as simple as the www prefix). As for the individual site-specific options, the Google one is an all or nothing affair; there is no way to separate your traffic within Google's ecosystem, nor outside it: there's effectively two "zones", similar up Private Mode.

I wouldn't recommend containers to an average user in their current state

Re: Latest Mozilla VPN features

#158

Post by recursive »

lucideer wrote: post #90
Fergusonb wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're using mullvad you have likely already done a lot of research on which provider you want to use. A lot of consumers are interested in a quality VPN but wouldn't do this kind of research. Mozilla provide additional eyeballs and billing support, and mullvad provides the service itself. It's a mutually beneficial transaction. They're not in competition for your money, they're targeting different demographics.

> they're targeting different demographics This is the question though: who are these demographics? I know Mozilla likely have a lot more data on this than I, but who is using Firefox / interested enough in Mozilla to read their marketing & research their VPN offerings, but is simultaneously not someone who would research VPN providers in general / use Mullvad? What is this techie/non-techie interested/not-interested…

Me. I trust the Mozilla name, yet have never heard of mullvad.

Re: Latest Mozilla VPN features

#159

Post by IgorPartola »

jdewitt wrote: post #75

I can't find a single reason why Mozilla should be wasting resources on VPN when there are already plenty of companies on that grind. I can't find any good reason for encouraging people to circumvent network controls, or throw more networking complexity into what was previously very simple for users. The constant marketing of 'you need a vpn' is super counter productive for users because they have no idea what it eve…

I didn’t need a VPN until I did:

Recently visited family in a different state and stayed with them for a week. They had a fast internet connection but something in their router made establishing a new TCP connection take forever. I bought a subscription to Mozilla VPN and viola, now my TCP connections open quickly again. Also bonus: I don’t pollute their ad results with my searches.

While yes I could dig into their router problem, they had no issues with how things worked and I needed to get work done.

Re: Latest Mozilla VPN features

#160

Post by jdiez17 »

Cu3PO42 wrote: post #79
Black101 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Mullvad doesn't know who the customers are, that would be the only possible upside?

But they don't really know that anyway. Your account is just a number and when you mail cash you include a token that they can tie to your account number. Obviously they could log your IP address (which they promise not to), but that's an issue even if you go through Mozilla to purchase the service.

I wonder if the cash-by-mail payment option creates some kind of legal liability for Mullvad. If it suddenly became very popular, I would imagine the financial authorities would be rather unsatisfied with "oh, we receive a bunch of cash from anonymous customers by mail, nothing dodgy here..."
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