The Mullvad Browser • Hacker News Board

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#161

Post by MrAlex94 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:28 PM UTC

Interesting! A few years ago I started a similar project, essentially a clearnet fork of Tor called Aegis. Problem was, it makes a lot of the modern web very broken. A very niche corner of the web browser market - but a lot of things like WebRTC and Widevine (unfortunately) are what most users would expect. I'd imagine there's the possibility there will be no H264 support either?

Nice to see more Firefox related forks though, hopefully help gain more ground on the web for alternative engines.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#162

Post by ilikehurdles » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:28 PM UTC

ddtaylor wrote: post #64

I like Mullvad but it can actually be challenging to purchase a subscription in the US. Most prepaid cards block the purchase. Sure, you can use it with a fully tracked card etc. but that's not really the target audience.

Mozilla sells a $5/mo VPN service which is a user-friendly reskinned Mullvad.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#163

Post by Euphorbium » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:28 PM UTC

dymk wrote: post #112

Euphorbium wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets replace that with vpn pushing, that sure is better. By the way brave is also pushing a paid vpn.

There is no opt-out to not use a VPN. There's... the Mullvad logo, which seems pretty reasonable. Certainly more reasonable than injecting their own ad network into your pages and pushing your home-rolled cryptocoin.

I have been using brave for a long time, and the only places where crypto is mentioned is in the new tab window. You have to opt in to add replacement.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#164

Post by pabs3 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:29 PM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #86

dathinab wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFIK it's a "fork" of the tor-browser (which is a fork of Firefox) but instead of connecting to the tor network you connect to a VPN. So you get all the in-browser tracking protection Firefox has (e.g. against fingerprinting) + the ones only the Tor browser has but without the drawbacks of the tor network and in turn without onion security.

Does the tor browser fork stay up to date quickly? I would be quite worried about stale browsers in this day and age, to an extent at least

Tor Browser updates often come the same day as Mozilla releases, sometimes a bit longer.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#165

Post by sacrosanct » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:34 PM UTC

mcsniff wrote: post #29

Here's to hoping they maintain this for a while. There are a lot of "hardened Firefox" forks around, none of them that I would trust to follow upstream for a long enough time to switch. I already trust Mullvad enough to use as VPN, and am likely willing to extend that trust to a fork of Firefox they manage, but truthfully, I always concerned when achieving goals means new ventures and projects as it may mean resource…

> There are a lot of "hardened Firefox" forks around

Sticking with LibreWolf for now, which has updates disabled in the policies section, but I frequently ping their Gitlab for new releases. It's annoying having to do that, but if it means I get security patches in time, I do it.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#166

Post by throwaway2056 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:34 PM UTC

Finally something that beats...

https://fingerprint.com/demo/

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#167

Post by 2Gkashmiri » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:35 PM UTC

jraph wrote: post #20

I guess why not. This is an open source, rebranded Firefox and Firefox-like browsers could use some publicity. It promotes privacy and privacy can use some publicity too. Tor too. Mullvad seems to be honest in the fact that their business model is selling VPNs and it's nice they are saying it's not enough. They are not saying that you might not need one though. We need a Firefox with good defaults and it seems like t…

I've asked multiple times to all the brave sympathizers about "why not fork firefox, put your shnazzy customization and call it a day. By lapping up to chromium, you are only helping Google regardless of what search engine you use"

And more often than not the response has been "well we did investigate Firefox but working with it was pita so we went with easiest option"

Shit dude. You want to start a business so at least do the right thing.

If there are more Firefox forks, like there are chromium forks today, that would normalize Firefox because currently chromium is the de facto web standard.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#168

Post by JustSomeNobody » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:40 PM UTC

I think I personally would find this more useful on my phone than on my desktop or laptop.

I like Mullvad, they're my goto for VPN service when I'm out and about.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#169

Post by sylware » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:41 PM UTC

I wonder if one day we'll get a group of devs with the balls to propose the world with a real disruptive web engine (instead of using vanguard/blackrock ones): for instance plain and simple C + assembly.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#170

Post by udev4096 » Mon, Apr 03, 2023, 1:41 PM UTC

MikusR wrote: post #113

zamnos wrote: post #13

Hm that seems like a mistake. If I'm reading the docs right, the Mullvad browser will let you browse the web without using their/any VPN, which mean that it's entirely possible to accidentally surf to a site without having your VPN up, and reveal your IP address to that site. To contrast, there's no way to use the Tor Browser without using the onion network so it's ~impossible to accidentally browse to site and revea…

They advertise their VPN as having a working Split tunnel feature. That is also false, at least on Windows.

It's available on android and linux. Don't know about windows