The Mullvad Browser • Hacker News Board

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#361

Post by zamnos » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 12:50 AM UTC

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #248

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…

> it's nice they are saying it's not enough. Mullvad, who has a reputation in the HN comments for being just like... over the top amazing + great (they swear up and down they don't store traffic logs and if you don't trust them, you can pay anonymously somehow or whatever), is having a "hard time" being profitable/growing all while NordVPN, who has a bad reputation in HN comments for being untrustworthy and "not so a…

"Worse is better" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#362

Post by jamesfinlayson » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 12:59 AM UTC

myself248 wrote: post #251

dirheist wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC the mylobot botnet is responsible for providing the vast majority of residential (home) IP addresses for residential VPN providers (who are then sold to expressvpn/nordvpn). The whole business is incredibly shady and nefarious and nordvpn/expressvpn must know from whom they contract their residential vpn services from. BHProxies is the largest residential proxy provider on the internet and almost all of their pr…

Whaaaaaaaaaat. This needs to be on the front page of.... something.

Agreed - I assumed they had some way of getting IP addresses that don't come from an AWS/Azure/Google/whatever datacentre block but I just assumed they bought residential blocks from ISPs or something like that.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#363

Post by yucky » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 1:12 AM UTC

jraph wrote: post #327

yucky wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave is a separate fork and completely unreliant on Chrome. It also is the most privacy-focused browser so it's the opposite of "tracking-supported software".

Unreliant on Chrome? If Chrome disappears, Brave ceases to exist. Brave totally relies on Google developers working on Chrome and do the vast majority of what it takes to build the browser. Brave only does superficial work in comparison. Brave may itself be privacy-focused but only exists thanks to Google's business model which is mostly tracking the world. So, yes, Brave is mostly funded by tracking since it is most…

  > Unreliant on Chrome?

Correct, completely forked from Chromium (not Chrome) and in separate development. Brave continues to roll out superior features while the rest of the Chromium world lags.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#364

Post by 3np » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 1:15 AM UTC

ementally wrote: post #114

If a lot of non-Mullvad users use it, it will create a nice pool of people with at least the same browser fingerprint. Basically, it seems like a good choice if you are already a Mullvad user and your threat model does not require the use of a Tor browser. However, if there's a significant non-Mullvad user base using it, it won't do much, as you'll just stand out as the only person using the Mullvad browser without M…

> However, if there's a significant non-Mullvad user base using it, it won't do much, as you'll just stand out as the only person using the Mullvad browser without Mullvad VPN.

That should be "unless there's a significant...."

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#365

Post by brigandish » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 1:16 AM UTC

pnt12 wrote: post #298

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's nice they are saying it's not enough. Mullvad, who has a reputation in the HN comments for being just like... over the top amazing + great (they swear up and down they don't store traffic logs and if you don't trust them, you can pay anonymously somehow or whatever), is having a "hard time" being profitable/growing all while NordVPN, who has a bad reputation in HN comments for being untrustworthy and "not so a…

Well, many libertarians will state the rules of the free market as if they were physics law, but they are not. I think they're just post-fact invented laws to justify the ideology, but that's besides the point. The law that "in a free market, the best product wins" has been beaten by profit-driven companies with billions at their disposal. Sure, you can have a better product. But maybe it's more profitable to have be…

> post-fact invented laws

Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776. I suppose you could say that was "post-fact" as it drew on what was happening at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the English and Scottish agricultural revolutions among other things, but "invented" would seem a bit of a stretch.

> The law that "in a free market, the best product wins" has been beaten by profit-driven companies with billions at their disposal.

Of course, given that law then the other possibility you appear to have dismissed is that the market is not free.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#366

Post by josephcsible » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 1:26 AM UTC

Proven wrote: post #49

Signatures don't validate, I guess I'll pass for now. $ gpg --verify mullvad-browser-linux64-12.0.4_ALL.tar.xz.asc gpg: assuming signed data in 'mullvad-browser-linux64-12.0.4_ALL.tar.xz' gpg: Signature made Fri 31 Mar 2023 01:15:54 AM CST gpg: using RSA key E53D989A9E2D47BF gpg: Can't check signature: No public key

Doesn't that just mean you forgot to import the signing key?

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#367

Post by plaguepilled » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 1:32 AM UTC

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, this seems like a legitimately good product. On the other, I can't help but feel this would have had greater impact had the Mullvad team collaborated with the LibreWolf project. Sure they wouldn't be able to market it as directly, but I think their user base would be much bigger.

Edit: it seems NoScript is also included which... I'm not sure I personally agree with? But I'm also not a privacy expert so maybe I've missed something, but ublock origin should cover that operability. Someone with experience please correct me if I'm off base here.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#368

Post by CostcoFanboy » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 1:49 AM 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…

> We need a Firefox with good defaults

So, like LibreWolf, Waterfox, etc. ?

There's a ton of those already.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#369

Post by webmobdev » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 2:08 AM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #360

webmobdev wrote: post #209

Important Note : Tor browser isn't truly private as it connects to Firefox services on start-up, even if you disable all options that require these. (Unlike zero telemetry / "no automated connections" browsers like the Orion browser - https://browser.kagi.com/ - or the PaleMoon browser - http://www.palemoon.org/ that actually do respect your browser settings). This seems deliberate as no attempts have been made to fi…

Do you have any evidence to back up this claim?

- Tor Browser 11.0.4-11.0.6 phoning home: https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser/-...

- Bug: Tor Browser 11.0.9 tries to connect to firefox.settings.services.mozilla.com on startup: https://tor.stackexchange.com/questions/23114/bug-tor-browse...

- Tor Browser phoning home to "firefox.settings.services.mozilla.com": https://forum.torproject.net/t/tor-browser-phoning-home-to-f...

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#370

Post by Bluecobra » Tue, Apr 04, 2023, 2:24 AM UTC

867-5309 wrote: post #351

Bluecobra wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also used some UK shell provider (via SOCKS proxy + Putty) in the past and it worked really well. My guess is that there’s some there’s kind of threshold/concurrent connection that iPlayer looks at per IP address. It’s pretty silly though, I would absolutely pay for a TV license if given the opportunity. Dear BBC: Shut up and take my money!

how far in the past ago, during nascent video streaming pre-VPN days? with live tv as well as VOD? if there is a relatively cheap, concrete solution I did not uncover which has been stable for over a year I would buy that wizard a thimbleful of scumble

This was about 15 years ago, definitely before when VPNs got popular… Clarkson was still hosting Top Gear. I seem to recall getting so irked that BBC America was something like 6-12 months behind current Top Gear episodes that it lead me down this path of ‘stealing’ iPlayer. It actually opened the door for me to content that I would have otherwise seen or known about, like obscure comedy shows on Channel 4 or the much better UK version of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.

The shell provider I used was Phurix, not if they are still around or not.