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The Mullvad Browser

mullvad.net

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Re: The Mullvad Browser

#391

Post by jraph »

shzhdbi09gv8ioi wrote: post #390
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…

> They are not saying that you might not need one though. Why would they?

Using a VPN might have security implications (such as now, you have an additional central entity, maybe not in the same jurisdiction as you, that can list your network connections to a requesting entity), or not be an answer to your thread model.

I don't really blame them for this though. Buyers should also do their homework.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#392

Post by shzhdbi09gv8ioi »

seanw444 wrote: post #223
RealStickman_ wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problems with services are to be expected when using Mullvad. Their IPs are all recognised as originating from datacenters. You might be lucky, but often not. Sketchier VPN providers use "home ips" and rotate them regularly in order to defeat Netflix or other services blocking them.

Why are the sketchy VPN providers capable of that, but not Mullvad?

They make use of residential IP:s without their consent/knowledge.

See https://github.com/d2phap/ImageGlass/issues/1252 for an example on how this might happen (spider.com).

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#393

Post by wyclif »

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.

I totally agree. Somebody knowledgeable about how this works needs to write an expose about it.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#394

Post by birracerveza »

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…

>My little concern I guess is that this browser will push for their service so it's a bit like an ad for them

I mean... yeah? What else should it be?

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#395

Post by mcsniff »

handedness wrote: post #324
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…

> Edit: I hope they bring this to Android also! "Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they're currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn't have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surf…

This is good reminder, thank you. I am an advocate and user of GrapheneOS, but often find myself using Firefox because of Sync, and because of the bottom toolbar -- which is ridiculous to think about.

I understand the want to stay close to upstream and requests for such "usability" tweaks this should go to Chromium.

Alas the rigidity of the GrapheneOS project is a double edged sword.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#396

Post by pnt12 »

brigandish wrote: post #365
pnt12 wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

I must admit I don't know much about economics. I do get tired of people dismissing arguments with free market 101s - the world seems much more complex than that, and the big capitalists have become specialists at exploiting the market for their gains.

But then I'll day: maybe these guidelines are outdated, 250 years later. For example, does the best product win? Not if the product is complex enough and people cannot quickly measure its quality. There's 10$ crap and 100$ crap, and fake reviews, and paid reviews, and swapped products, and misleading marketing.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#397

Post by dean2432 »

EastSmith wrote: post #350

Hmm, I just gave it a try with https://fingerprint.com/ and each time I restarted the browser it says it is my first visit. This is really a nice surprise, as fingerprint.com tends to always recognize your previous visits. Update: "In permanent private browsing mode, cookies and site data will always be cleared when Mullvad Browser is closed." It has this setting ON by default.

try this one. add a signature and see if it can detect you across sessions.

https://abrahamjuliot.github.io/creepjs/

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#398

Post by Sporktacular »

coppsilgold wrote: post #222

You can run the tor browser without tor. env TOR_SKIP_LAUNCH=1 TOR_TRANSPROXY=1 about:config extensions.torlauncher.start_tor = FALSE network.dns.disabled = FALSE

Right. I'm struggling to understand the need for this. Does this browser provide some seamless access to some free-tier Mulled service? If not then it seems like a marketing difference to the TOR browser, which can be used with a VPN and have the TOR bit switched off.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#399

Post by Veen »

louison11 wrote: post #379
867-5309 wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a few years ago I moved outside the UK and spent the best part of 3 months (on and off) trying to access BBC content, legally, still holding residency, paying domiciliary and employment taxes, and paying for a bladdy TV loicence of course, I wanted to do this for as close to free as possible, since plugging an aerial into a tv at home also cost next to nothing VPNs were already being detected and banned. I tried at l…

Can you or someone explain why so many Brits want to watch UK television from abroad? I’m French living abroad and have never missed French TV. The quality of the content is just very sub-par compared to American shows. They just don’t have the budget to compete. Is the UK different because it’s English speaking and perhaps it has access to a wider market and thus more capital?

Interesting. I'm British and I enjoy quite a lot of French TV: Engrenages (Spiral), Le Bureau des Légendes (The Bureau), Au service de la France (A Very Secret Service), etc.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#400

Post by WeylandYutani »

93po wrote: post #317
FireInsight wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite surprised nobody mentioned Librewolf yet. https://librewolf.net/ It's a custom build of Firefox with somewhat sensible, sometimes strict, privacy respecting default settings. There's also the Arkenfox user.js which you can put on top of vanilla Firefox, aiming for the most privacy and security possible. https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js

My issue with these browsers, including Firefox with things like fingerprint resisting enabled, is that it breaks a lot of sites. Add a VPN to the mix and a lot of sites flat out refuse to let you interact with them, or they give you 5 minutes of captchas, or they require 2 factor login despite asking them to remember your device. I have to open some sites (banking, brokerage, health insurance) on a near-daily basis…

Yep I tried Mullvad and it's completely unusable on a commercialised web. Maybe for some people privacy trumps usability.
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