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Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

#15

Post by tapoxi »

intopieces wrote: post #10
preinheimer wrote: post #3

(disclaimer I guess I own a company that offers VPN services, it's like ~1% of revenue though). I think this seems like a bit much. I'd love Firefox to double down on building a great browser, rather than getting into Pocket, VPN, a Phone, IOT, etc. Sure, a VPN can be really helpful when you're on sketchy open wifi, or other adversarial network conditions. But you're still trusting someone to handle your connections…

>But do we really expect VPN providers to not crunch the same numbers and come to the same conclusions? Yes, because those numbers are different -- there's actual competition among the providers, which is not so for ISPs. I agree it's still a gamble, and still requires trust, but if/when that trust is broken, there's someone else ready to fill that void.

Make no mistake, Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit entity. They're owned by a nonprofit shell, but I imagine that nonprofit could easily sell them off.

This puts them in the same boat as say, IKEA.

Re: Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

#16

Post by preinheimer »

tapoxi wrote: post #15
intopieces wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But do we really expect VPN providers to not crunch the same numbers and come to the same conclusions? Yes, because those numbers are different -- there's actual competition among the providers, which is not so for ISPs. I agree it's still a gamble, and still requires trust, but if/when that trust is broken, there's someone else ready to fill that void.

Make no mistake, Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit entity. They're owned by a nonprofit shell, but I imagine that nonprofit could easily sell them off. This puts them in the same boat as say, IKEA.

Like when they slipped a Mr. Robot plugin into the download without telling people?

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16784628/mozilla-mr-robo...

Re: Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

#17

Post by LeoPanthera »

IngoBlechschmid wrote: post #6

Honest question: Why not bundle Tor, instead of relying on a proprietary VPN service? It seems that Tor satisfies the advertised use case ("insecure public WiFi") just as well.

Well, "Tor Browser", which shares code in both directions with the Firefox project, is already available. So that's already an option.

It's not ideal though. A large fraction of the web blocks access from Tor relays, or makes you jump through extra hoops, like completing onerous captchas. It's not a great experience.

Re: Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

#18

Post by r3bl »

IngoBlechschmid wrote: post #6

Honest question: Why not bundle Tor, instead of relying on a proprietary VPN service? It seems that Tor satisfies the advertised use case ("insecure public WiFi") just as well.

That's already happening.

Tor and Firefox are working together to make Tor network the default within private browsing mode. A number of privacy-related patches from Tor have already landed in Firefox (example: Firefox now has first-party isolation). It's a slow progress, but it's on its way.

If you're interested about more, the project is called Project Fusion: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Fusion

There was a discussion here a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17205441

Re: Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

#19

Post by huhtenberg »

IngoBlechschmid wrote: post #6

Honest question: Why not bundle Tor, instead of relying on a proprietary VPN service? It seems that Tor satisfies the advertised use case ("insecure public WiFi") just as well.

Because relaying random traffic of unknown nature is not everyone's cup 'o tea.
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