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The Mullvad Browser

mullvad.net

261–270 of 434 posts

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#261
Good stuff. They should make a mobile version with extensions: mobile firefox is surprisingly hostile to extensions beyond a small whitelisted set.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#262

Mullvad is the swedish name for a mole incase you were wondering. Source: wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullvad

I was wondering! For an English-speaking audience it feels like it might be a poor brand. It's not exactly a "nice-sounding" name. Though to be fair, they might not be trying to win mindshare, so careful branding might not be a concern. I appreciate that to a technical audience this can usually feel like a super pedantic bit of nonsense. But for the other 99% of browser users, this kind of thing can matter! "You shou…

Is it really any worse than living on the Edge?

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 le…

How is propping up Firefox's market share and slowing down their own development the right thing to do as a business? If Firefox wants to have a competitive market share they should actively compete instead of begging people to increase their market share.

I love how the 'right thing to do' is not the same as the 'right thing to do as a business.'

One is actually the right thing to do. The other is how to make more money faster and quicker.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering! For an English-speaking audience it feels like it might be a poor brand. It's not exactly a "nice-sounding" name. Though to be fair, they might not be trying to win mindshare, so careful branding might not be a concern. I appreciate that to a technical audience this can usually feel like a super pedantic bit of nonsense. But for the other 99% of browser users, this kind of thing can matter! "You shou…

Is it really any worse than living on the Edge?

To be fair, this is a very pseudosubjective thing. I know my data point. And I feel my data point is plausible as a trend. For example, you don't need to do studies to know that "Diarrhea Browser" would be a bad name.

Edge? I think it's sharp and techy and modern. So it seems at least... valid. But it also screams, to me at least, the classic Microsoft branding thing of, "this feels like a bunch of 50 year olds in a room declared what they believe to be cool and hip."

Then again. `iPad` was broadly laughed at when it was announced, and through sheer repetition it has been accepted and I don't really even notice the weirdness of the name anymore. So maybe with enough success, Mullvad would be adopted.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#265
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…

Firefox runs like cold molassas on Android, unfortunately.

Bromite seems like its sticking around, fortunately.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do I correctly understand that it does not have a mechanism by which to connect to Mullvad, much less mandate it? No. It comes with their extension with contents to the VPN via socks5.

An extension that has no user prompting or even status indicator, and that will permit the user to browse the web without a VPN connection or warning by default. It appears that the process is to 1) open Mullvad Browser 2) (externally) open Mullvad VPN and connect to it 3) click on the Mullvad Browser Extension icon and connect it to the Mullvad proxy. Only after this will the proxy be used and the connection secured…

Mullvad wants this browser to use usable even by people who don't use their VPN. Tor Browser is never intended to be used outside the Tor network.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#267
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…

Tor is borderline useless for privacy. It was literally built for the government [1]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_(network)#History

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#268
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mullvad’s VPN software has an available function that blocks network traffic when the VPN isn’t connected, so there’s no need to patch that into the browser.

But isn’t this integrated directly into the browser, so that your host system does not need Mullvad?

Nope. Their browser seems intended to be paired with their VPN product, not to be substituted for it.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#269
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…

Not sure if it's got a "law," but the reasoning seems intuitive: 1. More complex products are usually better, but being more complicated means they're harder to explain to the average customer and makes them harder to sell. 2. More widely known products get that way by stripping money out of the budget for their product to put it into advertising instead. Less money in the product means it's potentially inferior to a product that put their whole budget into development.

Re: The Mullvad Browser

#270
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…

Where did you get this impression? Mullvad is growing like crazy (4 times as much revenue in 2021 compared to 2020, 2022 numbers not yet public). NordVPN is obviously larger since they are older and have bought a lot of ads on Youtube but Mullvad has crazy growth and I have seen their ads in the subway here in Stockholm. Mullvad is in no way a company which struggles as far as I can tell.

The old company: https://www.allabolag.se/5567839807/amagicom-ab

The current company: https://www.allabolag.se/5592384001/mullvad-vpn-ab

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