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Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

#41

Post by jorvi »

bigiain wrote: post #34
vvilliam0 wrote: post #21

ProtonVPN is the same company as ProtonMail. The company has had a good rep, reminds me of Lavabit.

Isn't there at least some controversy about that (perhaps it's only a disgruntled competitor who jumps on every second post I see mentioning them, but I'm 99% sure I've seen a few questions/accusations levelled at them...) Having said that - seeing them vouched for by the Mozilla Foundation seems to be a significantly better indicator of their trustworthiness than this post from a day or two ago: https://news.ycombin…

I take it you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17258203?

I fully agree that ProtonVPN seems like a poor choice, considering all the controversy around them, especially when its backed up by that much evidence. Mullvad, Private Internet Access, TorGuard etc. would have been a better choice, but perhaps Mozilla didn't want to look like it was picking sides among 'established' VPNs..

Re: Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

#42

Post by protonmail »

jorvi wrote: post #41
bigiain wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't there at least some controversy about that (perhaps it's only a disgruntled competitor who jumps on every second post I see mentioning them, but I'm 99% sure I've seen a few questions/accusations levelled at them...) Having said that - seeing them vouched for by the Mozilla Foundation seems to be a significantly better indicator of their trustworthiness than this post from a day or two ago: https://news.ycombin…

I take it you mean https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17258203 ? I fully agree that ProtonVPN seems like a poor choice, considering all the controversy around them, especially when its backed up by that much evidence. Mullvad, Private Internet Access, TorGuard etc. would have been a better choice, but perhaps Mozilla didn't want to look like it was picking sides among 'established' VPNs..

These are actually false allegations which were originally spread by none other than Private Internet Access as part of a smear campaign. We have previously responded here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/8ww4h2/protonvpn...

As mentioned in Mozilla's blogpost, they did their homework and thoroughly checked ProtonVPN, including visiting us in Geneva at our main office, which also refutes these allegations.

Re: Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

#43

Post by Skunkleton »

dstaley wrote: post #8

This seems like another attempt to acquire a new revenue stream for Mozilla. I'm glad it's through something like providing a user-focused VPN as opposed to increased ads and tracking, but I still feel a bit bummed that Mozilla feels the need to do this. The other day I came to the realization that Firefox is the only portal to the web that's not affiliated with a tech giant. Microsoft has Edge, Google has Chrome, an…

Just to be a pain in the ass, I fired up elinks to type this response.

Re: Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

#45

Post by Karunamon »

bigiain wrote: post #38
tehduder9 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet you'd be screaming hell if chrome would have done it.

Sure - it was a dumb move on Mozilla's part. But keep in mind that while it was pushed out into people's browsers in a stupidly-lacking-in-foresight fashion, it still required use activation before it'd do anything... I'm at least four nines sure Google have got worse privacy-eroding code in Chrome that does way worse things that flip some text upside down after you specifically activate an add-on...

As I tell everyone that tries to defend this, it's not about what the plugin did or didn't do. It could have literally been a copy of about:blank, it changes nothing.

The entirely justified outrage was its purpose for being put there (which boils down to advertising) and the lack of consent for its being put there. That's it.

Re: Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

#46

Post by bigiain »

Karunamon wrote: post #45
bigiain wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure - it was a dumb move on Mozilla's part. But keep in mind that while it was pushed out into people's browsers in a stupidly-lacking-in-foresight fashion, it still required use activation before it'd do anything... I'm at least four nines sure Google have got worse privacy-eroding code in Chrome that does way worse things that flip some text upside down after you specifically activate an add-on...

As I tell everyone that tries to defend this, it's not about what the plugin did or didn't do. It could have literally been a copy of about:blank, it changes nothing. The entirely justified outrage was its purpose for being put there (which boils down to advertising) and the lack of consent for its being put there. That's it.

Agreed.

(At the same time, how much of the automated Chrome updates end up being audited for their "boils down to advertising"ness?)

Re: Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

#47

Post by ryanlol »

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.

"competition" doesn't work super well here given the information asymmetry between users and providers.

There's simply no way for customers to tell if their VPN provider is selling them out.

Re: Mozilla Announces Experimental Partnership with ProtonVPN

#48

Post by fabrice_d »

p1necone wrote: post #36

Is Mozilla very short on cash? Why is the supposed steward of an open internet suddenly partnering with all these proprietary services?

To be less reliant for their income source on a behemoth of proprietary services, which also happens to have eaten their cake in the browser space.
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