Firefox partners with ProtonVPN • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#91

Post by krn » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 8:00 PM UTC

kup0 wrote: post #90

krn wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone in Vilnius, Lithuania knows, that both, NordVPN and ProtonVPN, are being developed here by the people related to Tesonet, which has been recently sued in Texas Eastern District Court for the patent infringement in "Large-scale web data extraction products and services with residential proxy network ( https://oxylabs.io/ )"[1] by Luminati Networks, an Israeli data mining company behind HolaVPN[2]. The section…

1 only shows Tesonet being sued and does not prove that both Nord and Proton services are being developed by Tesonet people, and even if they were Tesonet-adjacent people, further proof would be needed to link these services directly to Tesonet the entity. 2 is contingent on 1. 3 and 4 are the only things I can see with any weight to them, yet they were brought up by a competitor (red flag), and vague enough not to b…

What PIA co-founder proved in June 2018 on Hacker News[1], and what happened after:

- ProtonVPN UAB lists Tesonet's CEO as a director [after: the company's name was changed multiple times in 2 months, and the director's name was hidden from the public view]

- ProtonVPN UAB is operated from Tesonet's HQ in Vilnius, Lithuania [after: the company's address was changed to a co-working space's located a few streets away, which doesn't require to relocate to use it]

- ProtonVPN UAB uses previous Tesonet's technical employees [after: still true]

- ProtonVPN uses IP address blocks that belong to Tesonet [after: these IP address blocks were assigned to ProtonVPN]

- ProtonVPN Android mobile app was signed by Tesonet [after: still true]

The ProtonMail's response on reddit was modified multiple times and locked, to prevent people from picking the holes in the narrative.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17258203 ["showdead" must be enabled in settings to see the entire thread]

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#92

Post by nmy » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 8:20 PM UTC

tapoxi wrote: post #73

nmy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. These are minor things compared to having no other good choice but the Google browser.

Are we supposed to pretend that options like ungoogled-chromium don't exist?

Once there is no more competition Google can change how it open sources a project. Look at Android.

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#93

Post by windexh8er » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 8:37 PM UTC

JackC wrote: post #28

I'm really excited about this idea, but I also think it isn't fully baked yet. I'm excited because VPNs are all about shifting trust: I'm no longer trusting Comcast not to sell my data, I'm now trusting SketchyVPN. If SketchyVPN turns out not to be trustworthy, then I'm paying for something that is worth less than $0 to me, and there's no way to detect that as a user. It's like paying more for organic food in a town…

I've been toying around with ProtonMail premium service, so this isn't a direct reflection on ProtonVPN the product. However ProtonMail's support is abysmal. For me that hasn't been a direct reflection of the product, however getting anyone from ProtonMail to engage in a cognizant support conversation is next to impossible and takes days to get an answer. They don't seem to treat paying customers any different than those using free service by way of enhanced SLA on support tickets. My interactions have been so bad I've considered getting a refund on all my outstanding credit (hundreds of dollars for multiple users over multiple years).

I'm curious how this bleeds over into support of ProtonVPN.

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#94

Post by protonmail » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 8:40 PM UTC

krn wrote: post #91

kup0 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 only shows Tesonet being sued and does not prove that both Nord and Proton services are being developed by Tesonet people, and even if they were Tesonet-adjacent people, further proof would be needed to link these services directly to Tesonet the entity. 2 is contingent on 1. 3 and 4 are the only things I can see with any weight to them, yet they were brought up by a competitor (red flag), and vague enough not to b…

What PIA co-founder proved in June 2018 on Hacker News[1], and what happened after: - ProtonVPN UAB lists Tesonet's CEO as a director [after: the company's name was changed multiple times in 2 months, and the director's name was hidden from the public view] - ProtonVPN UAB is operated from Tesonet's HQ in Vilnius, Lithuania [after: the company's address was changed to a co-working space's located a few streets away,…

These points are either incorrect or already debunked here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/8ww4h2/protonvpn...

There are even photos from Mozilla's visit to Proton HQ in Geneva: https://www.instagram.com/p/BpR7ungAi6Y/

Proton does have an office in Vilnius (one of 6 offices globally), but the bulk of our staff works in our two Swiss offices.

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#95

Post by octosphere » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 8:44 PM UTC

gpm wrote: post #74

octosphere wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed a few things: - They have telemetry turned as the default - They are experimenting with TLS over HTTPS and use beloved Cloudflare to handle every DNS request - They are always in the headlines about some shady 'addon' or 'extension' been sold off and taken over by shady actors - The TorBundle which is a fork of FF ESR is always in the headlines as been unsecure and way behind FF mainline release

Yes, I'm sure I missed some things, I was trying to keep the list as non controversial as possible. Here are some specific responses. 1. Agreed, but at least they do prompt fairly early letting you turn it off. 2. I'm only looking at things in the release version of firefox. As I note elsewhere they treat nightly/beta users much worse. Longterm TLS over HTTPS is great for privacy, and they had to choose some provider…

> TLS over HTTPS

Sorry I meant DNS over HTTPS

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#96

Post by krn » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 8:51 PM UTC

protonmail wrote: post #94

krn wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What PIA co-founder proved in June 2018 on Hacker News[1], and what happened after: - ProtonVPN UAB lists Tesonet's CEO as a director [after: the company's name was changed multiple times in 2 months, and the director's name was hidden from the public view] - ProtonVPN UAB is operated from Tesonet's HQ in Vilnius, Lithuania [after: the company's address was changed to a co-working space's located a few streets away,…

These points are either incorrect or already debunked here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/8ww4h2/protonvpn... There are even photos from Mozilla's visit to Proton HQ in Geneva: https://www.instagram.com/p/BpR7ungAi6Y/ Proton does have an office in Vilnius (one of 6 offices globally), but the bulk of our staff works in our two Swiss offices.

Why didn't you invite Mozilla to the real office in Vilnius, Lithuania where ProtonVPN was actually being developed?

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#97

Post by gpm » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 8:53 PM UTC

octosphere wrote: post #95

gpm wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm sure I missed some things, I was trying to keep the list as non controversial as possible. Here are some specific responses. 1. Agreed, but at least they do prompt fairly early letting you turn it off. 2. I'm only looking at things in the release version of firefox. As I note elsewhere they treat nightly/beta users much worse. Longterm TLS over HTTPS is great for privacy, and they had to choose some provider…

> TLS over HTTPS Sorry I meant DNS over HTTPS

lol, so did I :)

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#98

Post by barrowclift » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 8:55 PM UTC

gpm wrote: post #16

I only use firefox. But I don't feel like I can strongly recommend it because of the long list of bad decisions. - Google analytics baked into about:addons - Sending data to Cliqz - Pocket, as a service being added to the topbar - Pocket, as a service being added to the default home/newtab page - Firefox hello - Completely banning unsigned addons - Mr. Robot advert - And now probably this I want a browser that is rel…

If you use macOS, Safari since Mountain Lion has consistently hit all three of those checkboxes for me, you might want to consider giving it a shot.

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#99

Post by protonmail » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 9:21 PM UTC

krn wrote: post #96

protonmail wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These points are either incorrect or already debunked here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonVPN/comments/8ww4h2/protonvpn... There are even photos from Mozilla's visit to Proton HQ in Geneva: https://www.instagram.com/p/BpR7ungAi6Y/ Proton does have an office in Vilnius (one of 6 offices globally), but the bulk of our staff works in our two Swiss offices.

Why didn't you invite Mozilla to the real office in Vilnius, Lithuania where ProtonVPN was actually being developed?

Because the senior team members who developed the ProtonVPN partnership with Mozilla were all in our Geneva HQ, because that's where we're actually based...

Re: Firefox partners with ProtonVPN

#100

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 05, 2018, 9:33 PM UTC

Yoric wrote: post #14

threatofrain wrote: post #2

1. -- 2. Also, is ProtonVPN such a stronger contender than the rest of the field that Mozilla would endorse them? 3. And what is Mozilla's final relationship between you and ProtonVPN? Why are they relevant as a middleman?

It's actually exactly the same price, if you untick the "Anually" button on the ProtonVPN page. Also, Mozilla actually audited ProtonVPN. I have no idea whether any other VPN have been audited by independent third-parties.

[deleted]