I used Mullvad for a long time, but hearing about one of the two CEOs actively supporting and financing swedish Nazis, I’m looking to put my money elsewhere. That’s the second one after Private Internet Access (who supported Gab).

I had AirVPN and Surfshark being recomnended, how do people here feel? What do you use?

  • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
    221·
    2 个月前

    there was an article today about the entire mullvad company being blindsided by this and a lot of people being upset. with any luck the guy will leave or get thrown out.

    also i think they’re technically nazbols.

    • rainwall@piefed.socialEnglish
      7·
      2 个月前

      This is likely true, but in the hacker news thread about this, the non Nazi cofounder was pretty defensive about what a great guy he was, and that there was just no way that him being a Nazi could ever effect Mullvad itself:

      Here’s one example, but these linked thread has more excuses hes made:

      kfreds 1 day ago | root | parent | next [–]

      I’m sorry to hear that. For what it’s worth I think there’s nuance in his decision that most people don’t see. Of course that doesn’t mean I think it was the right decision to make.

      Here’s something worth considering: why would someone whose ideal is open borders, who has been an animal rights activist, and someone who has led Mullvad for 17 years (with the track record it has), choose to donate to this party? If you like what Daniel and I have done together over the past 17 years, and now vehemently oppose his choice to make this donation, doesn’t that make you just a little bit curious?

      It made me curious. It didn’t change my ultimate stance, but it did temper my emotions about it.

      https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=kfreds

      That level of denial feels custom made for them to give him a pass and keep him onboard.

      • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
        3·
        2 个月前

        when you’ve known someone personally for that long you’re bound to get defensive, i think. and the question is worth considering; why?

        • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
          2·
          2 个月前

          he could be a rational human about it and see that it’s bad for the brand. considering he was willing to work with a guy that actively dislikes what he did he may have a few braincells left.

          • fizzle@quokk.auEnglish
            3·
            2 个月前

            That kinda seems unlikely to me. I’m certain that he’s aware that supporting ethnic cleansing (albeit not overtly violent) is not compatible with having customers.

            • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
              2·
              2 个月前

              they don’t tend to see it like that from my experience. but yeah the chance is slim.

        • fizzle@quokk.auEnglish
          2·
          2 个月前

          I think “would take a lot” might be understating it.

          It’s likely he’d have to be bought out by the other guy with an attractive offer.

      • anothermember@feddit.ukEnglish
        9·
        2 个月前

        Demanding a refund could add to the pressure though, you could always renew after he (hopefully) goes. I can’t get a refund since mine has just run out but I’m not making any long-term decisions until the dust has settled.

        • printf("%s", name);@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          11·
          2 个月前

          I totally agree! It’s just that I have two routers setup with them, running 24/7, and I have configured mom’s devices with my account and I don’t have the time to reconfigure all this with something else at the moment. 😩

        • printf("%s", name);@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          2·
          2 个月前

          There are many options. It’s important to do some research on these options. It’s also important to know why you want to choose a certain provider. Check their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy at the very least. For now, I’m looking into IVPN.

        • buckykat [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          2·
          2 个月前

          Extracted with firefox reader mode and machine translated:

          Internal crisis at Mullvad: “Drags down the company” Jacob Lundberg 4–5 minutes

          Last week, Flamman was able to reveal that tech profile Daniel Berntsson is the main financier of the Örebro Party, which is running for parliament with demands for “large-scale remigration”.

          The news was presented to employees late on Friday evening, and according to several sources with insight, the information has led to an internal rebellion at the IT company Mullvad, where Berntsson is the owner and CEO.

          Around a quarter of the employees gathered in an internal chat over the weekend, where they aired criticism of both the donation and the company’s handling of the disclosure.

          “I was shocked and sad, and at first surprised,” writes an employee to Flamman.

          Another person says that it is both a “deep disappointment” and an “insult” to the company’s employees with a foreign background.

          Berntsson himself commented on the news to employees during a meeting on Monday, where employees were allowed to ask questions. Sources to Flamman described the atmosphere before the meeting as tense.

          To Flamman, Berntsson justified the donation with “resistance to corruption and dysfunction, creativity and the will to actually solve problems.” Regarding the party’s demand for “comprehensive remigration,” he said that it is needed in view of “today’s miserable situation.”

          Several sources tell Flamman that Berntsson has emphasized at recent staff meetings that there are dividing lines among employees in their views on immigration.

          “It was like a puzzle piece fell into place,” says an employee, after the revelation about the donation.

          Another source says that he has not seen anyone among the staff express support for the donation. At the same time, the chat group for critical discussion still only brings together a minority of the staff.

          However, another source believes that the critical group is probably larger.

          “I suspect that not everyone dares to show what they think and feel,” he writes to Flamman.

          The employees are critical of the donation for several reasons, including that many of the employees themselves are immigrants and “take this very personally.”

          Several employees also point out that the Örebro Party’s attitude towards surveillance is at odds with Mullvad’s, as they have advocated increasing the number of surveillance cameras and enabling secret wiretapping in the hunt for criminals.

          “Many of the staff believe that this disqualifies Daniel as the leader of a company like Mullvad,” the source writes.

          The person also says that many have applied to Mullvad for ethical reasons, that the management’s handling of the issue “definitely damaged trust” among the staff, and that several employees “in light of the donation are considering quitting”. One person says that they will “look around for alternatives”.

          “My trust in the leadership is at rock bottom”, says a third person.

          The source also says that they see no other way forward than for Daniel Berntsson to step down as CEO. However, another employee sees it as unlikely that Berntsson, who owns 50 percent of the company, will step down on his own. At the meeting, he is also said to have rejected the idea.

          “My guess is that he will stay just as before. If you look at how the official response is worded, it is about Mullvad standing for freedom of opinion. They are trying to emphasize that it is something he did as a private person, and that it is therefore not so bad.”

          However, the person remains critical:

          “It’s one thing to have opinions that don’t match mine, but to make such a gigantic donation without realizing that he is bringing down both himself, Mullvad as a company and all employees at the same time. It makes me doubt his ability as CEO and manager.”

          Flamman has sought out Daniel Berntsson.

  • root@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    171·
    2 个月前

    List of vpns not to use

    NordVPN

    Facebook Onavo

    ExpressVPN

    Private Internet Access

    Everything Kape Technologies

    HolaVPN

    PureVPN

    ZenMate

    CyberGhost

    • Brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      6·
      2 个月前

      You included AirVPN in that list even though they aren’t mentioned in either of your screenshots… maybe a typo? I’ve never heard of them being associated with Kape so am curious why you lumped them into all that.

    • beep@piefed.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 个月前

      I don’t want to be mean to you, as it might be just ignorance.

      But my dude, why did you decide to use Inaccessible photo instead of using text or at the very least Text +photo?

      If I suffer from any condition that affect my vision or my reading /understanding… how am I supposed to read this?

        • VitoRobles@lemmy.todayEnglish
          4·
          2 个月前

          NordVPN is interesting because it was less about them handing over data to the government, and them just not being transparent about an attack. All the others in that post clearly were in cahoots with big gov.

          NordVPN’s defense was technically coherent: because the company doesn’t store activity logs, no user browsing data was exposed. The breach was framed as a vendor problem. The attacker had gotten in through an insecure remote management system that the data center had left open. NordVPN said it hadn’t even known the system existed.

          That may all be accurate. But the eighteen months of silence is the actual story.

          • blackn1ght@feddit.ukEnglish
            1·
            2 个月前

            Yeah, I was expecting it to be much worse to be honest. Obviously they should have said something right away and hopefully they’ve learned their lesson. Not sure I’d write them off for this one incident from 7-8 years ago but it’s probably still good to have that asterisks on their name.

  • アイス@lemmy.zipEnglish
    71·
    2 个月前

    Being in the proton ecosystem I use their VPN, and it’s been working great thus far.

  • puppinstuff@lemmy.caEnglish
    6·
    2 个月前

    It’s like picking an airline. No matter who you choose somebody has a story of how they’re varying degrees of awful.

    I’m on Proton. I disliked when that one guy made that social post comment about how Republicans are easier to deal with. I’m not offended enough to roll the dice with another provider only to later discover they’re literal nazis, their founder has Epstein connections or they discriminate against trans people.

    (Which is to say, if you want to switch from Mullvad I get it.)

    • fizzle@quokk.auEnglish
      1·
      2 个月前

      I agree that any provider is going to have something awful about them, but you can’t just conclude that supporting this type of thing is fine because everyone is awful.

    • reluctant_squidd@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      2 个月前

      I’ve been a customer for a few years. Noticing some of their Canadian server endpoints are getting blacklisted by cloudflare lately though, which is disappointing when it happens. I just reset the connection and away I go again though usually.

  • katinahat@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    4·
    2 个月前

    I’ve been using Windscribe for 10 years and have been nothing but impressed. Always surprised they don’t get mentioned more in these posts.

  • orca@orcas.enjoying.yachtsEnglish
    4·
    2 个月前

    I’ve been a Mullvad user for probably about a year but I’m considering Nym.

    Editing for further context: their board includes Chelsea Manning which bodes well, I like that they use decentralized nodes, and that all of their code is open for review. The $NYM stuff is a little weird, but to me it comes off like an attempt to decentralize currency, which can anonymize in its own way (with an asterisk). Just not sure what that landscape looks like, since a person’s identity can often be figured out by looking at the public ledger. I’m still learning about Nym though.

    • Pika@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      2 个月前

      Interesting, I have never heard of them. Honestly my first glance is I don’t like their website. It looks way too investor/shill heavy which worries me about the longevity/future of the platform.

      I like the concept of a decentralized system if they can promise reliability and privacy across all nodes I am concerned about how privacy will be retained when a node is established in an external country that has more restrictive government controls.

      I heavy dislike the fact it auto renews. That right there is a huge red flag for me because that means whatever payment information I provided, is being stored in a way that it can be linked directly to my account. With Mullvad once the 30 day window is up, they toss the payment token so it’s no longer associated/linked with the account, instead relying on you to have to provide a piece of info that they can connect to the account if you have account issues. While they can say that they don’t link accounts to activity, I heavily dislike the potential that it could be done in the future, especially since they are very upfront about it being blockchain so that tells me the information is permanent/never removed.

    • classic@fedia.io
      1·
      2 个月前

      What’s the story with them charging much less if you pay with their crypto currency?

  • rsky@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4·
    2 个月前

    Been using PIA for over a decade now. I started with them by paying with a random gift card I had laying around (Walmart maybe?) and have been paying with crypto ever since. They’ve never asked for any personal details (used a burner email address) and the service has been solid the entire time. Clients on Windows and Linux both work great and are open source with pretty decent documentation. In short, sometimes I want to reliably remain anonymous online and it has worked out well for me.

    I know that a lot of people here hate on PIA but I haven’t seen any justification. So if anyone here knows why I shouldn’t be using the service, I’d love to hear about it; I’d be happy to switch to something else if it works at least as well.

      • rsky@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        2 个月前

        Thanks for the answer; I certainly don’t want to send any money to Israel, if possible. Does anyone have any recommendations for alternatives? I just have two requirements: I need the connection uptime to be rock solid. I also need to be able to register and pay completely anonymously. I’m not that concerned about bandwidth.

      • rsky@lemmy.mlEnglish
        3·
        2 个月前

        Does that matter if they have none of my data? I mean, they could log unencrypted traffic but for web browsing you should be forcing https wherever possible, so traffic logs would be mostly irrelevant. No doubt, they can see what you torrent but I can’t imagine it matters that much if they have no data about you. They could certainly build a fingerprint based on torrents and unencrypted traffic but I feel like it may be too weak to be relevant. Maybe people worry about using the official clients? But you don’t need to use them either, you can just establish a raw OpenVPN tunnel.

        • locuester@lemmy.zipEnglish
          101·
          2 个月前

          It’s an Israeli and US company. If anyone is somehow MITM snooping your TLS traffic, it’s them.

  • root@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    4·
    2 个月前

    PIA is owned by Kape, which appointed someone from Project Raven as a CIO

  • Makeshift@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    3·
    2 个月前

    Commenting so I remember to check this thread later. My Mullvad expires in 5 days.

    Can always count on Lemmy to raise awareness on where to not spend money!

    • Makeshift@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2·
      2 个月前

      Switched! I don’t have the time/willpower to heavily research this, and changing VPNs is easy compared to changing things like eMail or OS.

      Especially easy with all these recommendations here.

  • LemmyEntertainYou@piefed.socialEnglish
    3·
    2 个月前

    I had SurfShark years ago but really do not recommend them. Constant problems with all traffic just stopping and then I had to call someone up to cancel my subscription as there was no option online.

    Switched to AirVPN which I don’t see talked about much but it’s great. The Android app is looking a little dated (the icon in the app drawer is in a tiny circle because they have added support for adaptive icons still) but functionally I can’t complain.

    • atkion@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      2 个月前

      +1 for AirVPN. I’m a little worried of what happens if it becomes more mainstream (see what happened to mullvad and their port forwarding features), but they’re rock solid and still support port forwarding for p2p. They also do good black friday sales every year, you can get a steal on the 3yr package around that time.

    • Dezorian@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      1·
      2 个月前

      I’ve been using Surfshark for over 8 years and don’t have any trouble like you mentioned. Then again, I have an ISP (Freedom Internet) I trust more than my VPN (even though i’ve not read anything bad about them) and use Surfshark only for region checks and torrenting on my NAS. I love the apps (for great on all platforms), speed and lots of exit points to choose from.