- cross-posted to:
- privacy@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@programming.dev
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We have nurtured a culture of radical tolerance. Even when some in our sphere of collaborators have advocated for actors and views that have personally and severely affected the founders and their family members, this has not stood in the way of cooperation.
The leopards that ate other people’s faces will definitely not eat my face too
vpn company be normal for 1 second challenge [impossible]
Most predictable response ever. Some shite about the free market of ideas and some other shite about the need to engage with “ideas you personally dislike”.
In other words, we should give fascists a seat at the table and hope we can debate them away. Been there done that, doesn’t work.
I don’t expect a company to just condemn fascism completely unprompted. But in a situation like this, if you can’t even commit to taking action to ensure that a fascist party does not receive any of your funding again, then your mission isn’t worth shit.
I’m sure that the people who would be forcibly “remigrated” by this particular political party would not feel very free from authority and surveillance.
Self-censorship out of fear is an even bigger dampener than direct censorship.
Man, I hate having to think about the effects of my actions before I do something. It’s so much better to just do things, and then see if there are consequences.
/s
“aren’t we living in a multicultural democracy, why can’t the minorities and the racists just get along and be respectful of each others’ ideas”
Absolutely pathetic response. I’m less likely to use them now than before I read this
Sorry, but where are you quoting from? It seems to be neither from mullvad’s last post, nor from the linked blog of Daniel Berntsson.
It’s a (butchered) joke from Peep Show, but I feel it captures the gist of the statement linked to by OP
Wow I didn’t hate them before, but thanks to this post I stand corrected
I’ve read the blog of the other guy… What a mutilation of marxism…
What’s not to love, they simply want a national version of socialism. I’m sure that’s never come up before.
Pretty tone def whinging about cancel culture.
I am once again posting a reply to help users of lemmy understand that there is no alternative to mullvad unless you can accept a lower privacy, anonymity and security standard of service.
That doesn’t mean if you leave mullvad you will be harmed, only that you will be losing safety margin.
Your decisions are your own: you may know better than me, you may be willing to suffer for your principles, you may believe your actions in the marketplace will have a tangible effect on the world but if you read this you can hopefully make those decisions yourself with clear eyes and understanding.
Given that Mullvad is the gold standard for ACTUAL privacy, can be paid with cash or crypto, has no user accounts and has been actually tested by law enforcement and they got fuck all.
What is the alternative? Privacy first VPN, not “I wanna watch Japanese Netflix” VPN.
There isn’t one.
If you don’t need to have a legally tested system to protect yourself and can yolo it and also understand how to navigate their sites to pay cash only and not set up a normal account then both Ivpn and proton are fine.
Don’t use air for privacy. They’re a piracy service. They’re really good at that though.
Don’t use nym for a while. Even if they were trustworthy their tech is green and relies on the same systems that proof of stake cryptocurrencies do.
Safing is a little too complicated to recommend.
Airvpn - great track record, been around forever
I’m currently on my first month of IVPN and I’ve had a better experience with Netflix’s regional restrictions. With Mullvad, Netflix eventually is able to catch up when I switch locations, and they block the content I want to see. IVPN is able to evade that, at least for now based on my experience.EDIT: Never mind, I misread your comment and thought you were asking about evading streaming regional restrictions specifically. lol
But yes, IVPN is a good alternative and recommended in privacyguides.
I really had no desire to get invested into this, but since this gets in my feed so frequently, here we go. I’ve read relevant posts on Daniel Berntsson’s blog, i.e. the individual which this should really concern; instead of Mullvad as a whole. I understand the donated money possibly came from Mullvad subscribers, and if that leads you to unsubscribe, by all means do so; but stop bugging the rest of us.
It seems he donated to ÖP because they criticize excessive taxation, that is believed to typically end up enriching an (upper-)middle class (the “transferiat”), that gain additional support for (self-serving) policies, from lower (working) classes that are dependent on (welfare) subsidies. And given that immigrants are typically of the latter class, it’s believed to further reinforce the transferiat’s position: by a growing dependent class voting in favor of pro-transferiat policy.
This isn’t to say he agrees with (stricter) immigration policy, nor with the other positions taken by ÖP, or any other political party for that matter. Instead, he adheres to a “libertarian anarchist” ideal, where “people can … organically and voluntarily federate together at any scale”. Rather than states appropriating capital from citizens, to only partially redistribute effectively in the form of common goods, which involves protection thereof through immigration policies for example; often to the detriment of people, including him personally.
This isn’t to say he agrees with (stricter) immigration policy, nor with the other positions taken by ÖP, or any other political party for that matter.
He basically IS that party’s budget. His donation was like 80% or 90% of their total donations. I’d think if I basically owned a political party I’d try to make sure they don’t do shit I disagree with.
I belief it’s morally wrong to do that, both from the perspective of the donor and party: as people democratically voted to land the party the low number of seats it has. If a donor could just dictate party policy, you’re disregarding the promise made to the voter. For such an insignificant party it’s likely to give them additional budget for campaigning, so they might have a better chance at competing with the seated opposition. I would respect him if he didn’t, but perhaps he’s able to influence party policy over time; instead of having to fight the uphill battle to get into parliament with a party of his own.
I have had a Mullvad account for many years. I now have an iVPN acc. It’s a very simple choice for me. If Mullvad’s success results in funding far right racists then I don’t care to assist that happening
I have about 50 days left on my Mullvad subscription, so I figured I’d wait it out and see how they handled it. Going by this latest Mullvad response, I think I’ll probably have an IVPN account soon too.
Technically Mullvad didn’t fund them, it was there CEO who did it partially with money he got from working at Mullvad.
Read the blog article. They don’t even dare to call a cat a cat. Normalizing racism is endorsing racism
There is no stance that Mullvad can take on this in order to make me want to stay with them, since this is not an abstract, philosophical matter. It’s simple: Daniel partially owns a pro profit company. I pay Daniel’s company some money. Daniel reaps - as he should - parts of the company’s revenue as wage (which is my money). Daniel uses that wage to fund whatever the hell he wants - as he should - with my money. I’m either fine with contributing to this or not. Period. I am not fine with it, so I’m flirting with IVPN.
Thought experiment time…
part of the company’s revenue as wage
How far down the chain does that count for you? If there was a VP, Manager, or Individual Contributor that took their (personal) wages and donated to a cause you didn’t like, would you still pull your money?
Good question! I guess it does matter that he’s a cofounder and CEO. I honestly don’t know how I would react if we were talking about an employee instead. I’d deliberate and make up my mind there and then. Which sheds light on the fact that the matter isn’t as black and white as my comment made it sound.
Possibly off topic:
I work within the criminal justice system and I believe cops are pigs, while I know for a fact that there are good people on the force too. I wouldn’t give up my current position just because another “lowly” employee is rotten.
It’s also the scale of the donation for me. He didn’t just make a donation the way you or I probably would - his donation accounted for 72% of the party’s entire income for 2025. So the money that Mullvad makes is now tied to the continued existence of the party, albeit indirectly.
It was something I didn’t have a good answer for either. I think ownership is a good criteria but then I was trying to figure out why it was to me. Since it’s passed to an individual, via salary, is it still “my money”?
Amount could have something to do, but it’s possible for a highly paid IC to donate quite a bit.
The one that is cut-and-dry for me is something like Chic-Fil-A. My money is going directly to their foundation, which is used against LGBTQ people, so that’s an immediate hard no.
He is providing that political party with over half of its income if I recall correctly.
If Mullvad’s janitor were someone doing that and Mullvad refused to terminate them, I’d quit Mullvad.
Just to make sure I understand, you do support employer discrimination against employees, just only for the political beliefs you find offensive. Do I understand that correctly? While I believe the only good nazi is a dead one, I alao believe the systems we set up generate the crap we have to deal with later.
Very reasonable stance.
How’s I been treating you?
wat
Ivpn, how’s it working out?
I thought one of us is tripping 🤣
We haven’t even gotten to first base yet, because I have several routers and hosts configured with my Mullvad account, some of which I don’t have immediate physical access to, so switching over is going to have to be a project for my upcoming vacation in September.
I made a couple of accounts with them but havent messed with their config generator or apps yet. Still trying to figure out how to allow a pc to select a vpn server but never drop the vpn even through root user intervention.
Can’t help you there. My endpoint hosts are Android devices and Windows systems and on them, using the Mullvad app with its killswitch, connections are blocked while it changes Mullvad server.
As for the routers, I configured them following more or less this guide: https://mullvad.net/en/help/running-wireguard-router
If you’re using wrt or pfsense or something (no word on if their tomato guide works for freshtomato devices yet), you’ll probably like ivpns router support: https://www.ivpn.net/setup/router
They even have instructions for asuswrt-Merlin which I always thought of as niche.
They really don’t get it, it is very disappointing, but they deserve to fail now. 99% of the VPN industry is dodgy, mullvad now included.
I think they’re severely underestimating how valuable the recommendation of techies/word of mouth effect is to their business…
Time will tell, the industry is based on paid ‘reviews’, and manipulation. There is little reason for any of them to pretend to be ethical, the biggest companies definitely aren’t. Mullvad are likely to feel this though, since they most likely have a more ethical user base than the competition. Airvpn and ivpn are no doubt gaining new customers.
My point was that their user base is more technologically adept than other businesses, and therefore it matters more for them. Also their selling point is that you “trust” them not to give your info away, and anything that makes them seem untrustworthy is bound to hurt their business. So they’re not really comparable to regular businesses when it comes to that.
