Well, just that. Wich is stronger against trackers, hackers and doxxing threats? Proton VPN (I’m using this one actually), or Mullvad VPN?
I use Proton currently since it comes with my proton subscription. But I used mullvad for years and prefer it. They’re both good, you can’t go wrong really.
Mullvad hasn’t yet shown themselves fed- friendly.
Proton has.
Mullvad is the answer.
Source please, we in the /privacy community genuinely want to learn so when such things do happen, we all benefit from factual information. Please do not assume we all know what you are referring to. It is particularly in this kind of cases when, for example with Signal what was “shared” with authorities is basically irrelevant, cf https://signal.org/bigbrother/ so we must be precise.
Proton has cooperated with subpoenas on multiple occasions leading to the user’s arrest.
While they may challenge them, the point is that they have cooperated and thus are not reliable. There are no reported cases of Mullvad doing the same.
There are ample links from multiple sources that describe this with a simple search.
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Interesting, thanks.
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Please do provide a link, especially if it’s very easy to find. I’m not saying anything you say is wrong, only that if it’s not an opinion, then a link from a trusted source helps other to understand the situation.
It’s a somewhat convoluted story. Here are some links
- https://proton.me/blog/climate-activist-arrest
- https://old.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/ydcek3/what_became_of_the_french_climate_activist/
- https://www.wired.com/story/protonmail-amends-policy-after-giving-up-activists-data/
The takeaway is when he logged into his Protonmail they logged his IP address which helped track this individual down. But note that Reddit thread I linked. I also cannot find that much information about “what happened next,” or the details of who was arrested and why.
There may be other examples, but this particular case kinda hit the rounds back when it happened.
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Okay, but how does the political stance of Proton workers affect my privacy?
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but he doesn’t have the power to do that. Proton has a board with many members calling the shots.
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Mullvad is much friendlier to privacy, but their proxies get blocked by A LOT of stuff, they also have a very small number of proxies. Mullvad collects literally nothing about you, but that’s a double edged sword. not having any way to verify exactly who paid money into which account number means they can’t help you if someone steals your account. I also have it on good authority that mullvad isn’t very reliable at getting past more aggressive censorship firewalls. the one in china for example won’t allow you to use mullvad unless the sim you’re connecting from is a US one.
Proton doesn’t record anything you’re doing with their VPN and they’ve had to prove that many times and their “sentinel” program and the 2FA and double password you can enable make it very hard if not impossible for someone to mootch off your account. I very rarely get blocked by anything when I use proton VPN, if I ever do get blocked I just have to change the proxy I’m on. I don’t even have to change the location most of the time because proton VPN has a huge number of proxies at each location.
Proton also gives you the ability to save recovery phrases and recovery files if you lose your password(s) or your 2FA
ente auth and ageis auth are great for storing your 2FAs and they allow you to back them up to a file if your account with ente fails in some way or if you forget the password to get into your ageis
as for those recovery files and phrases I talked about. save them in text files on a small capacity flash drive that you don’t use for anything else
Mullvad also has hidden servers they give access to on request if you can’t access the regular ones. Can help with government censorship etc
Good to know, but how can you safely request them without giving away that you’re using them?
What method does the request go through? What happens when those proxies get blocked by the censorship firewalls too?
I just used email lol, and I don’t think it’s possible to hide that you’re connecting to a certain IP. And if they get blocked too I’ll email them again D:
the ministry of truth in china would be monitoring where those emails are caming and going at minimum.
In developed countries where people don’t get arrested for wrongthink mullvad is great, I’m just saying, be prepared if you plan on going to a place with a censorship firewall
You can sign up for a western email service from within china and use it to communicate. China’s gfw is based on a whitelist so all you have to do is find a relatively obscure provider
Who knows how to steal you mull account with out you knowing? This seems over blown atleast from that perspective. I’m sure it’s possible but unless you are incredibly slopping opsec I doubt it’s even on the list of problems. Given all other things you could be doing.
it’s just a string of numbers with no password
How would anyone get the long string though? Realistically speaking. It would be difficult and unlikely.
It’s just numbers, no punctuation marks, no letters, no math symbols. No entropy really.
For most people that’s not an issue, but some people out there can guess them.
one way to mitigate that problem is simply to not load your mullvad account with more than 1 year of time at any given time. If your mullvad account has like…10 years of time then yeah, lots of people are going to mootch if they figure out which number has that
Or even if they don’t mootch, they could just remove the devices on your account and fuck with you
Unless you are willing to do the math, “no entropy really” deserves a [citation needed]
Unless you are willing to do the math, “no entropy really” deserves a [citation needed]
what kind of password has more entropy? one with capital and lowercase letters, numbers, math symbols and puncuation marks?
or the one with only numbers?
Is there really a citation needed for that?
Entropy is calculated from the character set size to the exponent the length of the string: E = log2(R^L). A long string of numbers can have more entropy than a shorter alphanumeric string with special characters. I looked it up and apparently their account number is 16 digits. That’s 53 bits of entropy, which is not guessable. Someone brute forcing would have quadrillions of login attempts to try.
Do VPN’s actually protect against any of that? They’re basically only useful if you want to get around your country’s internet filters, log into a website that has blocked your IP, or hide your traffic from the government (and in the latter’s case, Tor is probably a better pick).
I guess it may help with tracking, but there are so many ways in which your tracked, is your IP even one of them?
Precisely this. Consumer VPNs are not tools for security or anonymity. They won’t protect you from most kinds of fingerprinting or tracking beyond IP-based tracking. They have relatively specific uses. I recommend Privacy Guides’ article on them for further reading: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/basics/vpn-overview/
I like that you don’t have to provide an email address to mullvad.
You can also send them money in a letter
Mullvad. Their servers run on RAM, and they don’t have any information about you no email, no username you can even pay with cash. However, Proton has port forwarding, while Mullvad does not.
Mullvad does have split tunneling on Linux and Android. I don’t know about Windows.
I don’t know why I wrote split tunneling, I meant port forwarding. Thanks😀. Windows also has split tunneling.
I have and use both.
Without choosing some sort of dns based ip blacklist (offered by both providers btw), neither one really does what you asked about.
What are you actually trying to prevent? If you don’t know what language to use, just describe the situation.
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Mullvad. Not even a question
Also, the Proton CEO publicly supports Trump
Mullvad any day. Support is awesome.
If you go with Mullvad look for the gift cards out there that are for 6 or 12 months of service. I grabbed one off Amazon.ca for 12 months at $75. Works out to be cheaper than paying per month with the ever changing exchange rates.
I also like the fact that Mullvad has servers in the city I live in where as Proton has them on the west coast or east coast. Not the greatest for those in the middle of the country.
How does one verify that a gift card bought from Amazon is legit?
Make sure it’s “Sold by Mullvad VPN” and “Shipped from Amazon”.
https://www.amazon.ca/Mullvad-VPN-Devices-Protect-Security/dp/B092M5G1G7
Doxxing is a low skill level threat its very easy, google your target’s username and find information about them, yeah its that simple. All your user data is linked to your user name and profile picture. What i suggest doing is using the same tools doxxers use (sherlock) to find your long forgotten accounts and then delete them, remember to never use the same username and profile picture.
When a database leaks it will most likely contain your username, email and ip address, this information will be findable by username, email or ip address. If you ever use an account without a vpn using a vpn wont anonymize you from the service. Disable webrtc in your browser it often leaks ip addresses while using vpns also watch out for ip grabbers.
Tldr: dont use same usernames and profile pictures, vpn is 100% secure if used wrong.
There’d thundermail coming out soon, which will probably have mullvad included. This also funds firefox too which is nice.
Trackers are browser problem, get ublock origin. You can block trackers by changing your dns resolver i recommend Quad9 or adguard.
You don’t really get hacked unless you download and open files or your accounts get recovered by someone sending all your information to customer support pretending to be you.
Maybe try both!! I love both VPNs
