People need to follow what they believe is necessary but I ask this: how many degrees of separation from your money is far enough to enjoy a product without having to worry about where the money is going? Eventually someone you don’t agree with will touch it.
The amount of hate on mullvad for what they openly acknowledged was a personal donation from someone who was a founder sure does seem like it’s astroturfing against an otherwise solid vpn provider with a better trackrecord and more transparency then most.
Seems like the Same sort of ppl who would pay for services with a bank card and then be shocked when that links them to an account.
What do these people want? Should Mullvad fire this person? On what grounds? Do people honestly think companies should have a say over what their employees or members spend their personal money on? That seems like a fascist attitude to me.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
the problem is that the same people who buy vpn services are the people who care that parties like he supports don’t get to power… so when they learn that their money (that they paid for the vpn) directly helped to pay for that donation (via the company that made him rich) they are understendably pissed.
edit: this guy below said it much better than me https://lemmy.world/post/51539700/25684523
I would hope that such people would think their own political beliefs and private donations are none of their employers business. I would hope people would pause and think “what happens if this gets flipped on me” if suddenly donating to say anti-fascist causes where to become a fireable offense I bet those same people would be pretty upset
Just seems like very poorly thought out reason for rejecting a service like Mullvad especially given that the company put our a statement that did not defend the donation and distanced themselves from the persons personal views which they most likely didn’t know until well after the check was cashed.
Call me a conspiracy theorist but I think there might be a less organic reason why this is being pushed, like maybe Mullvad is difficult for certain agencies to strong arm due to their discouraging of using traditional trackable payment methods and having well secured servers.
Hey, I’m a real person who organically discovered this news and made behavioral changes based on the news.
I am not a nazi. I do not want to support nazi policies or beliefs or people who would strengthen and distribute Nazi policies or beliefs. If someone supports forcibly relocating citizens based off their bloodline history or the color of their present day skin, I think they should be as far away from a position of power as society can possibly manage while still treating them like a human.
I believe, based on the Mullvad news, that one of the main benefactors if mullvad - meaning one of the guys who got a % for every euro I spent on the service - actively and meaningfully supports a national party with policies akin to Nazis. I want as much of my money to go to NOT-Nazis as possible, ideally 100%. So I left Mullvad for… I think it’s airvpn. Or ivpn actually, although I considered airvpn.
I don’t think this is a crazy response. I also wish it was the overwhelmingly common response.
I’m glad i left Mullvad behind when they stopped supporting port forwarding.
Doesn’t matter, when my subscription expires I will be moving on to a non-nazi-loving VPN provider
For what it’s worth, I paid for an annual subscription in February. When the news that their CEO is funding the far right came out, I emailed Mullvad support asking them to refund the remainder of my annual subscription, and the reason, and they did it. So if you would like to, you can ask for a refund and don’t have to wait until subscription expires.
Likewise. Bought a three-month sub so’s that I wouldn’t have to top it up too often, and then they came out with all that shit. Subscription expires in two days - forever. Hello, iVPN.
Can someone catch me up, I thought people liked Mullvad… but this thread seems to suggest otherwise. What did I miss?
My understanding is one of mullvads primary owners and creators donates a significant portion of their country’s far right party’s annual budget. Their policies, last I checked, included things like remigration or the forced expulsion of citizens based off of arbitrary and immutable characteristics (think bloodline or skin color). They’re akin to the AfD or Republicans. Theoretically a meaningful % of money spent on Mullvad goes to a person actively trying to make the world worse, like Elon Musk or JK Rowling.
So some people, including me, stopped supporting mullvad until the person is completely financially and influentially disconnected from the company.
You didn’t miss anything. Haters just finally got a reason to crawl out of their dirt caves
The reason why I use a VPN is to protect myself from people like the co-founder of Mullvad. So you see how this can cause a conflict…
Would you be okay with your employer or business partner getting to review every political donation you made during their employ or setting restrictions on what you could spend your money on?
I can understand the conflict if the guy was like in a position where he could reveal data about users but thats nowhere close to being the case because the entire company barely keeps any data in the first place
How will you know there isn’t any right wing staff at the next vpn you choose? Seems pretty short sighted.
I want my protection to be such that even if I know the enemy is actively monitoring the network they won’t be able to obtain anything useful. I wouldn’t want to use a service that exclusively targets people just on my side because that makes it easier to narrow down and target.
How will you know there isn’t any right wing staff at the next vpn you choose? Seems pretty short sighted.
There are many nazis and fascists everywhere in society. While is not comforting, that’s how the world is and one Nazi Staff on it’s own can’t do shit. But we’re talking about a leader here with power and influence (money).
I can understand the conflict if the guy was like in a position where he could reveal data about users but thats nowhere close to being the case because the entire company barely keeps any data in the first place
But he can, I paid using my credit card. He could disclose the list of clients and payments if he is aligned with a fascist. He could one day decide to install malware on the software and by the time we find out it’s too late. I know it sounds paranoid but how can you trust a Nazi when your life is on the line?
Notable that mullvad calls out the situation themselves
“societies need a great diversity of ideas, initiatives and organizations who can be tested and sifted until the best ones remain” -Mullvad.
This apparently includes nazi ideas
Mullvad is great for my needs. I may try proton next year, not sure.
Don’t forget everyone, your money might end up in far right Swedish parties.
Once my current subscription expires, I will never buy their vpn and switch to another provider.
Torguard is my weapon of choice for a decade now.
Proton has been alright for me so far. However, at this rate, I’m just waiting for something similar to happen with them too. Crossing my fingers.
Didn’t their CEO or something similar executive openly praise Trump when he came back into office?
More like Trump’s pick for office but since then Proton wised up and put the CEO on mute lol
More or less.
Uggghhhhh, thanks for the info though
Shouldn’t be surprised, to be a CEO you gotta have a screw loose for the job
/s
/but-not-really-tho
It’s a shame one of the founders funds Nazis now, I won’t be renewing
I’ve just seen this.
Do you know any good alternatives?
I moved to AirVPN after Mullvad shut down port forwarding and haven’t had any issues. It’s run by privacy activists.
Can second this
iVPN is the the best alternative if you want something as powerful as Mullvad. It’s a bit slower though
iVPN looks good
can confirm. is good.
ProtonVPN if you can stomach one CEO once praised trumps choice of some anti euh oligopol(?) lawyer.
If you already use Proton Mail, I strongly recommend against using ProtonVPN because you’re coupling yourself too hard to Proton. At least, if your threat model is high risk
What if I just torrent shit occasionally? Am I good? I like proton’s services a lot for the convenience which is a no no on here but I am a lazy fuck.
If you just use VPNs to torrent stuff, then that’s fine. I’m just saying that if your threat model makes you a target to let’s just say the CCP for example, then coupling Proton’s suite with their VPN is a bad idea
I don’t do anything that makes me a target so I’m all right
If I’m going to move away from mullvard because a high up funds populists I’d rather avoid that too.
Funny how someone can be just a normal right wing or even center-right and you dumb bitches call everyone a Nazi that doesn’t think exactly like you. Bunch of hive mind idiots lmao.
Anyone that’s considers themselves right wing with the current fascist in power deserves it. If you look at what’s happening now and say “i guess it’s fine I’m still right wing” then yeah the moniker holds.
Don’t condone Nazi shit if you don’t wanna be called a Nazi.
I mean, the account is named Glowie…
Don’t condone Nazi shit if you don’t wanna be called a Nazi.
Advocating for remigration is unquestionably far right, which the founder has done. Unless you yourself agree with it…
Yeah, this is the part that made me pause when I was reading about this because I’m like, holy shit. That isn’t just right wing, like, that straight Nazi shit. Like, holy shit.
We all fund Nazis if we live in modern 1st world nations. It’s time to start blaming ourselves…
Sure, but there’s a difference between existing in society and actively going out of your way to fund projects that are made by hyper-racists (the the omarchy guy)
No no, the whole “no ethical consumption under capitalism” thing means that there’s no moral difference between my tax money funding ICE and directly donating to hateful people. They’re both bad, and there’s no possible way to measure how one thing could be worse than another.
You might be right but it is such a defeatist way to look at it. Maybe 30%-50% goes to taxes and you ha e no control over that. You also need food, a home, and depending where you live a car, so that limits your options. But the rest you have full control over. You can choose not to buy a Tesla, not to subscribe to Mullvad, not to donate to Omarchy. And with the money you save you can buy another car from a brand whose CEO didn’t literally make the Nazi gesture on live TV, subscribe to a VPN that’s not donating to a Nazi party, either directly or through a founder, and instead of investing time and money in a distro founded by a racist, you could use another distro.
It’s only impossible if you say it is. I’m also boycotting US as much as possible due to Greenland and the EU tariffs. It’s even harder because of how connected the economies are, but I still go out of my way to buy Danish soda instead of Pepsi or Coca-Cola, Italian toothpaste instead of Colgate, etc.
You might be right
I was being sarcastic. I really thought the second sentence would be enough to give it away.
It was. An intelligent reader should have had no problem with it.
I didn’t pick up that it was sarcastic, personally
A “/s” would have been helpful to note the saracasm.
There is no sarcasm in text
You are not wrong, but the comment you wrote this to is literally about trying actively not to.
Funny, I’ve been having a lot of problems with Mullvad DNS so I just switched to Quad9.
Fuck Mullvad
Makes sense, Quad9 is really good!
Yeah, I ain’t mad at it. Especially with the dubious stuff an exec at mullvad did. Quad9 is my default anyway, but I did use the mullvad dns here and there.
Anyone got info on this?
Mullvad’s wikipedia page has a section on it: Donation to the Örebro Party.
Also handy heard anything like that. Supporting info appreciated.
I’ve been recommending Mullvad DNS for its adblock functionality. Quad9 does not provide this.
I am now seeking recommendations for an equivalent I can recommend to friends and family for use on devices that do not easily support system-wide adblocking.
AdGuard maintains a list of DNS providers; there are several with ad blocking.
You can go with the default Adguard DNS configuration https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html
Works great on my phone. Thinking of enabling it on my desktop, too, but I’m not too bothered there, using uBlock Origin. 👍
Hosting your own DNS resolver is quite simple. Suggest trying PiHole.
Yes, I’ll tell my mother to host a PiHole.
Of course bringing it with her would require something to tether it to other than the phone she’s actually using as a phone (I think), and a way to power it all. She’s going to need a bigger purse.
Or she could access it remotely. I doubt her residential DSL comes with a static IP, so she’s going to have to get a domain name and set up dynamic DNS… oh, and route the appropriate port to her Pi through the ISP’s NAT router, assuming it actually supports that. Maybe she should buy the latest fancy one from GL.iNet with those big antennas and OpenWRT.
I think I might send her that AdGuard link instead.
“You want me to do what with a pie hole? You know you’re not too big for a slap, young man!”
Yes, quad9 has DNS adblock
Neither this screenshot nor their website claims to block ordinary advertisements.
Been using next DNS free DNS. They get overloaded sometimes but usually work fine.
Can someone tell me whats wrong with Quad9? I’ve never used or heard of that.
There’s nothing wrong with quad9. They’re a good privacy dns that blocks phishing and malware. Adguard dns though, also blocks ads and tracking so I would recommend that as well
They’re fine as long as you don’t mind the illuminati providing your dns and blocklist /s (?): https://www.techmonitor.ai/technology/cybersecurity/security-alliance-launches-dns-resolver
Oh wow it’s the city
I use Quad9 where I can, but admittedly also have some reliability issues. Their local PoP will drop all requests for a couple minutes at least a few times a week. It’s a shame since it’s the closest/best recursive resolver otherwise. CloudFlare is similarly close, but they don’t support EDNS, so I’ve had problems because of that.
Ah well, unbound prepared for the toggle.
# Mullvad No-Filter DoT forward-addr: 194.242.2.3@853#dns.mullvad.net # AdGuard Default Ad-Blocking DoT forward-addr: 94.140.14.14@853#dns.adguard-dns.com #Quad9 DoT #forward-addr: 9.9.9.9@853#dns9.quad9.net #Quad9 no threatblocker DoT #forward-addr: 9.9.9.10@853#dns10.quad9.net
