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?
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.
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.
Time will tell, his response was what prompted me to request and receive my refund though. Either bad wording, or a bad attitude towards this.
when you’ve known someone personally for that long you’re bound to get defensive, i think. and the question is worth considering; why?
Isn’t he the founder?
Cofounder, and 50% owner. For him to get kicked out would take a lot.
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.
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.
they don’t tend to see it like that from my experience. but yeah the chance is slim.
He has most likely purchased himself control of, or at least a position within a right wing party. There is no coming back from that. For Mullvads sake he needs to move on, and soon.
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.
Or the other owner (Fredrik Strömberg) splits off and sets up his own vpn… Strömvad, or Mullberg, or MullStröm
co-. the other founder is pretty pissed.
This is the only reason for why I haven’t demanded a refund of my remaining balance yet. I’m holding out for a dismissal or something.
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.
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. 😩
I requested and received my refund with the aim to prompt this.
Sitting on your hands suggests that you do not care about it. If they do not lose enough customers, why would anything change?
I’m giving it a week or two to see if anything happens while also researching alternatives
Is there other option?
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.
There are very few decent options, ivpn seems decent though
also i think they’re technically nazbols.
what’s a nazbol?
National Bolsheviks, in essence merging nazism with communism.
National Bolsheviks, in essence merging nazism with communism.
Nazism+
what an awful idea
That’s why the bolsheviks purged them.
Like this?
Yes! Alternatively you can just put an Z there too, same meaning.
A Nazi, basically.
It stands for “national bolshevism,” so tankies minus the leftism, which… yeah.
national bolsheviks. basically ultranationalist tankies.
Closer to Nazis than communists.
Nazbols want to unify socialist economic planning with imperialism. They were purged by Stalin and the Bolsheviks for wanting to engage in imperialism, and also saw popularity in Germany. Essentially a far-right ideology that stands against socialist internationalism.
have they released an official statement about it?
not that i can find.
Link to the article?
from the same paper that did the original reporting. swedish and paywalled unfortunately, but the first few paragraphs are readable.
I think people say that AirVPN is pretty goated
Yeah, that’s what I use. Switched from Mullvad after they dropped port forwarding.
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!
List of vpns not to use
NordVPN
Facebook Onavo
ExpressVPN
Private Internet Access
Everything Kape Technologies
HolaVPN
PureVPN
ZenMate
CyberGhost
Imagine someone unironically using Facebook’s VPN service.
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?
sorry, added the list in plaintext
Thank you a lot🌹.
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.
sorry, typo
Why is airvpn on your list?
What’s wrong with Nord?
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.
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.
What’s wrong with PIA? I thought they have shown that they do not store any data more than once.
They’re Israeli, and the biggest vulnerability of a VPN is the provider.
their parent company hired someone from Project Raven to be a CIO for ExpressVPN
AirVpn is awesome
Curious about the software? at least on linux, the gui is very, very dated and it doesn’t even have split tunnelling I would rather stick to a gui app. I haven’t looked at their android app yet.
They offer standard wireguard and openvpn configs. There is no need for a “Airvpn client” gui.
I prefer a gui, and have little faith in a company that is unwilling, or incapable of providing a decent one. Mullvad has a very good gui on linux, and android, as well as a browser extension. Airvpn has a linux app that looks 20 years old and doesn’t even have split tunnelling, apparently their android app also doesn’t have split tunnelling, so wtf are they actually doing, and where is their roadmap?
I use Proton but I’m also in their ecosystem (ie, I also pay for ProtonMail and get the rest of their suite alongside it)
Wasn’t Proton’s CEO in some hot water a year or so ago, or was that a bunch of hooey? I know it’s impossible to find an ethical CEO, but just curious.
…sure I could look it up, but my phone battery sucks and it helps boost activity.
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/
I use Proton. but I find it suss how they are trying to do it all, so I don’t use most of their products
proton = poogle (purple google) plus they are an ai company.
They made a very naive comment suggesting a authoritarian regime supports privacy
And doubled down then changed their comments as if the way back machine doesn’t exist in order to backtrack without having to admit they were wrong.
Technically it is true, it makes easier to spread their propaganda in other countries by using bots.
So some of anti-age verification agenda is generated by russia and china etc. to make easier to create bot accounts.
he is a trump fan, not sure of other ethical issues, at least for the ceo himself.
He made a couple of supportive tweets about a Trump anti-trust appointment (who was later fired by Trump) and the Republican Party that offended some people, mainly the American left. People seem to forget that he is not American, nor is Proton an American company, so none of this actually means anything. He cannot vote, he and his company do not fund the American right in any way and he is not someone with a huge online presence, so it’s unlikely he has much influence.
More recently a far right influencer in France signed up for Proton’s affiliate program and promoted Proton on his channel, which led to some misleading claims about Proton “funding Nazis”. Proton immediately removed him from the affiliate program upon being notified of this and apologised for what it claims was an oversight.
Personally I’m very sick of the purity tests and cancel culture on the left and wish people would slow down a bit and really consider whether these “controversies” are actually worth burning it all down for. Proton provides mainstream, easy to use alternatives to big tech and is better existing than not. Its VPN is also one of the few that retains port forwarding, which can be useful for piracy. After the attempts to cancel Proton, the left hard shilled for Mullvad and now it turns out that’s objectively worse in terms of its political influencing. Mullvad is another company that does more good in the world than bad, are we going to cancel it too?
“Why do Americans care if Ford supports Hitler, he’s not even German!”
Interesting combination of lies and unironic use of “cancel culture” in the rest of the nonsense btw.
You guys don’t even bother pretending to be sane these days. It’s just mask off from the first reply with the Hitler comparisons that used to be considered a joke in more normal times.
This dumbass is literally looking at CEOs outright supporting fascism and ethnic cleansing in a privacy sub and asking why people are bringing up the Nazis.
Btw, dumbfuck, Godwin had an interview where he tried to point out to people like you that the “Law” isn’t meant to stop people from accurately describing loud and proud fascists.
in a privacy sub
???
You don’t need to belabor your complete lack of understanding, believe me, I’m aware.
you keep referring to “the left” which means you are on “the right” so…
Joined 28 days ago, entire comment history is anti-Proton disinformation and shilling for competitors. Fascinating.
Joined who cares how long ago, that comment is 100% fabricated. Not fascinating. Welcome to the internet.
Same boat, really don’t want to keep supporting them, because of the reasons others have mentioned. But I have something like four or five emails, not to mentioned hundreds of relays, it would be really hard to lose if I ditched them as my provider.
Same here, the cost is just way more worth it if you already pay for other Proton services.
Does seem like IVPN is closer to Mullvad in how it works though for people who just want to pay for a VPN separately. No email needed for an account, similar price, open-source clients. Also debubks misinformation used by VPN peddlers to convince people to buy VPNs who don’t need one.
here’s an interview with IVPN with techlore:
https://odysee.com/@techlore:38/ivpn-breaks-industry-silence-on-logs,:b
Sharing this because I think it’s funny, but someone opened an issue on Mullvad’s github about the questionable donations of one of the cofounders: https://github.com/mullvad/mullvadvpn-app/issues/10685
It’s funny, but it was probably done by proton
I’ve been using airvpn for almost 10 years now, no complaints.
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.
Aother vote for AirVPN. Been with them for years and they have always been solid. Also port forwarding!
ivpn and airvpn are my short list, but ivpn is not looking great for the southern hemisphere due to a lack of servers down here… Northern hemisphere they would be my top choice. I have contacted them a couple of times, and they have responded the same day, were helpful, and appear genuine.
I use IVPN
This honestly seem pretty good, they even offer mail aliasing. I think I’m gonna migrate to them once my one year subscription to Mullvad end.
Being in the proton ecosystem I use their VPN, and it’s been working great thus far.
Same here, haven’t had any issues with the free version so far.
Weird to say Proton is the lesser of the two evils, but not by much.
Mullvad donated to a actual right-wing fascist party.
Proton’s owner complimented the US government and gave away customer data.
proton is purple google, an ai company, manipulative and dishonest on social media, and proudly right wing.
This article breaks down the Proton controversies. I believe this comment overly abstracts them, but read what actually happened yourself: http://thoughtportal.org/2025/02/26/proton-mail-says-its-politically-neutral-while-praising-republican-party/
proton are right wing. your comment is ironic here.
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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.)
nice windscribe reference there
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.
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.
I have seen them mentioned here, not in a good way though
My own limited experience with them was crap, and I wouldn’t trust them, doesn’t mean i am right though.
Looks good.
Not assholes. Wireguard support. Port forwarding et cetera.
They are talking some good shit about this too:
Windscribe would be most likely to donate to jk rowling apparently…
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.
+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.
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.
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.
PIA is owned by Israel. https://www.reddit.com/r/PrivateInternetAccess/s/3Hvbcqdey2
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.
You can pay with Monero for IVPN.
Owned by kape (israel), who own many of the dodgy marketing vpn’s.
Based in the USA (the opposite of privacy)
No personal experience with them myself
I stopped using them.years ago when they sponsored gab. Don’t have receipts anymore and i dont know what their policy is these days, but suppoeting fascists has always been a hard “no” for me.
Mostly it’s a US based company and has to comply with US laws/surveillance
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.
It’s an Israeli and US company. If anyone is somehow MITM snooping your TLS traffic, it’s them.
Same, no issues in I don’t know how many years.
