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
    21·
    4 months ago

    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.

        • lime!@feddit.nuEnglish
          1·
          4 months ago

          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
            1·
            4 months ago

            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
              1·
              4 months ago

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

        • fizzle@quokk.auEnglish
          1·
          4 months ago

          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
        1·
        4 months ago

        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
          1·
          4 months ago

          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
          1·
          4 months ago

          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.

    • rainwall@piefed.socialEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      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
        1·
        4 months ago

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

  • puppinstuff@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    4 months ago

    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.)

  • orca@orcas.enjoying.yachtsEnglish
    1·
    4 months ago

    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·
      4 months ago

      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·
      4 months ago

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

    • Rhonda Sandtits@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      I use them on my nas for torrenting.

      • €5 per month.
      • Accepts payment in crypto, including monero.
      • Can only use your account on one device.
      • Only one location, Sweden.
      • Assigns dynamic IP address to indivdual user session and each IP address is only assigned to one user at a time.
      • Any port(s) can be opened.

      Most might consider it expensive give the limitation on devices and location but the freedom to open multiple ports makes it amazing for torrenting.
      My nas runs 5 instances of qbittorrent and slskd all with connectable ports opened.

      It works reliably for what I use it for. Other than that, I have nothing to report on my experience using them and in this case, no news is good news.

  • アイス@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

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

  • Makeshift@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    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
      1·
      4 months ago

      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.

  • rnercle@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    but hearing about one of the two CEOs actively supporting and financing swedish Nazis,

    sources?

    i would like to read about this

  • root@lemmy.wtfEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    List of vpns not to use

    NordVPN

    Facebook Onavo

    ExpressVPN

    Private Internet Access

    Everything Kape Technologies

    HolaVPN

    PureVPN

    ZenMate

    CyberGhost

    • beep@piefed.worldEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      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?

    • Doug@piefed.socialEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      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.

      • Ilandar@lemmy.todayEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        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?

        • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.socialEnglish
          1·
          4 months ago

          “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.

  • uhmbah@lemmy.caEnglish
    01·
    4 months ago

    I’m sticking with it. This cancel culture needs some balance. Someone at this company is an idiot. Doesn’t make them all idiots. Yet.

    Too much knee jerk going on these days.

    • Pipster@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      1·
      4 months ago

      I don’t think its cancel culture to not want to indirectly fund fascism. The guy is one of the CEOs so if you subscribe then it goes into his pockets