Well, just that. Wich is stronger against trackers, hackers and doxxing threats? Proton VPN (I’m using this one actually), or Mullvad VPN?
Maybe try both!! I love both VPNs
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/
Mullvad. Not even a question
Also, the Proton CEO publicly supports Trump
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.
There’d thundermail coming out soon, which will probably have mullvad included. This also funds firefox too which is nice.
If you don’t need proton’s whole suite of tools I say go for mullvad.
You can also just test them both out for yourself. Try mullvad for one month, proton another. The nice thing with mullvad I believe is that it’s way more anonymous in terms of various forms of payment and I believe it has a fixed price.
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
I like that you don’t have to provide an email address to mullvad.
You can also send them money in a letter
Same for proton
Isn’t it the same for Proton? I have been using it for so long now that I don’t remember
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
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.
I prefer Mullvad. I’ve found it a lot more reliable. I was a paying Proton customer but still had connectivity issues a non-negligible number of times, whereas I’ve literally never had Mullvad be the cause of connection issues in my years of using it. It’s great that they take cash and have literally only an account hash associated with your account.
I’ve also found that Mullvad customer support are responsive, helpful, and know what they’re talking about. I’ve had experiences with Proton’s customer support that were ok, but occasionally had the typical customer service hiccups along the lines of being assigned a new support agent who doesn’t read back all the conversation (understandable—I had one bug I was dealing with for months) and you have to explain again what the original issue was and what has been done since.
I think both options are perfectly fine, but I definitely prefer Mullvad, and it’s what I recommend to people if they ask me to recommend a VPN service.
I prefer Mullvad. Regularly audited, can pay with cash if preferred, everything runs on RAM, and hasn’t had any controversies so far. The only issue for some is no port forwarding. I also like the multi-hop and DAITA features.
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.
servers run on RAM
What’s the different with zego logs alternatives, e.g. https://openvpn.net/as-docs/tutorials/tutorial--turn-off-logging.html
If, for some reason, there is any data on the server and a malicious actor pulls it physically out, the data would disappear. There are probably other pros with RAM-only servers that I don’t know.
What data if there is no log?
I like Mullvad better
Mullvad.
Proton has a Trump ass kisser working in their C-suite.
Okay, but how does the political stance of Proton workers affect my privacy?
At the moment, it doesn’t. He could decide to violate Swiss law and turn data over to Trump.
That would certainly affect your privacy.
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.
There are sellouts and traitors.
Andy done some bootlicking… I guess whoring for the regime is supposed to print generally but I don’t think he understands his user base lol
Imagine
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.
Has Mullvad ever been required to comply for anything though? Or are you saying Mullvad has already, and refused to follow Swedish law?
That’s because no one running a service will go to jail for you. None.
Not ProtonVPN, not Mullvad, not IVPN, not Lemmy Instances.
Imagine you run one of these, and you received a lawful order in your jurisdiction.
Turn over data or go to jail for a long time.
Would you go to jail to protect user privacy?
The only thing Proton does better is because they are under Swiss Jurisdiction, which has stricter control over when a court order can be issued. But if a court order goes to Proton, they can’t ignore it.
Also: Protonmail =/= ProtonVPN, they are under different laws. In Switzerland, Mail providers have to provide IP addresses upon a subpoena, VPN providers do not. If those users had used ProtonVPN to access their Protonmail, they’d be safe.
Interesting, thanks.
To be fair, if your safety depends on whether a particular company cooperates with authorities, you’d better rethink your OPSEC.
Proton has cooperated with subpoenas on multiple occasions leading to the user’s arrest.
My thinking is, if the CIA (or whatever country’s equivalent) is on to you, it’s pretty much jover.
I think it still very much depends on how much they’re onto you. The guy from the most famous Proton case seems like a low-level crook, so if he wasn’t so easy to catch, chances are the agency would’ve just went after an easier prey. If you’re a DNM admin, though… Indeed, play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
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.
Excerpts from your third link https://www.wired.com/story/protonmail-amends-policy-after-giving-up-activists-data/
As usual, the devil is in the details—ProtonMail’s original policy simply said that the service does not keep IP logs “by default.” However, as a Swiss company, ProtonMail was obliged to comply with a Swiss court’s demand that it begin logging IP address and browser fingerprint information for a particular ProtonMail account.
According to multiple statements ProtonMail issued on Monday, it was unable to appeal the Swiss demand for IP logging on that account. The service could not appeal both because a Swiss law had actually been broken and because “legal tools for serious crimes” were used—tools that ProtonMail believes were not appropriate to the case at hand, but which it was legally require to comply with.
ProtonMail also operates a VPN service called ProtonVPN, and it points out that Swiss law prohibits the country’s courts from compelling a VPN service to log IP addresses. In theory, if Youth for Climate had used ProtonVPN to access ProtonMail, the Swiss court could not have compelled the service to expose its “real” IP address.
Proton did not voluntarily log IPs, they were under a lawful court order and were out of appeal options.
Like I said, no one running a service will go to jail for you. None.
Not ProtonVPN, not Mullvad, not IVPN, not Lemmy Instances.
If a legal court order is received, they will conply after they run out of appeals
Imagine you run one of these services, and you received a lawful order in your jurisdiction.
You can choose to turn over data or go to jail for a long time.
Would you go to jail to protect user privacy?
That’s why its not only a company’s privacy practices you need to worry about, but also the jurisdiction. Choose a service that’s is in a privacy friendly jurisdiction.
Also, this is about Protonmail, which is under different laws than ProtonVPN.
When did Proton show themselves fed-friendly? Also what “fed” are we talking about? The Swiss Federation?
I guess he’s referring to this
Proton’s statement from the linked article
“We are aware of the Spanish terrorism case involving alleged threats to the King of Spain, but as a general rule, we do not comment on specific cases. Proton has minimal user information, as illustrated by the fact that in this case, data obtained from Apple was used to identify the terrorism suspect. Proton provides privacy by default and not anonymity by default because anonymity requires certain user actions to ensure proper OPSEC, such as not adding your Apple account as an optional recovery method.”
