Mullvad VPN Internet BROWSER? Mullvad x Tor Project Collab

[Big up Liquid Richard]

When two things I (relatively) trust collaborate, I suddenly get suspicious.

Going to share this sentiment. Mind you, I use both Mullvad and TOR, but let's please not forget:

A).
B). Mullvad is in 14 Eyes. They say "no logs", but who here's been to their data centre(s)?

Load the privacy FUD; load the federal funding FUD; load the privacy FUD again. And again.

That is to say, it won't hurt to wait and see how it fares instead of switching now expecting the anti-fingerprinting to Just Work™. Been doing fine with Librewolf and Tor Browser so far, so ehh.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

I'm still on Brave but this looks promising, I'll probably use it for browsing kiwifarms

Using multiple browsers for different things is usually a good idea.

 

[Kosher Dill]

surely there's a setting that allows you to use the time zone of your IP address or that of the proxy you are actively using.

Nope, the only solution is to install some addin to hack around it. And doesn't adding an addin "fingerprint" you too - far more than knowing which band of longitudes you inhabit?

 

[AnOminous]

B). Mullvad is in 14 Eyes. They say "no logs", but who here's been to their data centre(s)?

No logs may be entirely true, but if they're subject to a court order, they can track current data and get what IP you're currently accessing it from.

So don't trust "no logs" as meaning you have a blanket license to engage in a continual pattern of illegal activity.

 

[Big up Liquid Richard]

So don't trust "no logs" as meaning you have a blanket license to engage in a continual pattern of illegal activity.

Good luck, I'm behind seven proxies.

 

[Last Ride]

Posting from it, works great, doesn't have the same crippling issues most privacy schizo browsers do when it comes to any vaguely modern website. The letterboxing is interesting, on my 4K display it's got about an inch missing on each side. Clever way to deal with fingerprinting.

Hopefully this will tempt autists away from abandoned Firefox forks like Palemoon. I see no reason I couldn't use this as my daily browser, it just works.

 

[JT Marlin]

No logs may be entirely true, but if they're subject to a court order, they can track current data and get what IP you're currently accessing it from.

So don't trust "no logs" as meaning you have a blanket license to engage in a continual pattern of illegal activity.

Was always curious why so many people advocate to use VPN's when torrenting copyrighted material.

I did some searching and found that copyright infringement is usually civil unless done for profit, then it becomes criminal. Can't plaintiffs in civil cases get court orders too? Or is there another reason why the corporate copyright holders don't bother going after VPN users en masse?

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

Was always curious why so many people advocate to use VPN's when torrenting copyrighted material.

I did some searching and found that copyright infringement is usually civil unless done for profit, then it becomes criminal. Can't plaintiffs in civil cases get court orders too? Or is there another reason why the corporate copyright holders don't bother going after VPN users en masse?

Around here going after VPN users would cost to much and from here on out I will be writing purely about how it works were I live(in an EU member state).

I'm not sure what they've tacked on to it over the years but in the EU there is a data retention directive where ISPs have to log traffic. It becomes easy for copyright hucksters to get the name and address of a person pirating something, then they spend €2 to print and send them a letter saying that they need to pay €150 or something or else they will take it to court. This rattles parents and normies so they pay up. This is not a bill or an invoice(again, where I live), it can't be sent to collections, what they are doing is offering an easy settlement that also involves an admission of guilt. They're called copyright trolls for a reason. Where I live the blackmail letters can be thrown directly into the trash.

They will never take it to court, it would be expensive and they would probably lose, the whole thing is just a racket. The ease of getting personal information from ISPs enables this racket(and things have gotten worse), if they had to deal with VPNs they had to put in time and actual legal work. That would hurt their bottom line.

 

[Lichen Bark]

Going to share this sentiment. Mind you, I use both Mullvad and TOR, but let's please not forget:

A).View attachment 4975460
B). Mullvad is in 14 Eyes. They say "no logs", but who here's been to their data centre(s)?

Load the privacy FUD; load the federal funding FUD; load the privacy FUD again. And again.

That is to say, it won't hurt to wait and see how it fares instead of switching now expecting the anti-fingerprinting to Just Work™. Been doing fine with Librewolf and Tor Browser so far, so ehh.

I mean Snowden showed that things were compromised at a hardware level, so there really isn't much to be done about that unless something extraordinary happens in the government. However, does that mean I have to willingly let Google, Facebook, and the other advertising/data harvesting assholes have all my information so easily? No. I can make it as difficult as possible for these people. If I can make advertisers lives more hellish, or prevent YouTube from getting a few extra cents of ad revenue, then I'm going to do that because these organizations are garbage.

If any advertisers are reading this, please, consider the following:

 

[DemeaningCroc1337]

Around here going after VPN users would cost to much and from here on out I will be writing purely about how it works were I live(in an EU member state).

I'm not sure what they've tacked on to it over the years but in the EU there is a data retention directive where ISPs have to log traffic. It becomes easy for copyright hucksters to get the name and address of a person pirating something, then they spend €2 to print and send them a letter saying that they need to pay €150 or something or else they will take it to court. This rattles parents and normies so they pay up. This is not a bill or an invoice(again, where I live), it can't be sent to collections, what they are doing is offering an easy settlement that also involves an admission of guilt. They're called copyright trolls for a reason. Where I live the blackmail letters can be thrown directly into the trash.

They will never take it to court, it would be expensive and they would probably lose, the whole thing is just a racket. The ease of getting personal information from ISPs enables this racket(and things have gotten worse), if they had to deal with VPNs they had to put in time and actual legal work. That would hurt their bottom line.

You seem pretty experience in VPNs, how do you normally pay for these services?
I would like to use them myself but alot of these services seem to want to tie your personal information to your account. They use alot of the same payment services like paypal.

 

[AnOminous]

I did some searching and found that copyright infringement is usually civil unless done for profit, then it becomes criminal. Can't plaintiffs in civil cases get court orders too? Or is there another reason why the corporate copyright holders don't bother going after VPN users en masse?

For the same reason as car thieves usually leave cars with "The Club" type steering wheel locks, not because they can't be defeated, but because there's another car right next to it that doesn't have one. Also the process (while well within the budget of RIAA types) for getting some kind of ongoing monitoring (especially without the target knowing) is pretty arcane.

I wouldn't count on them not doing it if you did something like pirating from a screener DVD before the movie was released, especially if you removed whatever watermarking it had so they couldn't figure out the source.

Also infringement doesn't have to be for-profit to be criminal. The No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 (in response to the LaMacchia case finding criminal infringement had to be for profit) did away with that requirement. I believe some guy fairly recently (in the last decade or so) got imprisoned for pirating a Hulk movie pre-release.

However, after years of highly unpopular lawsuits against simple infringers, it may be they've simply realized it's not worth the bad PR, or at least to limit it to people who do stuff that actually seriously damages them, like massive infringement or pirating films pre-release.

 

[Archie Goodwin]

You seem pretty experience in VPNs, how do you normally pay for these services?
I would like to use them myself but alot of these services seem to want to tie your personal information to your account. They use alot of the same payment services like paypal.

Mulvad will let you mail them an envelope full of cash. They have physical voucher cards you can buy as well. Some alternatives like CyberGhost let you pay through the App Store/Play Store so you could cash buy gift cards, assuming your threat model allows you to sign up for an Apple or Google account.

 

[AnOminous]

Mulvad will let you mail them an envelope full of cash. They have physical voucher cards you can buy as well. Some alternatives like CyberGhost let you pay through the App Store/Play Store so you could cash buy gift cards, assuming your threat model allows you to sign up for an Apple or Google account.

They also get no information other than the IP you connect with. So if you like daisy-chaining VPNs, it makes a good exit VPN. You just generate an account number, send crypto to the address associated with it, and if you want, throw it away when you're done.

 

[The Mat Harris]

https://mullvad.net/en/browser/

Do keep in mind Sweden, Mullvad's country of origin is part of the 14 eyes.

However Mullvad is generally respected by privacy advocates for being one of the only VPNs to require no personally identifiable information on account setup, generating a key that can be thrown away after you don't want it, You can also pay for it via Cryptocurrencies such Bitcoin,Bitcoin Cash, Monero, and you can even send them money by mail. You can also access their services via Tor.

Now in regards to the browser itself:

The Mullvad browser seems to be a fork of the Firefox Extended Support Release Browser and it also seems to rely on a few Tor browser features.
For example the Mullvad browser is able to Reset its fingerprint the same way the Tor Browser is able to reset its fingerprint

In addition to that it comes with the following extensions:

It seems to have removed a lot of firefox's features such as the default such as sync, and pocket, not that i think anyone is going to miss the latter. Firefox telemetry seems to be completly disabled or even removed
In addition to that there seem to be different choices in regards to search engines, as in DuckDuckGo(which should frankly not to be trusted after the stuff they pulled) and Mullvad leta which i am unable to access since you can't connect to it without the mullvad VPN, but i assume is possibly some search engine reliant on opensource code such as Searx.

Finally you will find that all history and logins along with cookies get completely deleted after the browser is turned off. However if you wish to re enable them you need to first turn off the "Always use Private browsing mode under Settings > Security and Privacy > History. Obviously do keep in mind that this will severely diminish a lot of the security features of the browser. And disabling some of these features would be pointless anyway due to the fact you will frequently change fingerprints. It could however be useful if you want to keep browser history.

 

[batterybee]

thats kinda epic, i might give it a try

 

[The Ghost of Kviv]

There's a thread with 2 pages of posts about this on this very forum.

 

[Slav Power]

Reducing fingerprinting and having extensions installed by default is an oxymoron. The reason Tor Browser doesn't come with any extensions (or comes with a very specific set) and Tor Project advises to not install any additional extensions is because they are also used for fingerprinting. uBlock Origin can be used for fingerprinting too.

The more customization you do to your browser, the easier it is to fingerprint it. Tor Browser keeps everything homogenous on every install so that everyone using it appears as if they're using the identical browser.

 

[My beans are augmented]

I'm gonna download this swedish virus and check it out. Mullvad has been my go to for years.

 

[JT Marlin]

Around here going after VPN users would cost to much and from here on out I will be writing purely about how it works were I live(in an EU member state).

For the same reason as car thieves usually leave cars with "The Club" type steering wheel locks, not because they can't be defeated, but because there's another car right next to it that doesn't have one. Also the process (while well within the budget of RIAA types) for getting some kind of ongoing monitoring (especially without the target knowing) is pretty arcane.

Thank you for the detailed, helpful replies. Appreciate your time and have a great weekend.

 

[Vince McMahon]

or at least to limit it to people who do stuff that actually seriously damages them, like massive infringement or pirating films pre-release.

Or they employ a law firm that sends "settlement" letters with specific info on an infringement and threatens you with court, unless you pay. Some European countries now have laws which allow representatives of copyright owners to request personal data based on a belief that a copyright infringement has taken place and then you are forced to settle, unless you have the money to handle a civil suit (which are very expensive, regardless of outcome).

Don't ask me how I know...