cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/49722402
Swedish VPN vendor Mullvad is facing a backlash from some customers after co-founder Daniel Berntsson personally donated SEK 5 million (£385,000, $519,000) to the controversial populist Örebropartiet, which is running in Sweden's national elections for the first time.Berntsson has this week published a blog post explaining the donation, alongside posts titled "Immigration," "Political individualism," and "Moral individualism." Before that, he had not posted since 2019.
The flurry of posts follows weeks of customer criticism over the donation – for example, Finnish blog Moonwriting's post "I'm done with Mullvad." Another blog, Unutterable, is more direct: "Mullvad funding the far-right and the problem with tech company ownership." The Hacker News discussion thread about the donations has reached a remarkable 1,784 comments so far.
Mullvad was co-founded and is still jointly owned and run by two CEOs
... Show more...cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/49722402
Swedish VPN vendor Mullvad is facing a backlash from some customers after co-founder Daniel Berntsson personally donated SEK 5 million (£385,000, $519,000) to the controversial populist Örebropartiet, which is running in Sweden's national elections for the first time.Berntsson has this week published a blog post explaining the donation, alongside posts titled "Immigration," "Political individualism," and "Moral individualism." Before that, he had not posted since 2019.
The flurry of posts follows weeks of customer criticism over the donation – for example, Finnish blog Moonwriting's post "I'm done with Mullvad." Another blog, Unutterable, is more direct: "Mullvad funding the far-right and the problem with tech company ownership." The Hacker News discussion thread about the donations has reached a remarkable 1,784 comments so far.
Mullvad was co-founded and is still jointly owned and run by two CEOs, Berntsson and Fredrik Strömberg. Its name, as reflected in the company's logo, is Swedish for "mole." It also offers the Mullvad Browser, a privacy-enhanced fork of Firefox ESR co-developed with the Tor Project. Swedish socialist newspaper Flamman ("The Flame") revealed the donation in its story "High-profile techie gives millions to the Örebro Party."
In a post on X, the company said it was devoted to freedom of speech and tolerance, saying: "It should be obvious that Daniel's private donation to a political party is not part of Mullvad's values or mission, in the same way that someone's opinions on animal rights, taxes or public healthcare policy isn't."
SEK 5M gift supplied 72 percent of Örebropartiet's annual income, but company insists it was strictly personal
Liam Proven (theregister)
CrypticCoffee
in reply to floofloof • • •StumblingWasabi
in reply to floofloof • • •Malyca
in reply to StumblingWasabi • • •Jul (they/she)
in reply to StumblingWasabi • • •MasterNerd
in reply to floofloof • • •oneser
in reply to MasterNerd • • •nightwatch_admin
in reply to oneser • • •Malyca
in reply to oneser • • •katy ✨
in reply to MasterNerd • • •Vendetta9076
in reply to katy ✨ • • •Malyca
in reply to Vendetta9076 • • •Vendetta9076
in reply to Malyca • • •Malyca
in reply to Vendetta9076 • • •Coleslaw4145
in reply to Malyca • • •Will the Tesla Cybertruck trunk crush your finger?
YouTubesobchak
in reply to katy ✨ • • •geneva_convenience
in reply to MasterNerd • • •Mullvad is a premium VPN costing much more than alternatives and it doesn't have promotions. This would be like paying top dollar to tank at Chevron.
The privacy VPN company which ran entirely on its reputation has now destroyed that very reputation at lightning speed because their CEO decided to publicly donate to a Nazi party
snoons
in reply to MasterNerd • • •rnercle
in reply to snoons • • •"apathetic" and "asshole" are redundant. You can just write "i'm a centrist" and we can deduce those accompanying qualities
crispbacon99
in reply to MasterNerd • • •dreamkeeper
in reply to MasterNerd • • •What non-shitty options are there for gas? None. It's not like I can refine my own, bub.
At least with vpns we ostensibly have options
SocialistVibes01
in reply to MasterNerd • • •humble_boatsman
in reply to floofloof • • •voidchsr
in reply to humble_boatsman • • •robotmonsterplanet
in reply to floofloof • • •I tried Nord before I switched to Mulvad and it was worse, don't want to go back to that
floofloof
in reply to robotmonsterplanet • • •In which ways did you find Nord worse? I found Nord faster than Mullvad and better at spoofing my location in different countries for streaming services.
Proton VPN is probably the first other one that springs to mind as offering privacy comparable to Mullvad. Its CEO was criticized last year for making approving comments about some things Trump was doing in the USA, but it was mostly about opportunities to challenge big tech companies, and he claimed not to be a MAGA supporter in general. There was no evidence, as far as I know, of him donating to right-wing organizations.
dreamkeeper
in reply to floofloof • • •Proton vpn is pretty good, except on Linux where the client is horrendous. The Killswitch is very unreliable there. When it fails, it sends your machine right back to the internet instead of blocking the connection completely like it's supposed to.
I haven't found an alternative that works well for me in Linux other than mullvad unfortunately. And I really don't want to give them my money.
I sent proton a nastygram but they don't seem to care about the Linux client at all.
Also both their gui and cli apps have dependencies on Gnome, and installing gnome fucked up my remote login setup. It's insane to me that even the cli relies on gnomes keychain
floofloof
in reply to dreamkeeper • • •dreamkeeper
in reply to floofloof • • •FineCoatMummy
in reply to dreamkeeper • • •I have a paid proton email level, which gives me (I think?) one active VPN tunnel to use.
I tried it out and it works fine with the standard openvpn client on linux. I always set up my own killswitch, which is easy with ufw. You block all traffic except allow the VPN interface and IP. Bulletproof.
But what I really want is wireguard! I didn't know I wanted it, til I tried it. It's a lot nicer IMO than openvpn.
dreamkeeper
in reply to FineCoatMummy • • •FineCoatMummy
in reply to dreamkeeper • • •YW!
Here's what mine looks like, but I'm redacting the tunnel IPs and port numbers. You might have to add an allow for DNS in there depending on your VPN,
robotmonsterplanet
in reply to floofloof • • •Nord might be better now, though. That was my experience from about 7 years ago
StumblingWasabi
in reply to robotmonsterplanet • • •Ankkuli
in reply to StumblingWasabi • • •Quaxglee
in reply to Ankkuli • • •_Nemo_
in reply to robotmonsterplanet • • •The critical part is: how many supposed "quality" alternatives have been proven not to do any logging? Mullvad has been proven to be solid. They were raided and had jolly little to hand over to authorities on their customers.
How many of the other VPN services can say that about themselves?
Desyn0xox
in reply to robotmonsterplanet • • •whatiswrongwithyou
in reply to robotmonsterplanet • • •There are not any.
If your use case doesn’t prioritize your own safety then tell me what it is and I can help you figure something out.
Hanrahan
in reply to robotmonsterplanet • • •Waphles
in reply to floofloof • • •whatiswrongwithyou
in reply to Waphles • • •I’m all over the other recent thread telling people there isn’t one. Especially for what you describe there isn’t one.
I have used mullvad in a similar way and can’t recommend anything else for it.
I can recommend the book aesthetics of resistance to help apply balm to the soul of a person who wants to switch.
SocialistVibes01
in reply to whatiswrongwithyou • • •"aesthetics"? Wheat and chaff, bro.
If there's an alternative that doesn't empower a nazi, although a bit less convenient, it's a no-brainer switch.
whatiswrongwithyou
in reply to SocialistVibes01 • • •It’s a famous historical novel about the stuff people did in europe around the time of ww2.
The book is kinda big and complex but one of the things that stuck out to me is all the ways people’s different beliefs were compromised in order to accomplish different goals sometimes as imperative as survival.
It’s a pretty good book.
Anyway, like I said, there is not an alternative. If a person doesn’t actually need a bulletproof vpn then some other services might work if that person is careful about using them.
yestalgia
in reply to Waphles • • •Drunk & Root
in reply to Waphles • • •warmaster
in reply to floofloof • • •SCmSTR
in reply to floofloof • • •