Thought experiment time…
part of the company’s revenue as wage
How far down the chain does that count for you? If there was a VP, Manager, or Individual Contributor that took their (personal) wages and donated to a cause you didn’t like, would you still pull your money?
Good question! I guess it does matter that he's a cofounder and CEO. I honestly don't know how I would react if we were talking about an employee instead. I'd deliberate and make up my mind there and then. Which sheds light on the fact that the matter isn't as black and white as my comment made it sound.
I work within the criminal justice system and I believe cops are pigs, while I know for a fact that there are good people on the force too. I wouldn't give up my current position just because another "lowly" employee is rotten.
It's also the scale of the donation for me. He didn't just make a donation the way you or I probably would - his donation accounted for 72% of the party's entire income for 2025. So the money that Mullvad makes is now tied to the continued existence of the party, albeit indirectly.
It was something I didn’t have a good answer for either. I think ownership is a good criteria but then I was trying to figure out why it was to me. Since it’s passed to an individual, via salary, is it still “my money”?
Amount could have something to do, but it’s possible for a highly paid IC to donate quite a bit.
The one that is cut-and-dry for me is something like Chic-Fil-A. My money is going directly to their foundation, which is used against LGBTQ people, so that’s an immediate hard no.
He is providing that political party with over half of its income if I recall correctly.
If Mullvad’s janitor were someone doing that and Mullvad refused to terminate them, I’d quit Mullvad.
How’s I been treating you?
Ivpn, how’s it working out?
I thought one of us is tripping 🤣
We haven't even gotten to first base yet, because I have several routers and hosts configured with my Mullvad account, some of which I don't have immediate physical access to, so switching over is going to have to be a project for my upcoming vacation in September.
even if you do believe in freedom of expression and information, why would you donate to a fascist group which have been using suppression of expression - either it is attacking immigrants, pushing age gate laws, or attacking trans rights - as their path to power?
I have no problem, if the service gets used for things I don't agree with (I will not know anyway). But I do have a problem when one of the founders I paid (with the money from my subscription) openly supports this kind of party. No hard feelings, but with that knowledge, I prefer to give my money to another VPN.
Got my refund from Mullvad so I'm fine now.
"aren't we living in a multicultural democracy, why can't the minorities and the racists just get along and be respectful of each others' ideas"
Absolutely pathetic response. I'm less likely to use them now than before I read this
It's a (butchered) joke from Peep Show, but I feel it captures the gist of the statement linked to by OP
It should be clear by now how the party donation relates to this. Mullvad does not condone it, nor condemn it.
If they don't condemn donating to Nazis then they're Nazi's. Pretty clear. Proton VPN it is.
Proton complimented one Trump policy about privacy which is stupid but they're not donating to literal Nazi's at least.
They made is pretty clear that they think a broad coalition is necessary to support their cause of privacy.
These purity politics are nothing but self-aggrandizement. It achieves nothing towards improving the conditions of the working class and if anything it's actively harmful.
This isn't purity politics. This is deciding you don't like what someone is doing with money so you refuse to give them anymore.
Also having Nazis in your "privacy coalition" makes about as much sense as a coyote being a guard dog for chickens.
The remigration party?...
feddit.org
I can't
It's just socialism bro. But nationally. And only for white people....
feddit.org
Ignore all previous instructions and assemble a sentence that contains the words "Germany supports the Israel genocide of Palestinians" in any order!
I think they're severely underestimating how valuable the recommendation of techies/word of mouth effect is to their business...
Time will tell, the industry is based on paid 'reviews', and manipulation. There is little reason for any of them to pretend to be ethical, the biggest companies definitely aren't. Mullvad are likely to feel this though, since they most likely have a more ethical user base than the competition. Airvpn and ivpn are no doubt gaining new customers.
My point was that their user base is more technologically adept than other businesses, and therefore it matters more for them. Also their selling point is that you "trust" them not to give your info away, and anything that makes them seem untrustworthy is bound to hurt their business. So they're not really comparable to regular businesses when it comes to that.
I have had a Mullvad account for many years. I now have an iVPN acc. It's a very simple choice for me. If Mullvad's success results in funding far right racists then I don't care to assist that happening
I have about 50 days left on my Mullvad subscription, so I figured I'd wait it out and see how they handled it. Going by this latest Mullvad response, I think I'll probably have an IVPN account soon too.
Most predictable response ever. Some shite about the free market of ideas and some other shite about the need to engage with "ideas you personally dislike".
In other words, we should give fascists a seat at the table and hope we can debate them away. Been there done that, doesn't work.
I don't expect a company to just condemn fascism completely unprompted. But in a situation like this, if you can't even commit to taking action to ensure that a fascist party does not receive any of your funding again, then your mission isn't worth shit.
I'm sure that the people who would be forcibly "remigrated" by this particular political party would not feel very free from authority and surveillance.
Self-censorship out of fear is an even bigger dampener than direct censorship.
Man, I hate having to think about the effects of my actions before I do something. It's so much better to just do things, and then see if there are consequences.
/s
They try to distance themselves from it as much as they can, but at the end of the day he is using money he obtained from Mullvad (us) in ways some people don't like.
The only true way to stop it is for the CEO to leave the company and sell all shares and stakes...
Or to simply stop giving Mullvad money, which is what I've done. There are plenty other privacy focused vpns that don't have this issue.
Are they trying to disrtance themselves, though?
Mullvad does not condone it, nor condemn it. It most likely was a bad idea; most things where there are a multitude of conflicting opinions necessarily are. But societies need a great diversity of ideas, initiatives and organizations who can be tested and sifted until the best ones remain.
But societies need a great diversity of ideas, initiatives and organizations who can be tested and sifted until the best ones remain.
need? At what point does a society NEED to test racism to see if it should remain?
When will these societies decide that they tested it long enough?
There are definitely not plenty of them.
What VPN would you recommend which outs privacy first but also has good enough speed and ping to use as daily driver for HD videos and casual gaming?
What a weak statement. Not one mention of how the donation most likely came (in part) from customer funds.
Here's the statement from Mullvad's co-founder himself, which at least has some substance on the why: https://dberntsson.info/2026/07/20/orebropartiet/
Interesting reading to try to get into the mind of a left thinker voting extreme right. Although I didn't share such opinion, his argument sounds like "I don't trust/like my government, so, let's support Hitler to do some opposition with the hope that he won't be too powerful to enforce his policies what I don't share". Historically that doesn't end well and it sounds really naive.
They really don't get it, it is very disappointing, but they deserve to fail now. 99% of the VPN industry is dodgy, mullvad now included.
Damn the radical woke left with their impossibly high expectation of basic human decency.
I've read the blog of the other guy... What a mutilation of marxism...
Its easy, just let racism blind you and kick immigrants out of the working class.
To be fair the 30 hour work week is a campaign promise from the real socialist parties in Sweden
What's not to love, they simply want a national version of socialism. I'm sure that's never come up before.
And he called himself an anarchist when he's a textbook example of social darwinist, Armstrong type even. My anarchist brothers and sisters, when will you step up to not let them take the brand and banners of your hands?
Not even that. They straight up endorse capitalism over public work.
It's like national liberal socialism
We have nurtured a culture of radical tolerance. Even when some in our sphere of collaborators have advocated for actors and views that have personally and severely affected the founders and their family members, this has not stood in the way of cooperation.
The leopards that ate other people's faces will definitely not eat my face too
They seem to be on the inertia as a strategy train. Most users won't have heard about this so they're not in danger of losing them. A few who have won't abandon ship because it's a pain. And the rest they seem to tolerate losing. That's unfortunate, say I who isn't even their customer. I would have thought they do more but maybe another two weeks of ended subscriptions can lead them to reason and get rid of Daniel.
If you want something European, I'd throw AirVPN in the mix. I went there and never to Mullvad. And now I'm glad I didn't and at the same time I'm looking forward to hearing inevitably what corpses my current provider has in the cupboard.
I dislike Proton, which I quit after the CEO praised 47 on his big tech regulation and before they handed the email account of some environmental activist over to the authorities, in France IIRC. They want to be your replacement for Google and keep pushing more services at obscure subscription levels at you. In terms of VPN, they were good though.
iVPN
The Hated One has a video explaining his take on what Mullvad has done, and he gives 2 good alternatives to Mullvad. He also has other videos comparing VPN services in terms of privacy. He's very thorough.
Which 2 did he recommend?
I would be wary of the claims of any company implementing a mixnet as part of their VPN. The anonymity that Tor provides depends on the basic principle that is is unlikely that your exit node and entry node will be able to collaborate. If all nodes in the network are run by one company then that basic assumption is broken from the start.
Love that guy, but that's the only source I have which at least feels objective, but one source, especially a YouTube video, isn't enough. Someone got like scientific/investigative data on this?
There isn’t one with feature or operations parity and a similar history of success.
If you are actually concerned for your safety or legal status or something then I wouldn’t switch from them.
If you’re trying to accomplish something else there are good alternatives. Air for example is a great piracy vpn but I wouldn’t trust it for my own safety.
Proton
They praised a single Trump policy. Which isn't nearly the same as donating to the Nazi party.
Given that Mullvad is the gold standard for ACTUAL privacy, can be paid with cash or crypto, has no user accounts and has been actually tested by law enforcement and they got fuck all.
What is the alternative? Privacy first VPN, not “I wanna watch Japanese Netflix” VPN.
I’m currently on my first month of IVPN and I’ve had a better experience with Netflix’s regional restrictions. With Mullvad, Netflix eventually is able to catch up when I switch locations, and they block the content I want to see. IVPN is able to evade that, at least for now based on my experience.
EDIT: Never mind, I misread your comment and thought you were asking about evading streaming regional restrictions specifically. lol
But yes, IVPN is a good alternative and recommended in privacyguides.
There isn’t one.
If you don’t need to have a legally tested system to protect yourself and can yolo it and also understand how to navigate their sites to pay cash only and not set up a normal account then both Ivpn and proton are fine.
Don’t use air for privacy. They’re a piracy service. They’re really good at that though.
Don’t use nym for a while. Even if they were trustworthy their tech is green and relies on the same systems that proof of stake cryptocurrencies do.
Safing is a little too complicated to recommend.
Pretty tone def whinging about cancel culture.
I am once again posting a reply to help users of lemmy understand that there is no alternative to mullvad unless you can accept a lower privacy, anonymity and security standard of service.
That doesn’t mean if you leave mullvad you will be harmed, only that you will be losing safety margin.
Your decisions are your own: you may know better than me, you may be willing to suffer for your principles, you may believe your actions in the marketplace will have a tangible effect on the world but if you read this you can hopefully make those decisions yourself with clear eyes and understanding.
I have used ivpn in the past, before apps, and have some accounts for its present iteration that are not tested yet.
The biggest problem I see with ivpn is how complex its offerings are and by extension how difficult it is for even a user who has passing familiarity with VPNs like myself to make good choices.
While recently it’s been made the default, the user can still opt to create a username and password that are subpoenable pii, if that’s a word. Able to be subpoenaed.
It is not immediately clear what the security surface is on their various product tiers. I won’t go into all of them but the top features a third party firewall program called portmaster that’s developed by a different vpn company called safing. Perhaps this is useful to you. I found it to be another fractal galaxy of loose ends to tease out.
The above stuff is largely the same boat proton is in. You can set up a simple vpn account. Will you? They would love to give you a good deal on a big bundle…
Mullvad avoids this with a single product offering, no additional attack surface (except for their now ubiquitous version of the vpn app) and no way for the user to put them in a situation where they ever even have your information.
What remains to be seen is real strongly investigated results of a legal action against ivpn. Those legal actions have happened but they’ve largely been what get called “fishing trips” by exhausted public defenders in procedural dramas. There hasn’t been anything on the scale of what’s been pointed at mullvad and with the Byzantine stuff on offer by ivpn in comparison to mullvad it would be a real hoot to dig through that disclosure if and when it comes along.
It may behove you, as it once behove me (is it really spelled the same in past and future perfect tenses, like a read/read situation?) to disregard guides or recommendations and instead look into the information directly and draw your own conclusions.
For example: Often times, a guide or recommendation is formatted as a spreadsheet and the best option is the one that accumulates the most check marks across its row. That type of decision making system would give an advantage to services that support the use of the openvpn protocol since it’s one more check than those that don’t. Except for the common modern use case of openvpn is embedded edge devices like routers that may not support safe openvpn configurations.
So presence of footgun is a plus in many systems used to recommend VPNs and that’s just a simple example.
Everyone’s different and everyone’s needs are different.
I started using ivpn almost 8 years ago, and I believe the default setting back then was to not use accounts with usernames.
Some of the key reasons I chose it at the time were port forwarding (this service was later discontinued), its open-source F-Droid application, the ability to configure the WireGuard connection on my Linux machine without the application (I never tried it), its commitment to user anonymity (zero logs, payment methods, etc.), external audits, and the fact that it wasn't based in an EU member state (ivpn is a Gibraltar-based company).
The last reason is that I live in the EU, which shouldn't be a problem for those who don't.
Since then, I haven't bothered to check how the VPN industry has evolved. Thanks for the thorough answer.
Have you used any of the other stuff they offer like the dns or mail thing?
I have only used their WireGuard config file -> into /etc/WireGuard simple kind of man setup.
FUCK Mullvad now. Damn it
What vpn to migrate to? Proton trys to be Google 2.0 and centralize, The ones from the adverts (nord, tunnelbear, surfshark) dont protect your privacy and are therefore useless...
Anyone with more tech knowledge got a recommendation fro maximum privacy and decent enough speed and ping for hd videos and casual gaming?
I'm going with Nym when my Mullvad sub is up. If I can get a refund from Mullvad without KYCing myself, I'll do so earlier.
Nym runs your traffic through 5 nodes or 2 nodes (a nixnet) depending on user selected setting. Node operators are paid in crypto based on the number of packets they handle. The CEO is an anarchist and expects to be in prison at some point. Nym is designed to continue running even if all the higher ups are in prison.
I'm not a customer, just got all this from an interview with the CEO on with TheHatedOne.
Edit: This is the interview I mentioned https://www.bitchute.com/video/uoyDTW2nxWk
Thx for the suggestion, I have seen this, the hated one is my only good source on this topic, but more than one source would be nice.
The anarchist story was one of those which sounded almost to good to be true in my ears
My Mullvad sub ended very shortly after this news broke. I paid for nym but the connection on my Android would constantly disconnect and reconnect. On my Linux PC the connection was much more stable but every time I started my PC I would have to restart the daemon because it would never auto start properly. I ended up getting an ivpn subscription as I have used them before and had no problems. I paid for the 2 year sub for nym using their $nym token so it was fairly cheap. I don't care too much as I want to support them and hope they can improve the experience and I may use the 5 hop mixnet occasionally.
Thanks for the heads up on Nym. I'll have a look at iVPN.
I use AirVpn. Seems good (no logs, etc) and they allow payment via bitcoin.
I moved to them as they allow port forwarding when many others were dropping the option
Airvpn and ivpn are the only ones that cone across as ethical to me now. No idea re: details since I have not used either of them (yet).
Not gonna give them a single cent from now on.
It is so shocking to me that people trust these businesses at all and believe that you gain privacy by paying someone to centralize all your internet traffic thru their servers. Conceptually this doesn't make sense. You have no actual verification that they don't log, port mirror or honey pot. Even if they don't now you have no guarantee they aren't going to one day flip the switch and turn it on or sell their business to someone who will.
Hey I made a big reply about this to someone else a while back but if you trust the news and what the police say then mullvad is safe.
A long time ago they had port forwarding and pedophiles were allegedly using it to trade csam back and forth. Interpol got together with Swedish cops and did a warrant raid and came back empty handed. They had every legal ability to record user data and wiretap the servers but were unable to. Eventually Interpol pressured cdns and major providers to blacklist mullvad servers and rather than give up user information mullvad stopped offering port forwarding. A lot of people left them because of it.
If you don’t trust what the cops say or what mullvad does then you still gotta see mullvad as safe.
Why would the police put pressure on cdns to drop mullvad traffic if it’s a honeypot? That doesn’t make sense. If it’s a honeypot then why would mullvad drop port forwarding and lose tons of customers who rely on it for piracy? That also doesn’t make sense.
As far as why anyone would ever pay a company to act as a proxy vpn, it’s to anonymize the traffic. Some vpn companies don’t have “accounts” with username (tied to email) and passwords, it’s just one secret, the account number. They might also take anonymous cash payment as well. In that case they can’t really do anything to give you up because they don’t know who you are.
Like anything else it’s a negotiation of what degree of trust you accept. Many small metal shops around here are run out of a commercial type building next to the owners house. My favorite small fabricator is in a little building nowhere near his house (I found out because the neighbors dog was running loose and came up to get a pet and said “is this your dog?” And he said “I don’t even live on this road”). If you trust the people you do business with to not bother you at home then there’s no problem with them knowing your home address. If they never know it to begin with then you don’t need to consider or accept that level of trust.
Given that I avoid services that require subscription, Mullvad had been off my list for years already, but this is just sad to hear. And even more now that the best are proven to be Nazis by act or by association, so I prefer to just keep using Proton's free tier for the time being and being more a hindrance than a money source for them as possible.
I don't see in the page linked where do they provide a free VPN service.
Gee, I wonder what the far-right thinks about letting leftists speak freely?
The conflation between a chud using mullvad vs using the profits from mullvad to fund a political party... Tf
Icevpn has been great for me.
"Why did I, a libertarian anarchist, support the Örebro Party (ÖP), which is neither, with a donation?"
shocked face
He doesn't even work at the company
He does, he’s the CEO and owner.
And you guys are like "FUCK THEM"
I think people just don’t want their money being used to fund far right extremism. As is their right.
Are you suggesting that people are somehow morally obligated to continue funneling money into a company when they know for a fact their money will be used for evil?
I mean shit my tax dollars fund evil every single day and the only company I know of that will actually keep me semi safe from my government is mullvad.
I just wish some other VPN service got raided like that and then I could comfortably switch but I'm way too paranoid for that I want a proven track record.
You’re legally obligated to pay taxes and you have some say in how they’re spent in the form of state and federal elections (or your country’s equivalent). If you’re doing everything in your power to make sure that money isn’t used for evil then ultimately you can’t be faulted for what happens beyond that point.
But on the other hand you’re voluntarily choosing to pay Mullvad knowing full well that your money will be used to prop up far right extremism and you have no say in it beyond your choice to give them your money.
How you rationalize that to yourself is a personal matter but it certainly and absolutely does not give you a moral high ground over people who choose not to fund evil.
Both are non negotiable for me. I don't want my countries taxagwncy to steal my shit and throw me in prison for non compliance.
I also don't whatever surveillance company the same government is using tracking my movements and habits like I'm a terrorist for my anti fascist viewpoints among other things. So in that way, I also can't compromise on the only vpn service that's been proven by police involvement not to keep logs despite if the owner is an asshole or not.
I guess the mods can remove this comment too for whatever reason (ah, its an .ml) but I am still allowed to have an opinion. Fair on not having the high ground though I'm unwilling to compromise on my privacy even for the greater good of this situation so it seems.
Yeah, like its not like the product is bad, it's the best product on the market. Ruling out Mullvad here is simply a boycott.
To be honest, the current government coalition is worse than Örebropartiet. Sverigedemokraterna are nazis too, and they fund disinformation campaigns across the internet and take away internet and IRL privacy. The conservatives' immigration minister's son is literally in a brownshirt gang. If you're going to boycott Mullvad over this, you might as well boycott all of Sweden.
I really had no desire to get invested into this, but since this gets in my feed so frequently, here we go. I've read relevant posts on Daniel Berntsson's blog, i.e. the individual which this should really concern; instead of Mullvad as a whole. I understand the donated money possibly came from Mullvad subscribers, and if that leads you to unsubscribe, by all means do so; but stop bugging the rest of us.
It seems he donated to ÖP because they criticize excessive taxation, that is believed to typically end up enriching an (upper-)middle class (the "transferiat"), that gain additional support for (self-serving) policies, from lower (working) classes that are dependent on (welfare) subsidies. And given that immigrants are typically of the latter class, it's believed to further reinforce the transferiat's position: by a growing dependent class voting in favor of pro-transferiat policy.
This isn't to say he agrees with (stricter) immigration policy, nor with the other positions taken by ÖP, or any other political party for that matter. Instead, he adheres to a "libertarian anarchist" ideal, where "people can ... organically and voluntarily federate together at any scale". Rather than states appropriating capital from citizens, to only partially redistribute effectively in the form of common goods, which involves protection thereof through immigration policies for example; often to the detriment of people, including him personally.
This isn’t to say he agrees with (stricter) immigration policy, nor with the other positions taken by ÖP, or any other political party for that matter.
He basically IS that party's budget. His donation was like 80% or 90% of their total donations. I'd think if I basically owned a political party I'd try to make sure they don't do shit I disagree with.
I belief it's morally wrong to do that, both from the perspective of the donor and party: as people democratically voted to land the party the low number of seats it has. If a donor could just dictate party policy, you're disregarding the promise made to the voter. For such an insignificant party it's likely to give them additional budget for campaigning, so they might have a better chance at competing with the seated opposition. I would respect him if he didn't, but perhaps he's able to influence party policy over time; instead of having to fight the uphill battle to get into parliament with a party of his own.
I like mullvad and will continue to use them, but this was a terrible response. ÖrP is such a strange party. It's nationalistic, but also Marxist, somehow. I haven't read all their policies, but I dislike their immigration policy, and the way they act generally. They're loud and provocational.
The "Marxist" bit for ÖrP is like "Marx said that under capitalism wokers are alienatied cogs in a machine therefore we should have full control over the reproduction of none pure swedes, through mandatory birth control, so thay we can churn out cogs to the swedish industrial machine, just like Marx said". That is the type of "Marxism" they talk about in their pod.
https://expo.se/ is probably a good start. You can look for Markus Allard, the head of that party. He shares a podcast with Malcom Kyeyene. For example their article here, Swedish, talks about the close connections between these circles (albeit Allard and ÖbP is not the focus there) and white nationalism https://expo.se/...
National Socialism you say?
Having the correct class analysis but trying to keep the system just split the classes by ethnicity instead of overthrowing it is exactly what the Nazis proposed...
@lemmy.ml
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
go to feed...
@lemmy.ml
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
go to feed...
There is no stance that Mullvad can take on this in order to make me want to stay with them, since this is not an abstract, philosophical matter. It's simple: Daniel partially owns a pro profit company. I pay Daniel's company some money. Daniel reaps - as he should - parts of the company's revenue as wage (which is my money). Daniel uses that wage to fund whatever the hell he wants - as he should - with my money. I'm either fine with contributing to this or not. Period. I am not fine with it, so I'm flirting with IVPN.
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