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 :)
Proton's CEO sucks. I canceled my extremely low-priced, grandfathered subscription and moved elsewhere. I had been a user since basically day one, a subscriber since available, and converted family members and friends to it. Not anymore.
Mullvad has been stellar. Fast, anonymous, easy to use. Zero complaints.
I like mullvad because I can pay for it with vouchers and have nothing to tie my payment to my account#
I don't think any other VPN can do that.
Theres also the fact that mullvad was raided by the (Swedish)police and even though they fully complied, the police ended up walking away with nothing because mullvad had nothing to give them.
Proton on the other hand, will at the very least be storing your email, payment info, and possibly other info in your account that mullvad won't. I also don't like how they have aligned themselves with conservative politics.
You can also pay with cash in an envelope
I chose Mullvad because they don't ask for any personal details and you can pay anonymously, which means that their service is privacy protecting by design. You don't have to rely so much on trust.
Proton seems to be a large and rapidly expanding company which looks like it's trying to be a more privacy respecting competitor to Google's many services. While that's not necessarily a bad thing, I prefer companies that value stability over rapid expansion. I also don't like relying on a potential single point of failure for everything. I have a Proton e-mail account but I don't use any of their other services because I don't want everything in the same place.
I use Proton VPN only because I use Proton everything else. If not, I'd probably consider Mullvad. But I'm in the US and regional pricing doesn't apply.
Same. Use Proton to get the suite of tools for 1 price. Mullvad if you just need a VPN.
Mullvad.
All you are to them is an account number. that's it. no name, no email, nothing. you can even pay in cash. while mullvad's GUI is still meh their CLI is top notch and very quick.
The main difference I see between the two is that Mullvad no longer offers port forwarding services and ProtonVPn does offer port forwarding services.
This can make a big difference based on your use-case scenarios. If you are gaming and need port forwarding or are torrenting and need port forwarding Protonvpn is the better choice.
I use Mullvad and game. Split tunneling lets you bypass the VPN to game. Port forwarding is useful for torrenting. Probably a few other things too.
"On 29 May 2023, Mullvad announced that they would be removing support for port forwarding, effective on 1 July 2023."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mullvad
https://mullvad.net/en/blog/removing-the-support-for-forwarded-ports
I used to have Mullvad and switched to Proton because I use pretty much their entire suite...
If you don't need port forwarding, I think Mullvad is superior in everything. Such a great service, highly recommend it.
I would recommend mullvad.
the ceo of proton did idicate support of the trump and the republican party and while they backtracked and apologized and all that, is it out that atleast some in the company think like that and i dont trust them anymore.
and trust is number 1 priority for vpn.
Mullvad. Excellent service, never had an issue. Used to use Proton, but their CEO sucks ass
I use both (not suggesting that). I mostly use Proton because it's already included in my plan, and they seem to have more connections to choose from, but I frequently have to switch because the one I'm on starts to get really slow. I like Mullvad's flat pricing and lack of commitment (they even accept cash), and it was an easier setup on Linux (at least Arch).
Mullvad because it accepts cash payments.
FYI, Proton also accepts cash.
Mullvad is more private but Proton VPN still supports port forwarding.
Both options are good. I think for the most part it boils down to wanting a single product or suite of products.
While you certainly can get just one proton service, the idea of having an easy entry point into multiple privacy focused solutions is what they are going for.
The pro argument for that is cheaper overall, simpler to get into and mange, etc. The con argument is an eggs in one basket philosophy isn't ideal because you can have a single point of failure. This is all subjective to your personal threat model.
Proton mail has an alias feature that I rather enjoy. Does anyone know an alternative service for that. I was looking to leave the proton ecosystem. Switching to mullvad is easy enough for vpn but im also looking at email etc.
i too miss the alias service, and i dont really know an alternative aswell.
The issue is kinda, that any alias service is basically just forwarding your mails ... so it is really hard to trust anyone with that
and a private domain is not really a solution, for privacy
and like tuta does offer 15 or 30 (but 30 is super expensive) permanent aliases.. which is like nice but does fill up super quickly if used like how it is used for proton
I personally prefer the Mullvad client since, at least on MacOS, it allows you to exclude specific apps from the VPN, while the ProtonVPN client does not! I still use ProtonVPN instead though, since it's also significantly cheaper for me.
For sailing the seas, I like CryptoStorm.is Good speed with port forwarding.
Proton had a Black Friday sale and that's the reason it prevailed over Mulvad. Every penny matters when you're a pensioner.
Mullvad VPN is more private but I find I'm being asked to prove I'm human more often. Proton VPN I don't trust with anything like piracy because they're a large company with too much to lose by being overly private.
EDIT: Oh, and reminder that you should use the Mullvad browser too if you want to keep anything private.