Technology

Saying he 'made a donation' is downplaying his role. It makes it sound like he's just some guy doing what everyone else does to participate in politics...

The 2025 donation accounted for 72% of the party's total income last year. ... According to data collected by DonationWatch, 2025 was the most lucrative year in the party’s history, netting a total of 5.58 million SEK. For comparison, the party received just 202,000 SEK in total donations throughout 2024.

Just the annual interest on his donation is more that all of their other donations for the entire year combined.

He didn't just make a donation, he is almost their sole source of financing.

Mullvad co-CEO Fredrik Strömberg confirmed that neither Mullvad VPN AB, its parent company Amagicom AB, nor its sister company Tillitis AB played any role in supporting the political party.

It doesn't mtster if the company itself was directly involved or not, the money came from the company, and from its' customers.

I’m tired boss…..

Just when you think you find good companies to support they end up being run by shitbags.

Ok, where to next for my VPN needs?

All private financing of political parties and politicians everywhere must stop.

Just as religion and state must be separated so must politics and money. If you hold more than $10 million in assets you don't get to influence politics. It's one or the other, not both.

"I don't like co-owning a nazi bar." Well, boohoo, grow a spine and do something about it.

"I like this burger made by fascists. I'm going to keep eating this burger, I don't care where it came from or where my money buying the burger goes to."

So many comments here sound like this, geez. Same people saying "we can be friends, can't we, even if our politics differ?" Morality and respecting humans isn't politics. And no. We can't.

Also, yes, enforcing racial and national purity (remigration) is, in fact, fascist ideology. Get over it. It's not extreme, it's calling a spade a spade. https://lemmy.zip/comment/27359847

There is no middle ground to be had with Nazis. It's us or them. If the Nazi won't leave Mullvad, then I will leave as a customer. Simple as

I'm not at the point where this outweighs the reasons I picked mullvad yet. And the other cofounder's statement does at least give me hope that it might work itself out in a way I can accept before my current term is finished.

That being said, I'm not sure I can give money to the company when someone is profiting from that money and spending part of it on a political organization that expressly espouses a stance I believe to be harmful and dangerous. And it isn't like you can pirate a VPN, so it differs significantly from when actors or musicians do stupid shit.

That being said, I also don't think that using mullvad would be something other people would be obligated to avoid just because the CEO donated to a small and shitty political party. By itself, it isn't something so bad that it's possible to point to a customer and do more than inform them of the donation and maybe give them links to see for themselves that it's a shitty party. Or, at least that it's a party with some really shitty platforms.

But the guy needs to show a major shift in how he donates before I'll renew.

"donation"? this is called lobbying. And it should be illegal.

Neither right or left but mostly not left. Bunch of fuckers.

How can you try to defend VPN usage and privacy if you need to collect data to identify migrants or descendants of migrants to strip their citizenship and deport them? It's not like we don't have examples of fascists using technology to profile and identify their targets: nazi Germany and IBM, Israël and Azure, or the DOGE that siphonated as much data as they could...

ffs - first Proton, now this.

I've never liked the idea that I have to trust my VPN, and this news raises a pretty significant trust issue. Makes me think I've been approaching this from the wrong angle.

Anyone have experience with the TOR daemon?

Racist co-founder. Let's just start calling a spade a spade. He's a racist.

Private wealth is a mistake

Wikipedia - is as always - doing a great job at gathering info and they wrote down what the party's policies are.

IMHO what they propose makes no sense:

• (Massively) cut taxes
• Reimmigration
• Reduce the normal work week by 25%

How is that economy supposed to work? Where do you get the money from to finance this? Who should offset the missing work?

A $500k donation can bankroll your party for some time but certainly not an entire country...