People need to follow what they believe is necessary but I ask this: how many degrees of separation from your money is far enough to enjoy a product without having to worry about where the money is going? Eventually someone you don’t agree with will touch it.
I pay Mullvad. They pay the Founder. The Founder makes a large donation to anti-immigration parties.
Is that really enough abstraction for you?
“Yeah, I give money to the Nazi party. Do you know how long it’s been since they actually killed Jews? Get over it!”
I mean if you avoid companies where fascists directly profit from your purchases, I cannot think of a single company I would bet the house on not being one of those - so do you go hungry and thirsty or do you just steal all of your food and clothing and means of transportation?
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Or fascism. But maybe that’s being redundant.
I mean, it’s at least one degree of separation, right? Not giving money to Mullvad directly means Nazis have less money. So at least one.
Yeah, I mean people still drive VW and GM cars despite the respective manufacturers both benefiting from Nazi Germany during world war 2.
That is… very much a different thing in many different ways.
If people were buying them during WWII for instance, that would be a huge problem.
They did. After world war 2 ended, VW continued and GM reabsorbed Opel with no penalties.
i just bought myself a one month credit today… damn, i definitely should’ve done more research. can anyone recommend a VPN that isn’t fascistic?
The amount of hate on mullvad for what they openly acknowledged was a personal donation from someone who was a founder sure does seem like it’s astroturfing against an otherwise solid vpn provider with a better trackrecord and more transparency then most.
Seems like the Same sort of ppl who would pay for services with a bank card and then be shocked when that links them to an account.
What do these people want? Should Mullvad fire this person? On what grounds? Do people honestly think companies should have a say over what their employees or members spend their personal money on? That seems like a fascist attitude to me.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
Benefit of the doubt that you aren’t asking in bad faith.
Most people aren’t demanding Mullvad fire the founder, but that also doesn’t mean that we have to give him money to donate to fascists.
Mullvad are free do what they like with their right wing founder. Just like customers are free to refuse to fund anti-immigration policies. If Mullvad doesn’t like that, it’s up to them to decide how to appeal to customers.
Nobody is denying that Mullvad is a good product, but I need this specific vpn less than I need a safer future for my children.
Most people aren’t demanding Mullvad fire the founder,
except they kind of are by saying they’re switching because of his donation specifically, which implies to me that those same people would have to think its acceptable for a company to know and have influence over its founders political beliefs or donations. Like what other result are people expecting other then to have him step down from the org (because probably it would be illegal to actually oust them over political donations, so it’d have to be voluntary anyway).
Lets say it was the case for you, you founded a VPN company and turns out your partner is a fascist but you had no idea when it started because it wasnt until 5 years after the founding that they started dropping hints, what would you do? Start a brand new company? You could pressure them to step down privately, you could release a statement saying the company does not support those causes, and you could do everything in your power internally to ensure that person (and really NO person) has access to any kind of logging or things that could expose users (and thats also just practical in terms of keeping your reputation as a VPN provider in tact really). Mullvad has aready done the last bit, any VPN provide worth using would have to be setup in a similar way really.
Benefit of the doubt that you aren’t asking in bad faith.
How would this be in bad faith? I’m saying i think its short sighted because it seems to me they didn’t think through the entire consequences of what happens if it gets flipped on you or someone you support, while ignoring the things that would actually put more limitations on their own risks, primarily if you just switch to another VPN provide but dont ALSO stop paying with a card or something linked to your name/bank then you are not actually improving your own situation much.
It’s similar to the reaction for Proton “exposing” a customer’s payment information, of course i dont agree with them doing it, but I also understand they are a corporation and subject to laws of their country and court orders so the lesson should not be “dont use this VPN provider because they will rat on you” it should be “Dont give VPN providers enough information TO rat on you”
Do people honestly think companies should have a say over what their employees or members spend their personal money on?
Even without the “freeze peach” context, the company directly chose to give this individual in particular way more money than most people have including probably most of their other employees, that would enable them to make donations at the scale of hundreds of thousands of USD/EUR, so they already do have a lot of say. And in this case they’re a cofounder, not a random employee, so they as a person quite literally decide the company’s values.
That seems like a fascist attitude to me.
There’s nothing fascist about harm reduction.
You do make an excellent point on the differentiation between work and private lives. The majority of jobs I’ve ever worked would have fired me for my political donations and/or commentary, and as I am not an American Conservative, that would not be a good career move XD
You realize companies have and do fire people for actions in their personal lives, right? Especially in the US where virtually everyone works “at will” and having signed a piece of paper stating they would not hurt the reputation of the company or face termination? Other countries and contracts have similar clauses. Sweden is one such country, where there is a process involved but it is still very much a thing.
So why is it when an individual high up in the company, someone with decision power and who directly benefits from sales, does something that hurts the public perception, suddenly you’re asking us to just ignore it?
Why is it that your accusation of astroturfing sounds suspiciously like… well, astroturfing.
So why is it when an individual high up in the company, someone with decision power and who directly benefits from sales, does something that hurts the public perception, suddenly you’re asking us to just ignore it?
This is where its clear you you aren’t actually listening to what im saying. I didnt say it should be ignored. My point is that i think people are learning and sharing the wrong solution, The solution isnt to use your name associated bank account to pay a different VPN provider, its to avoid giving ANY vpn provider information that could link you to the account, and verify that they don’t keep logs. You can do this with LOTS of different vpn providers by looking at their transparency reports and how they respond to court orders, but very few people actually do that, they’d rather just be perforamtive and say “im voting with my wallet” which is lazy and does nothing to improve the situation for anyone.
This same sort of thing happens anytime a VPN company (like proton) responds to a legal court order, everyone was all “How could they do this to us!?!?” and not “Why would an activist pay using a credit card?, maybe we should teach people how payment systems work so they can avoid this in the future” I think we should focus more on the latter, preventative education, so that less people can be targeted or exposed in general.
I see this as a teachable moment, I’m not trying to get people to ignore the underlying issue, I just think it should be part of a more complete re-evaluation of how we all use and pay for VPN providers.
When i say its astroturfing, i don’t mean against mullvad alone, I think there is a coordinated effort going on to instill division and mistrust among vpn users and providers. I think the goal is to amplify negative publicity for any VPN provider they can, its becoming a trend now.
This same sort of thing happens anytime a VPN company (like proton) responds to a legal court order, everyone was all “How could they do this to us!?!?” and not “Why would an activist pay using a credit card?, maybe we should teach people how payment systems work so they can avoid this in the future” I think we should focus more on the latter, preventative education, so that less people can be targeted or exposed in general.
It doesn’t help that Proton doesn’t have a Monero payment option, it’s like they’re not even trying
the problem is that the same people who buy vpn services are the people who care that parties like he supports don’t get to power… so when they learn that their money (that they paid for the vpn) directly helped to pay for that donation (via the company that made him rich) they are understendably pissed.
edit: this guy below said it much better than me https://lemmy.world/post/51539700/25684523
I would hope that such people would think their own political beliefs and private donations are none of their employers business. I would hope people would pause and think “what happens if this gets flipped on me” if suddenly donating to say anti-fascist causes where to become a fireable offense I bet those same people would be pretty upset
Just seems like very poorly thought out reason for rejecting a service like Mullvad especially given that the company put out a statement that did not defend the donation and distanced themselves from the persons personal views which they most likely didn’t know until well after the check was cashed.
Call me a conspiracy theorist but I think there might be a less organic reason why this is being pushed, like maybe Mullvad is difficult for certain agencies to strong arm due to their discouraging of using traditional trackable payment methods and having well secured servers.
Difference is I don’t own a company, but you are more than welcome to have a soured opinion of the company I work for for employing me based in whatever political beliefs I hold. How is this any different than boycotting JKR for her right wing TERF donations?
Me giving Mullvad money will directly put money in this co-founder’s pocket to give to facists, not just as an employee but as a stake holder in that company. No, he can’t be fired, and I would also not like to be fired for my political beliefs, but the population is absolute free to chose not to spend money at establishments that hosts those views.
I think you can apply Occam’s razor here. Do people just not want to fund someone with express interest in racist/racist/nazist ideology like with JKR, Musk, Trump etc. or is there a conspiracy that 3-letter agencies are sour they can’t crack Mullvad and so want people to use other services?
Hey, I’m a real person who organically discovered this news and made behavioral changes based on the news.
I am not a nazi. I do not want to support nazi policies or beliefs or people who would strengthen and distribute Nazi policies or beliefs. If someone supports forcibly relocating citizens based off their bloodline history or the color of their present day skin, I think they should be as far away from a position of power as society can possibly manage while still treating them like a human.
I believe, based on the Mullvad news, that one of the main benefactors if mullvad - meaning one of the guys who got a % for every euro I spent on the service - actively and meaningfully supports a national party with policies akin to Nazis. I want as much of my money to go to NOT-Nazis as possible, ideally 100%. So I left Mullvad for… I think it’s airvpn. Or ivpn actually, although I considered airvpn.
I don’t think this is a crazy response. I also wish it was the overwhelmingly common response.
meaning one of the guys who got a % for every euro I spent on the service - actively and meaningfully supports a national party with policies akin to Nazis. I want as much of my money to go to NOT-Nazis as possible, ideally 100%. So I left Mullvad for… I think it’s airvpn. Or ivpn actually, although I considered airvpn
Unless you fully audited every founder, owner, and staff member at IVPN (Nick Pestell et al.) or AirVPN (Paolo Brini / the activist group behind it), how do you know they don’t hold similar political views or make donations privately to similar effect? I couldnt find anything looking them up and it seems very unlikely they are fascist algigned, but i think you can understand my point here, unless you have an explicit statement from the company, its very possible they could have a closet fascist in the ranks.
I don’t mean to say the posts here are entirely fake, i mean to say the outrage being stoked seems short sighted, While i agree with not wanting my money to support fascist causes, I don’t consider someone’s personal donations or how they spend their money any of their employers business, nor would i want to live in a society where an employer or a business gets to have a say in those things. I read mullvads response, if they had doubled down and defended the guy that would be one thing, but they clearly have to walk a careful tightrope due to a difficult situation that i believe the other founders genuinely did not know about until it came out in the news.
BTW here are the only VPN providers i could find that have openly and explicitly declared anti-fascist beliefs:
NymVPN / " I am proud to be an anarchist against fascism." - Harry Halpin
I wonder what kind of response you’d get if you emailed VPN providers to ask about the personal donation habits or political leanings of their founders, maybe thats a project i’ll take on another day. Probably something worth knowing and keeping public.
I think your responses to this are taking extreme theoretical positions that aren’t true. So for instance, the extreme theory of “I don’t support them because one of their (still financially connected) founders is a nazi” is “I must research all company’s I support for their political beliefs” and that’s not true - that’s an extreme stance.
My real stance is “everyone should strive to be as ethical a consumer as they possibly can be - given their time, energy, and financial situations.” It’s not my job to research every company and I don’t have time/energy to research every provider of every product I consume; but I do what I can. It’s the job of the journalist to dig up these meaningful stories and distribute them to their community, that’s why that job is so important. And easily getting these stories distributed to me is why I’m on Lemmy (or back in the day reddit).
So no, I do not have to research everyone to reduce my euros from going to Nazi’s. If my options are known Nazi or unknown something - I expect a reasonable person to always go with the unknown.
And I do want to live in a society where Nazi beliefs have real life consequences, including and especially at work. The extreme stance is “all beliefs can be held against you at work” and that’s wrong. There’s a difference between a person wanting their government to tax them 2% less and a person wanting their government to expunge all black people to countries they may have never even visited. There’s a difference between being a part of the NRA and being a part of the KKK. You can be in party that worsens your country and your quality of life and makes the world slowly worse (like pre-trump modern republicans in the US or the CDU in Germany). You can’t be in party that is actively looking to dismantle civil rights, harm the out-groups, and make society rapidly worse (like Republicans, AfD, reform for britain, or the Nazi party).
Everyone should want to live in a society where, if their coworkers are racist their company does something about it. Because that gets rid of racists at best or at worst it makes them sneakier - more quiet. Their has to be societal consequences for holding societally destructive beliefs. Should they starve? No. We should have Universal Basic Income. Should they be kicked out of their home? No, they should own their home and there shouldn’t be landlords. Should they be removed from any position of power and barred from ever holding one again? Yes, absolutely. They should be “tarred and feathered”, we should put a badge on them that says “dangerous and hateful” and we should treat them as such - they only get to hold jobs which can’t hurt other people they seek to hurt.
There is a difference between ideas destructive to society and most normal ideas and you should want to treat them differently.
What is the proof that they’re a solid VPN provider and not a NSA honey pot? Do they publish their infrastructure? Can you audit the servers? Is there any evidence?
No.
That means that the fact that they’re a “solid VPN provider” is based completely on their reputation.
Their reputation is that the company is run by a person who donates to repugnant people who are the ones who build and leverage surveillance states.
No astroturfing is needed, this is the result.
Doesn’t matter, when my subscription expires I will be moving on to a non-nazi-loving VPN provider
For what it’s worth, I paid for an annual subscription in February. When the news that their CEO is funding the far right came out, I emailed Mullvad support asking them to refund the remainder of my annual subscription, and the reason, and they did it. So if you would like to, you can ask for a refund and don’t have to wait until subscription expires.
Likewise. Bought a three-month sub so’s that I wouldn’t have to top it up too often, and then they came out with all that shit. Subscription expires in two days - forever. Hello, iVPN.
I’m glad i left Mullvad behind when they stopped supporting port forwarding.
Don’t forget everyone, your money might end up in far right Swedish parties.
Once my current subscription expires, I will never buy their vpn and switch to another provider.
Proton has been alright for me so far. However, at this rate, I’m just waiting for something similar to happen with them too. Crossing my fingers.
Didn’t their CEO or some similar executive openly praise Trump when he came back into office?
More like Trump’s pick for office but since then Proton wised up and put the CEO on mute lol
More or less.
Uggghhhhh, thanks for the info though
Shouldn’t be surprised, to be a CEO you gotta have a screw loose for the job
/s
/but-not-really-tho
Torguard is my weapon of choice for a decade now.
Can someone catch me up, I thought people liked Mullvad… but this thread seems to suggest otherwise. What did I miss?
My understanding is one of mullvads primary owners and creators donates a significant portion of their country’s far right party’s annual budget. Their policies, last I checked, included things like remigration or the forced expulsion of citizens based off of arbitrary and immutable characteristics (think bloodline or skin color). They’re akin to the AfD or Republicans. Theoretically a meaningful % of money spent on Mullvad goes to a person actively trying to make the world worse, like Elon Musk or JK Rowling.
So some people, including me, stopped supporting mullvad until the person is completely financially and influentially disconnected from the company.
Yeah, but what have immigrants done for us?!
Performed menial, back-breaking labor at rates well below the legal minimums? Contribute to our economy and society while being treated as absolute garbage? Seek out a better life while being spit on by those around them? Have a lower property and violent crime rate than the general public while being multiple times more likely to be a victim of a crime?
Wait, why am I supposed to hate them again?
Appreciate the explanation. What’s the generally trusted/suggested VPN then?
As another user said, IVPN or airvpn were the ones that came up in my last search. I have removed proton for them having the same trump supporting tech bros problem.
IVPN, AirVPN, and Proton all fairly popular here. One of Proton’s higher-ups is a Trump supporter though
There isn’t a comparable service.
If you don’t need what mullvad is selling then there are others out there but the landscape is hard to navigate if you don’t understand what you’re there for and how to choose what you give out.
The reason why I use a VPN is to protect myself from people like the co-founder of Mullvad. So you see how this can cause a conflict…
Would you be okay with your employer or business partner getting to review every political donation you made during their employ or setting restrictions on what you could spend your money on?
I can understand the conflict if the guy was like in a position where he could reveal data about users but thats nowhere close to being the case because the entire company barely keeps any data in the first place
How will you know there isn’t any right wing staff at the next vpn you choose? Seems pretty short sighted.
I want my protection to be such that even if I know the enemy is actively monitoring the network they won’t be able to obtain anything useful. I wouldn’t want to use a service that exclusively targets people just on my side because that makes it easier to narrow down and target.
How will you know there isn’t any right wing staff at the next vpn you choose? Seems pretty short sighted.
There are many nazis and fascists everywhere in society. While is not comforting, that’s how the world is and one Nazi Staff on it’s own can’t do shit. But we’re talking about a leader here with power and influence (money).
I can understand the conflict if the guy was like in a position where he could reveal data about users but thats nowhere close to being the case because the entire company barely keeps any data in the first place
But he can, I paid using my credit card. He could disclose the list of clients and payments if he is aligned with a fascist. He could one day decide to install malware on the software and by the time we find out it’s too late. I know it sounds paranoid but how can you trust a Nazi when your life is on the line?
he can, I paid using my credit card. He could disclose the list of clients and payments
So you’ve also learned the lesson of not paying with a credit card now right? Otherwise you are just as succeptible with the next vpn you use.
You dont take away the power to by shifting it to some other company which may or may not have less fascists. or some other fasicts (like ones working for the government now) could just as well get the info from your card issuer, or PayPal or whatever gateway you pay with.
know it sounds paranoid but how can you trust a Nazi when your life is on the line?
I don’t trust them, and I am equally untrusting of the payment processors and federal government that’s why I avoid paying for vpn or hosting services with anything connected to a bank account in my name. If you do that then they have nothing to expose.
Notable that mullvad calls out the situation themselves
“societies need a great diversity of ideas, initiatives and organizations who can be tested and sifted until the best ones remain” -Mullvad.
This apparently includes nazi ideas
good thing we can test and sift the Nazi ones out by not giving them money
You didn’t miss anything. Haters just finally got a reason to crawl out of their dirt caves
Mullvad is great for my needs. I may try proton next year, not sure.
It’s a shame one of the founders funds Nazis now, I won’t be renewing
I’ve just seen this.
Do you know any good alternatives?
Tunnel bear
I moved to AirVPN after Mullvad shut down port forwarding and haven’t had any issues. It’s run by privacy activists.
Can second this
iVPN is the the best alternative if you want something as powerful as Mullvad. It’s a bit slower though
iVPN looks good
can confirm. is good.
ProtonVPN if you can stomach one CEO once praised trumps choice of some anti euh oligopol(?) lawyer.
If you already use Proton Mail, I strongly recommend against using ProtonVPN because you’re coupling yourself too hard to Proton. At least, if your threat model is high risk
What if I just torrent shit occasionally? Am I good? I like proton’s services a lot for the convenience which is a no no on here but I am a lazy fuck.
If you just use VPNs to torrent stuff, then that’s fine. I’m just saying that if your threat model makes you a target to let’s just say the CCP for example, then coupling Proton’s suite with their VPN is a bad idea
I don’t do anything that makes me a target so I’m all right
If I’m going to move away from mullvard because a high up funds populists I’d rather avoid that too.
Funny how someone can be just a normal right wing or even center-right and you dumb bitches call everyone a Nazi that doesn’t think exactly like you. Bunch of hive mind idiots lmao.
Anyone that’s considers themselves right wing with the current fascist in power deserves it. If you look at what’s happening now and say “i guess it’s fine I’m still right wing” then yeah the moniker holds.
Don’t condone Nazi shit if you don’t wanna be called a Nazi.
I mean, the account is named Glowie…
Don’t condone Nazi shit if you don’t wanna be called a Nazi.
Advocating for remigration is unquestionably far right, which the founder has done. Unless you yourself agree with it…
Yeah, this is the part that made me pause when I was reading about this because I’m like, holy shit. That isn’t just right wing, like, that straight Nazi shit. Like, holy shit.
We all fund Nazis if we live in modern 1st world nations. It’s time to start blaming ourselves…
Sure, but there’s a difference between existing in society and actively going out of your way to fund projects that are made by hyper-racists (the the omarchy guy)
No no, the whole “no ethical consumption under capitalism” thing means that there’s no moral difference between my tax money funding ICE and directly donating to hateful people. They’re both bad, and there’s no possible way to measure how one thing could be worse than another.
You might be right but it is such a defeatist way to look at it. Maybe 30%-50% goes to taxes and you ha e no control over that. You also need food, a home, and depending where you live a car, so that limits your options. But the rest you have full control over. You can choose not to buy a Tesla, not to subscribe to Mullvad, not to donate to Omarchy. And with the money you save you can buy another car from a brand whose CEO didn’t literally make the Nazi gesture on live TV, subscribe to a VPN that’s not donating to a Nazi party, either directly or through a founder, and instead of investing time and money in a distro founded by a racist, you could use another distro.
It’s only impossible if you say it is. I’m also boycotting US as much as possible due to Greenland and the EU tariffs. It’s even harder because of how connected the economies are, but I still go out of my way to buy Danish soda instead of Pepsi or Coca-Cola, Italian toothpaste instead of Colgate, etc.
You might be right
I was being sarcastic. I really thought the second sentence would be enough to give it away.
It was. An intelligent reader should have had no problem with it.
I didn’t pick up that it was sarcastic, personally
A “/s” would have been helpful to note the saracasm.
There is no sarcasm in text
You are not wrong, but the comment you wrote this to is literally about trying actively not to.
Fuck Mullvad
Makes sense, Quad9 is really good!
Yeah, I ain’t mad at it. Especially with the dubious stuff an exec at mullvad did. Quad9 is my default anyway, but I did use the mullvad dns here and there.
Anyone got info on this?
Mullvad’s wikipedia page has a section on it: Donation to the Örebro Party.
Also handy heard anything like that. Supporting info appreciated.
I’ve been recommending Mullvad DNS for its adblock functionality. Quad9 does not provide this.
I am now seeking recommendations for an equivalent I can recommend to friends and family for use on devices that do not easily support system-wide adblocking.
AdGuard maintains a list of DNS providers; there are several with ad blocking.
You can go with the default Adguard DNS configuration https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html
Hosting your own DNS resolver is quite simple. Suggest trying PiHole.
Yes, I’ll tell my mother to host a PiHole.
Of course bringing it with her would require something to tether it to other than the phone she’s actually using as a phone (I think), and a way to power it all. She’s going to need a bigger purse.
Or she could access it remotely. I doubt her residential DSL comes with a static IP, so she’s going to have to get a domain name and set up dynamic DNS… oh, and route the appropriate port to her Pi through the ISP’s NAT router, assuming it actually supports that. Maybe she should buy the latest fancy one from GL.iNet with those big antennas and OpenWRT.
I think I might send her that AdGuard link instead.
“You want me to do what with a pie hole? You know you’re not too big for a slap, young man!”
Works great on my phone. Thinking of enabling it on my desktop, too, but I’m not too bothered there, using uBlock Origin. 👍
Yes, quad9 has DNS adblock
Neither this screenshot nor their website claims to block ordinary advertisements.
Funny, I’ve been having a lot of problems with Mullvad DNS so I just switched to Quad9.
Been using next DNS free DNS. They get overloaded sometimes but usually work fine.
I use Quad9 where I can, but admittedly also have some reliability issues. Their local PoP will drop all requests for a couple minutes at least a few times a week. It’s a shame since it’s the closest/best recursive resolver otherwise. CloudFlare is similarly close, but they don’t support EDNS, so I’ve had problems because of that.
Can someone tell me whats wrong with Quad9? I’ve never used or heard of that.
There’s nothing wrong with quad9. They’re a good privacy dns that blocks phishing and malware. Adguard dns though, also blocks ads and tracking so I would recommend that as well
They’re fine as long as you don’t mind the illuminati providing your dns and blocklist /s (?): https://www.techmonitor.ai/technology/cybersecurity/security-alliance-launches-dns-resolver
Oh wow it’s the city
