I used Mullvad for a long time, but hearing about one of the two CEOs actively supporting and financing swedish Nazis, I’m looking to put my money elsewhere. That’s the second one after Private Internet Access (who supported Gab).
I had AirVPN and Surfshark being recomnended, how do people here feel? What do you use?
there was an article today about the entire mullvad company being blindsided by this and a lot of people being upset. with any luck the guy will leave or get thrown out.
also i think they’re technically nazbols.
Isn’t he the founder?
Cofounder, and 50% owner. For him to get kicked out would take a lot.
he could be a rational human about it and see that it’s bad for the brand. considering he was willing to work with a guy that actively dislikes what he did he may have a few braincells left.
That kinda seems unlikely to me. I’m certain that he’s aware that supporting ethnic cleansing (albeit not overtly violent) is not compatible with having customers.
they don’t tend to see it like that from my experience. but yeah the chance is slim.
He has most likely purchased himself control of, or at least a position within a right wing party. There is no coming back from that. For Mullvads sake he needs to move on, and soon.
I think “would take a lot” might be understating it.
It’s likely he’d have to be bought out by the other guy with an attractive offer.
Or the other owner (Fredrik Strömberg) splits off and sets up his own vpn… Strömvad, or Mullberg, or MullStröm
co-. the other founder is pretty pissed.
This is the only reason for why I haven’t demanded a refund of my remaining balance yet. I’m holding out for a dismissal or something.
Demanding a refund could add to the pressure though, you could always renew after he (hopefully) goes. I can’t get a refund since mine has just run out but I’m not making any long-term decisions until the dust has settled.
I totally agree! It’s just that I have two routers setup with them, running 24/7, and I have configured mom’s devices with my account and I don’t have the time to reconfigure all this with something else at the moment. 😩
I requested and received my refund with the aim to prompt this.
Sitting on your hands suggests that you do not care about it. If they do not lose enough customers, why would anything change?
Is there other option?
There are many options. It’s important to do some research on these options. It’s also important to know why you want to choose a certain provider. Check their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy at the very least. For now, I’m looking into IVPN.
There are very few decent options, ivpn seems decent though
I’m giving it a week or two to see if anything happens while also researching alternatives
also i think they’re technically nazbols.
what’s a nazbol?
National Bolsheviks, in essence merging nazism with communism.
National Bolsheviks, in essence merging nazism with communism.
Nazism+
what an awful idea
That’s why the bolsheviks purged them.
Like this?
Yes! Alternatively you can just put an Z there too, same meaning.
A Nazi, basically.
It stands for “national bolshevism,” so tankies minus the leftism, which… yeah.
national bolsheviks. basically ultranationalist tankies.
Closer to Nazis than communists.
Nazbols want to unify socialist economic planning with imperialism. They were purged by Stalin and the Bolsheviks for wanting to engage in imperialism, and also saw popularity in Germany. Essentially a far-right ideology that stands against socialist internationalism.
This is likely true, but in the hacker news thread about this, the non Nazi cofounder was pretty defensive about what a great guy he was, and that there was just no way that him being a Nazi could ever effect Mullvad itself:
Here’s one example, but these linked thread has more excuses hes made:
kfreds 1 day ago | root | parent | next [–]
I’m sorry to hear that. For what it’s worth I think there’s nuance in his decision that most people don’t see. Of course that doesn’t mean I think it was the right decision to make.
Here’s something worth considering: why would someone whose ideal is open borders, who has been an animal rights activist, and someone who has led Mullvad for 17 years (with the track record it has), choose to donate to this party? If you like what Daniel and I have done together over the past 17 years, and now vehemently oppose his choice to make this donation, doesn’t that make you just a little bit curious?
It made me curious. It didn’t change my ultimate stance, but it did temper my emotions about it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=kfreds
That level of denial feels custom made for them to give him a pass and keep him onboard.
when you’ve known someone personally for that long you’re bound to get defensive, i think. and the question is worth considering; why?
Time will tell, his response was what prompted me to request and receive my refund though. Either bad wording, or a bad attitude towards this.
Link to the article?
from the same paper that did the original reporting. swedish and paywalled unfortunately, but the first few paragraphs are readable.
Extracted with firefox reader mode and machine translated:
Internal crisis at Mullvad: “Drags down the company” Jacob Lundberg 4–5 minutes
Last week, Flamman was able to reveal that tech profile Daniel Berntsson is the main financier of the Örebro Party, which is running for parliament with demands for “large-scale remigration”.
The news was presented to employees late on Friday evening, and according to several sources with insight, the information has led to an internal rebellion at the IT company Mullvad, where Berntsson is the owner and CEO.
Around a quarter of the employees gathered in an internal chat over the weekend, where they aired criticism of both the donation and the company’s handling of the disclosure.
“I was shocked and sad, and at first surprised,” writes an employee to Flamman.
Another person says that it is both a “deep disappointment” and an “insult” to the company’s employees with a foreign background.
Berntsson himself commented on the news to employees during a meeting on Monday, where employees were allowed to ask questions. Sources to Flamman described the atmosphere before the meeting as tense.
To Flamman, Berntsson justified the donation with “resistance to corruption and dysfunction, creativity and the will to actually solve problems.” Regarding the party’s demand for “comprehensive remigration,” he said that it is needed in view of “today’s miserable situation.”
Several sources tell Flamman that Berntsson has emphasized at recent staff meetings that there are dividing lines among employees in their views on immigration.
“It was like a puzzle piece fell into place,” says an employee, after the revelation about the donation.
Another source says that he has not seen anyone among the staff express support for the donation. At the same time, the chat group for critical discussion still only brings together a minority of the staff.
However, another source believes that the critical group is probably larger.
“I suspect that not everyone dares to show what they think and feel,” he writes to Flamman.
The employees are critical of the donation for several reasons, including that many of the employees themselves are immigrants and “take this very personally.”
Several employees also point out that the Örebro Party’s attitude towards surveillance is at odds with Mullvad’s, as they have advocated increasing the number of surveillance cameras and enabling secret wiretapping in the hunt for criminals.
“Many of the staff believe that this disqualifies Daniel as the leader of a company like Mullvad,” the source writes.
The person also says that many have applied to Mullvad for ethical reasons, that the management’s handling of the issue “definitely damaged trust” among the staff, and that several employees “in light of the donation are considering quitting”. One person says that they will “look around for alternatives”.
“My trust in the leadership is at rock bottom”, says a third person.
The source also says that they see no other way forward than for Daniel Berntsson to step down as CEO. However, another employee sees it as unlikely that Berntsson, who owns 50 percent of the company, will step down on his own. At the meeting, he is also said to have rejected the idea.
“My guess is that he will stay just as before. If you look at how the official response is worded, it is about Mullvad standing for freedom of opinion. They are trying to emphasize that it is something he did as a private person, and that it is therefore not so bad.”
However, the person remains critical:
“It’s one thing to have opinions that don’t match mine, but to make such a gigantic donation without realizing that he is bringing down both himself, Mullvad as a company and all employees at the same time. It makes me doubt his ability as CEO and manager.”
Flamman has sought out Daniel Berntsson.
have they released an official statement about it?
not that i can find.
List of vpns not to use
NordVPN
Facebook Onavo
ExpressVPN
Private Internet Access
Everything Kape Technologies
HolaVPN
PureVPN
ZenMate
CyberGhost
Imagine someone unironically using Facebook’s VPN service.
I don’t want to be mean to you, as it might be just ignorance.
But my dude, why did you decide to use Inaccessible photo instead of using text or at the very least Text +photo?
If I suffer from any condition that affect my vision or my reading /understanding… how am I supposed to read this?
sorry, added the list in plaintext
Thank you a lot🌹.
You included AirVPN in that list even though they aren’t mentioned in either of your screenshots… maybe a typo? I’ve never heard of them being associated with Kape so am curious why you lumped them into all that.
sorry, typo
What’s wrong with Nord?
NordVPN is interesting because it was less about them handing over data to the government, and them just not being transparent about an attack. All the others in that post clearly were in cahoots with big gov.
NordVPN’s defense was technically coherent: because the company doesn’t store activity logs, no user browsing data was exposed. The breach was framed as a vendor problem. The attacker had gotten in through an insecure remote management system that the data center had left open. NordVPN said it hadn’t even known the system existed.
That may all be accurate. But the eighteen months of silence is the actual story.
Yeah, I was expecting it to be much worse to be honest. Obviously they should have said something right away and hopefully they’ve learned their lesson. Not sure I’d write them off for this one incident from 7-8 years ago but it’s probably still good to have that asterisks on their name.
Why is airvpn on your list?
What’s wrong with PIA? I thought they have shown that they do not store any data more than once.
They’re Israeli, and the biggest vulnerability of a VPN is the provider.
their parent company hired someone from Project Raven to be a CIO for ExpressVPN
I use Proton but I’m also in their ecosystem (ie, I also pay for ProtonMail and get the rest of their suite alongside it)
Wasn’t Proton’s CEO in some hot water a year or so ago, or was that a bunch of hooey? I know it’s impossible to find an ethical CEO, but just curious.
…sure I could look it up, but my phone battery sucks and it helps boost activity.
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/
I use Proton. but I find it suss how they are trying to do it all, so I don’t use most of their products
proton = poogle (purple google) plus they are an ai company.
They made a very naive comment suggesting a authoritarian regime supports privacy
And doubled down then changed their comments as if the way back machine doesn’t exist in order to backtrack without having to admit they were wrong.
Technically it is true, it makes easier to spread their propaganda in other countries by using bots.
So some of anti-age verification agenda is generated by russia and china etc. to make easier to create bot accounts.
He made a couple of supportive tweets about a Trump anti-trust appointment (who was later fired by Trump) and the Republican Party that offended some people, mainly the American left. People seem to forget that he is not American, nor is Proton an American company, so none of this actually means anything. He cannot vote, he and his company do not fund the American right in any way and he is not someone with a huge online presence, so it’s unlikely he has much influence.
More recently a far right influencer in France signed up for Proton’s affiliate program and promoted Proton on his channel, which led to some misleading claims about Proton “funding Nazis”. Proton immediately removed him from the affiliate program upon being notified of this and apologised for what it claims was an oversight.
Personally I’m very sick of the purity tests and cancel culture on the left and wish people would slow down a bit and really consider whether these “controversies” are actually worth burning it all down for. Proton provides mainstream, easy to use alternatives to big tech and is better existing than not. Its VPN is also one of the few that retains port forwarding, which can be useful for piracy. After the attempts to cancel Proton, the left hard shilled for Mullvad and now it turns out that’s objectively worse in terms of its political influencing. Mullvad is another company that does more good in the world than bad, are we going to cancel it too?
“Why do Americans care if Ford supports Hitler, he’s not even German!”
Interesting combination of lies and unironic use of “cancel culture” in the rest of the nonsense btw.
You guys don’t even bother pretending to be sane these days. It’s just mask off from the first reply with the Hitler comparisons that used to be considered a joke in more normal times.
This dumbass is literally looking at CEOs outright supporting fascism and ethnic cleansing in a privacy sub and asking why people are bringing up the Nazis.
Btw, dumbfuck, Godwin had an interview where he tried to point out to people like you that the “Law” isn’t meant to stop people from accurately describing loud and proud fascists.
in a privacy sub
???
You don’t need to belabor your complete lack of understanding, believe me, I’m aware.
you keep referring to “the left” which means you are on “the right” so…
Joined 28 days ago, entire comment history is anti-Proton disinformation and shilling for competitors. Fascinating.
Joined who cares how long ago, that comment is 100% fabricated. Not fascinating. Welcome to the internet.
he is a trump fan, not sure of other ethical issues, at least for the ceo himself.
Same boat, really don’t want to keep supporting them, because of the reasons others have mentioned. But I have something like four or five emails, not to mentioned hundreds of relays, it would be really hard to lose if I ditched them as my provider.
Same here, the cost is just way more worth it if you already pay for other Proton services.
Does seem like IVPN is closer to Mullvad in how it works though for people who just want to pay for a VPN separately. No email needed for an account, similar price, open-source clients. Also debubks misinformation used by VPN peddlers to convince people to buy VPNs who don’t need one.
here’s an interview with IVPN with techlore:
https://odysee.com/@techlore:38/ivpn-breaks-industry-silence-on-logs,:b
I use IVPN
This honestly seem pretty good, they even offer mail aliasing. I think I’m gonna migrate to them once my one year subscription to Mullvad end.
I’ve been using airvpn for almost 10 years now, no complaints.
I’ve been a customer for a few years. Noticing some of their Canadian server endpoints are getting blacklisted by cloudflare lately though, which is disappointing when it happens. I just reset the connection and away I go again though usually.
Aother vote for AirVPN. Been with them for years and they have always been solid. Also port forwarding!
Sharing this because I think it’s funny, but someone opened an issue on Mullvad’s github about the questionable donations of one of the cofounders: https://github.com/mullvad/mullvadvpn-app/issues/10685
It’s funny, but it was probably done by proton
Being in the proton ecosystem I use their VPN, and it’s been working great thus far.
Same here, haven’t had any issues with the free version so far.
Weird to say Proton is the lesser of the two evils, but not by much.
Mullvad donated to a actual right-wing fascist party.
Proton’s owner complimented the US government and gave away customer data.
This article breaks down the Proton controversies. I believe this comment overly abstracts them, but read what actually happened yourself: http://thoughtportal.org/2025/02/26/proton-mail-says-its-politically-neutral-while-praising-republican-party/
proton is purple google, an ai company, manipulative and dishonest on social media, and proudly right wing.
proton are right wing. your comment is ironic here.
deleted by creator
It’s like picking an airline. No matter who you choose somebody has a story of how they’re varying degrees of awful.
I’m on Proton. I disliked when that one guy made that social post comment about how Republicans are easier to deal with. I’m not offended enough to roll the dice with another provider only to later discover they’re literal nazis, their founder has Epstein connections or they discriminate against trans people.
(Which is to say, if you want to switch from Mullvad I get it.)
I agree that any provider is going to have something awful about them, but you can’t just conclude that supporting this type of thing is fine because everyone is awful.
nice windscribe reference there
PIA is owned by Kape, which appointed someone from Project Raven as a CIO
but hearing about one of the two CEOs actively supporting and financing swedish Nazis,
sources?
i would like to read about this
https://piefed.blahaj.zone/c/[email protected]/p/838706/mullvad-founder-donated-5-million-sek-to-populist-orebro-party
were these people always dipshits or do they become assholes when they make some money?
No idea. Although it does fit the Swedish stereotype: white, middle-class, owns some means of production, male. And, for some reason, also: Holocaust denying, racist, neo Nazi, populist, revisionist, neo liberal. [Insert “not all X are Y” argument here.]
I’m going to use up my remaining balance (<100 days) and then switch to IVPN if this guy hasn’t been excommunicated yet by that time.
apparently they won’t be “excommunicated”
The founders themselves fundamentally disagree on several important issues."
Mullvad said it would “gladly refund” any customers who choose to cancel their subscriptions or switch to another provider due to philosophical disagreements.do 2 racists cancel each other out?
I’ve been a Mullvad user for probably about a year but I’m considering Nym.
Editing for further context: their board includes Chelsea Manning which bodes well, I like that they use decentralized nodes, and that all of their code is open for review. The $NYM stuff is a little weird, but to me it comes off like an attempt to decentralize currency, which can anonymize in its own way (with an asterisk). Just not sure what that landscape looks like, since a person’s identity can often be figured out by looking at the public ledger. I’m still learning about Nym though.
Interesting, I have never heard of them. Honestly my first glance is I don’t like their website. It looks way too investor/shill heavy which worries me about the longevity/future of the platform.
I like the concept of a decentralized system if they can promise reliability and privacy across all nodes I am concerned about how privacy will be retained when a node is established in an external country that has more restrictive government controls.
I heavy dislike the fact it auto renews. That right there is a huge red flag for me because that means whatever payment information I provided, is being stored in a way that it can be linked directly to my account. With Mullvad once the 30 day window is up, they toss the payment token so it’s no longer associated/linked with the account, instead relying on you to have to provide a piece of info that they can connect to the account if you have account issues. While they can say that they don’t link accounts to activity, I heavily dislike the potential that it could be done in the future, especially since they are very upfront about it being blockchain so that tells me the information is permanent/never removed.
What’s the story with them charging much less if you pay with their crypto currency?
Not entirely sure. I think it’s to gain adoption and it helps subsidize node operators.
I’ve been using Windscribe for 10 years and have been nothing but impressed. Always surprised they don’t get mentioned more in these posts.
They are talking some good shit about this too:
Windscribe would be most likely to donate to jk rowling apparently…
I have seen them mentioned here, not in a good way though
My own limited experience with them was crap, and I wouldn’t trust them, doesn’t mean i am right though.
Looks good.
Not assholes. Wireguard support. Port forwarding et cetera.
It’s Mullvad. This whole thing, in my eyes, overreaction to one asshole being an asshole, and not anywhere near as bad as so many other assholes.
That’s my opinion, you’re 100% valid in voting with your wallet and I respect everyone that draws the line here.
For me, though, Mullvad is the only one worth their salt if you actually want the best of the best for privacy, and there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism so this feels like an exercise in futility.
Have we really reached a point in which we have to stick with the “least bad” option? I don’t like this.
No, we haven’t. There are several good alternatives.
Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp. We’ve been there for a while. People suck.
Always has been.
It’s been this way since choosing who to buy copper from in Mesopotamia, probably longer.
The lesser evil is what a lot of duopoly voters goes for, the concept isn’t new, even though it is of course ridiculous.
I would rather be a decent person.
To be clear, by your judgment using Mullvad precludes me from being a decent person?
No, your own words “preclude you from being a decent person”
apathy is evil.
So then yes, right? I’m not trying to be a dick only understand what your stance is for the sake of discussion.
My position is not apathetic, it’s a reluctant acceptance that chasing idealism is a fleeting goal and, in my experience and belief, that energy is much better spent on doing things that will make the world a noticeably better place instead of getting riding the high denying a hundred-millionaire 5 quid a month.
I think paying massive telecoms for internet access is measurably worse for democracy and ethics than a mullvad subscription, but there are some things we have to be okay with for advancing a greater good. Mullvad is the only VPN to my knowledge that’s been proven to resist pressure from every government and has passed the subpoena test multiple times.
I’m not tryna say I’m right and you’re wrong, and I’m not trying to argue in bad faith to get a win; I’d much rather we share ideas and come out with greater understanding. Tone and authenticity are hard to convey in forums so please trust me when I tell you my intent is to do the most good with the least bad.
I believe the only chance we have of him leaving the company is by customer backlash, it is that simple.
I could very easily pretend this is okay, and that this is just his personal choice, I could pretend that the company money (the money I pay them as a customer) was not used as the primary funding for that political party, that would be dishonest of me though.
For mullvad to continue ethically, he needs to not be a part of it. I have no idea what their options are in that respect, but I hope they can prove themselves to be what I believe them to be.
We have a fascist government that has introduced internet restrictions, and is in bed with the usa, israel, and palantir here in Australia. Vpn servers are scarce in the southern hemisphere, and most of those that do exist, are in Australia, and therefore in multiple respects are close to pointless because of our internet access laws. The majority of vpn companies are dodgy trash. Mullvad is the only vpn that ticks all of the boxes for me, I spent most of yesterday (yet again) assessing options, and I still do not have an alternative. It would be so much easier for me to continue using mullvad.
I think people say that AirVPN is pretty goated
Yeah, that’s what I use. Switched from Mullvad after they dropped port forwarding.
AirVpn is awesome
Curious about the software? at least on linux, the gui is very, very dated and it doesn’t even have split tunnelling I would rather stick to a gui app. I haven’t looked at their android app yet.
They offer standard wireguard and openvpn configs. There is no need for a “Airvpn client” gui.
I prefer a gui, and have little faith in a company that is unwilling, or incapable of providing a decent one. Mullvad has a very good gui on linux, and android, as well as a browser extension. Airvpn has a linux app that looks 20 years old and doesn’t even have split tunnelling, apparently their android app also doesn’t have split tunnelling, so wtf are they actually doing, and where is their roadmap?
