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Say (an encrypted) hello to a more private internet. (blog.mozilla.org)

submitted 1 year ago by buh to c/[email protected]

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[–] patatahooligan 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Using a VPN just hands all of this information to them instead. That could be an improvement, but how do you know?

[–] kautau 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Well they can see your browsing history, sure. But HTTPS will stop them from seeing the content you actually see on the web. At this point we are just getting into discussions of layers of trust, which are generally impossible to solve if you don’t trust anyone. If you don’t trust anyone don’t use the internet, ever. I do trust mullvad. They’re explicit about who is involved, I have the name of every team member, and through peer review I consider them trustworthy.

https://mullvad.net/en/about

For more info about how they are transparent, you can read their article about how they responded to a search warrant earlier this year:

https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/4/20/mullvad-vpn-was-subject-to-a-search-warrant-customer-data-not-compromised/

In line with our policies such customer data did not exist. We argued they had no reason to expect to find what they were looking for and any seizures would therefore be illegal under Swedish law. After demonstrating that this is indeed how our service works and them consulting the prosecutor they left without taking anything and without any customer information.

[–] patatahooligan 1 points 1 year ago

But HTTPS will stop them from seeing the content you actually see on the web.

Sure, but that was true for your ISP as well. I'm not questioning what data you're leaking. I'm saying that it's the same data and you only change who you leak it to if you choose to use a VPN.

It seems like you've thought about it and you have made an informed choice. That's great and I don't have anything to argue against here. The only reason I commented is that there seems to be a trend of "just use VPN and your data is protected" mentality, especially with all the ads in gaming/tech related content. There was no way for me to know if you or the other users who would read your initial comment were aware that using a VPN doesn't magically protect your data if you don't know who your provider is, so I though I'd point it out.