The big thread was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23565192

also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23859489

and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20927832 from last year

If you support a free, open, and standards-based web and Internet AND you need a VPN, you should subscribe to this.

Read the 10 principles of the Mozilla Foundation here: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/

This product is an essential step in Mozilla diversifying and increasing their revenue so that they can keep working without being dependent on search revenue from hostile/neutral-at-best companies, like Google.

I have nothing to do with Mozilla personally or professionally, I just think they should exist and are a net force for good on the Internet.

Agree, but aren't they a five eyes company?

Nope.

ArsTechnica recently did a review of it:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/07/we-test-mozillas-new...

Recently, some VPN providers that advertised themselves as log-free turned out to by lying about that. Source: https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/17/ufo_vpn_database/

Aside from "we trust Mozilla", what independent verification assures us that Mozilla is not, in fact, logging their VPN traffic?

This service is Mullvad rebranded, with restrictions. (Their custom app only.)

Mullvad is a very widely trusted and respected service.

To add some detail, here, Mullvad allows the creation of accounts for which they truly have zero knowledge: an account number is generated on their site, cash is sent to their office in Gothenburg with a note containing the account number, and Mullvad will add time for that account commensurate with the amount received.

In addition to that, mullvad allows you (and encourages you) to pay them without them knowing anything but your account id. And your account ID is also the only thing there is to your account. No E-Mail, no password.

How does that work? Wouldn't they still know about my credit card details and my Credit Card name?

I have also never heard of Mullvad at all?

You can pay in cash.

Never heard of Mullvad but seems amazing.

I heard about them last time Mozilla VPN came up, I also happened to be looking to switch away from Librem Tunnel (PIA rebranded) so I went with Mullvad. It was easy to setup (on Linux) and is pretty fast, I usually forget it's even on.

Mullvad cost the same, already supports Linux, and has availability in more countries. I'm not sure what the selling point is, it's literally just Mullvad but worse.

just Mullvad but supports Mozilla. I'd choose Mozilla VPN for that reason. Or will, when they have Linux support.

Mullvad is OpenVPN and Wireguard. The former has been on Linux forever and the latter is part of the actual kernel.

I dunno, any particular independent verification companies you would trust?

I'm sad that spamming users via Firefox account email is now becoming a regular practice for Mozilla. Last time it was for the picture-in-picture feature. Now they're advertising their VPN.

I'm pretty sure I again unchecked all the boxes referring to unsolicited mail in the account preferences when the picture-in-picture mail landed [1]. Yet "Firefox account tips" was now back on for me again.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23772909

Perhaps I'm being naive but $5USD ($7.50CDN after exchg and credit card padding) per month seems too much for the average Joe. I.e. compared to its competitors - esp. well known competitors like PIA and the free offering from Opera.

If a product is free, you (or your data s) are the price.

BTW personally i would not recommend PIA anymore.

Can you explain your reservations about PIA?

They were acquired by a company who is not known to be a champion of privacy.

Firefox already has a free VPN option, like Opera, built into it. It only covers the browser though. This service covers all your devices.

$5/month for a service from a vendor you can actually trust is pretty inexpensive IMO. There are plenty of cheap, but not very trustworthy VPNs out there.

Is there an easy way to make this work with NextDNS.io? I don't want to lose the filtering/analytics on my devices, but would also like to have access to a VPN...

"Linux coming soon". Will buy when it's here. :)