Ask HN: Mullvad Alternatives?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48725218

by rpastuszak • 23 days ago

18 14 23 days ago

news.ycombinator.com

yourmomisanalt• 23 days ago

Mullvad is the best. You should ask for the socialist alternative

rekabis• 23 days ago

Okay, what is the socialist/leftist alternative?

Chu4eeno• 23 days ago

riseup provides VPN, though they are not a commercial service and funded through donations.

shinryuu• 23 days ago

I'm happy with proton vpn.

al_borland• 23 days ago

The OP is likely posting this due to this post about one of Mullvad’s CEOs supporting a right-leaning political party, rather than anything to do with Mullvad’s quality of service.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717469

Proton’s CEO has done the same thing.

https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-tru...

I’m sure if they look into any company suggested, they will find someone involved who has done something they don’t like. If they don’t find anything, it’s likely only because it hasn’t been made public.

rpastuszak• 22 days ago

Yes, although I don't think this effort is futile as you seem to be implying.

A more interesting question is how much effort we're willing to put into making those choices. My answer was posting here and doing a bit of research. Maybe I'll stick with Mullvad for the time being, maybe I won't and I'll help a few people make the same choice. It's better than shrugging and being defeatist, cynicism is cheap.

(Adobe subs weren't https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/alternatives-to-adobe/)

jlongr2• 21 days ago

You're purposely minimizing the Mullvad CEO's actions by making an incongruent comparison.

Proton CEO made some vaguely pro-Republican (U.S) comments one time.

Mullvad CEO is the primary donor to a European political party that supports "re-migration"; a far right policy ideal that is literally about sending migrants back to where they came from.

emmettbt• 23 days ago

proton is nice but their "open source" claim is deceptive as it is only their client that is open source.

outside1234• 23 days ago

I'm honestly quite happy with ExpressVPN

CM30• 23 days ago

What's the best alternative for the more privacy/safety paranoid? One thing I admire about Mullvad is that you technically don't need to provide personal information to set up an account, or have it tied to a billing address/name. You can pay by post or crypto, and make it much harder for a hostile government to get the information by legally pressuring Mullvad themselves.

It's not something I've needed myself, but I can see it being useful for journalists and whistleblowers working to expose government corruption or something, and the whole 'registration + account' thing feels like the weak point in the chain for said use cases.

aryonoco• 23 days ago

I took the advice of the other Mullvad founder in the other thread here on HN and signed up for IVPN.

So far I have to say I am really impressed. Clients are all open source, really configurable, and speed and reliability seems as good as Mullvad.

Will I find out tomorrow that their founder is also a fascist? Hopefully not.

runjake• 22 days ago

What makes Berntsson a fascist? What makes the Örebro Party fascist?

(I am a Mullvad user, but I am not Swedish, or familiar with Swedish politics, so I only have Wikipedia to go from.)

jlongr2• 21 days ago

Mullvad CEO is the primary donor to a European political party that supports "re-migration"; a far right policy ideal that is literally about sending migrants back to where they came from.

khurs• 22 days ago

What's the best alternative for the more privacy/safety paranoid?

Run your own?

There are lots of guide online of getting a cheap VPS and installing Wireguard on it.

Ask HN: Mullvad Alternatives?

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