I doubt Mullvad would be doing this if they weren't getting compensated given they've always said (even right now[1]) they don't offer a free tier since they don't believe it makes sense.
The other aspect is I expect it would stain the IP pool further. VPN IPs often end up on various blacklists due to abuse and introducing a wave of free users would only make it worse for paying customers.
> Why no free plan? "Free" services nearly always come at some cost, whether that be the time you spend watching an intro ad, the collection of your data, or by limiting the functionality of the service. We don't operate that way – at all.
It's mainly because nearly all VPN providers all use the same shady providers - M247, xtom, fdc, datapacket etc.. Most CDN setups will "challenge" those ASNs.
People think Mullvad is special but it's same shit as all the others in most cities/markets, I wish they would use some of their big ad money spend to deleverage from these typical dodgy scam hosting ASNs.
I get that without any vpn in 2026. In fact theres been times I’ve been locked out, returned my user agent and ip and asked to email a webmaster to prove I am human. I guess because I use firefox.
"Firefox’s free VPN won’t be using Mullvad’s infra though; it’s hosted on Mozilla servers around the world (if beta testing of the feature done in late 2025 tracks)."
What makes me not want to use it is I assume Mozilla has a legal presence all around the world.
Two huge reasons people use VPNs is piracy and saying things/accessing content that's not legal in their country. If that company has a legal presence in your country, then they'll hand over that data to the police should you criticize the wrong person or download a movie without permission. At which point a VPN becomes kind of pointless.
The only time i use a VPN is when i'm traveling and I don't trust "free coffee shop wifi"
I probably won't use Mozilla's offering, because i want any VPN to cover the whole system, not just the browser (correct me if i've made a bad assumption here)
It's still correct though. In this context Mozilla uses the firefox-users as their test and demo base. At the end is commercial benefit.
And I think the core criticism still applies. Mozilla gave up on the browser years ago, let's be honest. It may be interesting from a historic point of view to find out how, when and why, but meanwhile the rest of the world has moved on already, so ...
- June 2024. Mozilla acquires Anonym, an ad metrics firm.
- July 2024. Mozilla adds Privacy-Preserving Attribution (PPA), feature is enabled by default. Developed in cooperation with Meta (Facebook).
- Feb 2025. Mozilla updates its Privacy FAQ and TOS. "does not sell data about you." becomes "... in the way that most people think about it".
- Oct 2025. Sponsored “Privacy-Focused Direct Results” added to address bar. Not yet exposed in Settings UI.
- Dec 2025. Privacy Notice updated to formalize on-device ad processing and content personalization on New Tab. New Tab is actively marketed to advertisers as a native ad surface.
- You state that Sponsored “Privacy-Focused Direct Results” were added to address bar, but 1. it's direct results in general, with some being sponsored and 2. it hasn't been released: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/better-search-suggestion.... The pref defaults to false in current stable.
- Yes, Anonym is an ad metrics firm, but you missed that it's focused on privacy. I am unsure whether they are actually able to achieve privacy or if it's just privacy-washing, but that's their stated goal. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/anonym/
>Mozilla gave up on the browser years ago, let's be honest.
They push million lines of new code every year, push thousands of patches, and regularly achieve performance measurable performance boosts to Webrender, the JavaScript and CSS rendering engines, on rapid release cycles that have improved speed and memory usage.
There are a lot of criticisms leveled at Mozilla some fair some unfair, but the amount of work poured into the browser is so extensively documented that there's no excuse for not knowing.
I agree in principle, but we interact with hundreds of companies per day. Which ones are honest and which ones are taking advantage of us? I really don't have the cycles to run it all down, and keep up with it over time. Perhaps Firefox VPN will be totally private initially and then violate privacy 2 years in? Would I ever know? Maybe? I need to err on the side of caution for a lot of these decisions because so many companies are bad actors. I'm sure I don't always err correctly, but I don't have better options.
Firefox already had a rebadged Mullvad VPN service. I thought about switching but I found it had way fewer payment options and the log policy did not look encouraging when I read it. Made it sound like not only did it keep some kind of connection logs but that they'd cough them up pretty easily. Maybe their policy has changed but it did not seem to be a compelling offering.
True but you chose to post in the comment section of a news story, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for more nuance than for something you see randomly in the wild.
And your point, HN would probably actually notify me if Mozilla became (more) evil. I'm just making a general point. Is my hardware store selling my information every time I enter it now that they have camera everywhere? I don't have a good way to audit it. Even if I did, I'd be failing to audit what some other evil company is doing.
This feature actually sounds like something that is aligned to Mozilla's mission of an open internet (paraphrasing).
Now, from where this cost is going to be recouped, how seamless the integration will be (in-browser translation is useful but the UX is not good enough), or if their VPN exit points aren't flagged to death as bad IPs; will remain to be seen.
The other thing about this feature, is that it will prove interesting in France and the UK; where it could be seen as a circumvention technique of the currently in place age restriction laws. And at the very least, it will bring those topics back into discussion.
Uk gov already talking about age verification (my read: identify verification) for VPN services. Grim. I'm guessing they'd block Firefox if they don't comply.
Y combinator absolutely profits from encouraging group think and positive attitudes about things they're involved in.
How else would you get a large part of the tech world to somehow believe that suckling on the teat of Venture capital until that elusive "exit" is the holy grail of business models?
Regardless of how you think HN makes the service free, I'm pointing out to the OP that he is using a service that is free and he is the product. It seems like he is ok with this concept. So why wouldn't he be ok with he Mozilla free VPN concept.
It's all about: do you derive an appropriate value for yourself from being the product?
For example, when you use the Google search engine, you are the product (Google's customers are advertisers). I hope you derive sufficient (average) value from each Google search so that you consider this to be worth it.
For a lot of people I think it's increasingly not worth it. Not only do we never click on ads, but results are getting worse, and often a (local) LLM can answer a large percentage of our questions faster and more privately.
Eh, a think tank usually has some kind of minimum requirements, such as education or industry experience. The usefulness of hackernews lies in "farming the opinions of the kind of dork that hangs out on hackernews" -- this is useful data, but "crowd sourced think tank" is trumping it up a bit i think
Eh, a think tank usually has some kind of minimum requirements
When paid for, I agree that is absolutely true.
When nearly free, thanks to team Daniel it's an input that can be weighted against paid options. The free but large crowd may have thought of things that paid think tank members members holding doctorates may not have. Great ideas are missed all the time and most often until it is too late. There may only be a few golden eggs and many bad eggs but there are quicker ways to sort that out nowadays without an Eggdicator and Oompa Loompas though I do miss the songs. One golden egg could pay for the entire cost of the staff running HN for a decade.
That's not remotely the same? A default setting that can easily be changed for a feature the vendor didn't have a solution for?
To give you an example. Try to use Google Search without sending your data to Google. You cannot use the product without it, you cannot opt out. Firefox, you can use just fine with Google not being your search engine.
Why isn't it the same? The fact that it is possible to change that default means google simply pays less for it than they otherwise would if it wasn't changeable.
It's not a binary toggle - firefox is selling you as a source of revenue for themselves. They're just not making it as extreme as it is possible to be - in the hopes that you don't switch away.
You can compare same situation with safari in iOS. Except google pays a lot more, since you cannot switch away in iOS as easily, and culturally there's more reluctance compared to firefox users. This makes google pay more for iOS traffic, as those users are worth more.
The problem is that this is equivocating between "selling your data" and setting Google as the default search. The former implies Firefox is harvesting your telemetry and personally identifying you and selling it off to the highest bidder. The latter is setting Google search as an optional default, where any telemetry is part of customary interactions with Google search rather than anything specific that Firefox is doing.
The sense in which you are the product on Firefox is that they want to maintain a large enough user base that search licensing is valuable enough to sell to Google.
> Why isn't it the same? The fact that it is possible to change that default means google simply pays less for it than they otherwise would if it wasn't changeable.
Because I can change that default and still use the thing. That's how it's very different.
Typically when people say that when something is free you are the product. They mean that it's free because your data is being sold, implying that without telemetry it wouldn't be free. That's not the case here as far as I know
Google is paying Mozilla to be the default search engine. Google is only paying Mozilla because Firefox has users, regardless if they use the default search engine or not. So, indirectly everyone is the 'product'.
I'm sure if 95% of people did swap to ddg, then google may change their mind.
Also I believe there is the possibility Google also pays Mozilla to offer competition so Chrome isn't considered a monopoly (but maybe Edge has changed that to some extent?)
Don’t they buy the search bar to have another competitor and not get forced to give away chrome for antitrust reasons? I don’t think they care about the search bar THAT much, it’s basically a donation right?
But then I’m not the product? The government is basically forcing google to pay my browser developer, how does that make me the product it is bad for me?
You are still "the product" even if google derives secondary benefits - because you are using firefox. Google doesn't pay the other forks of firefox money (at least, as far as i know). It's because you aren't using those browsers (you as in the royal you).
I didn't say you being a product is bad - but it does not align customer with software company. You may be OK with being sold as a product to google, as this relationship currently isn't damaging. But what if a future offer which would damage you is taken by mozilla because it's profitable?
When you use a FOSS product more, the person that wrote the code doesn't end up spending more money. When you use a free service more, someone is paying for that usage and resources.
Browser integration means one does not need to enable the VPN system-wide as do most VPN applications. Useful if you want to switch region quickly without the OS and many apps now thinking you're in a different country and starting behaving as such.
As another Firefox user, I much prefer modern browser-centric solutions like iCloud Relay over VPNs, which seems like the wrong layer for what I'm using them for both in terms of implementation complexity and achievable privacy.
Happy to see that this solution is apparently using MASQUE, which is what iCloud Private Relay is also based on!
Can we go back to making all this garbage, I don’t know, a browser extension or something?
All of this crap that everyone keeps pulling into their browsers needs to be ripped back out and made a plugin or an extension. Stop shoving it in the core damn browser. I didn’t need the waste of space and I’m never going to touch it.
Quite frankly I don't think it should be either. I'm sick of browsers trying to sidestep my operating system's networking stack (be it forcing their own DNS implementations for 'security' or now this BS).
There are other usecases that don't affect you which are very handy for others, such as testing site access from different countries with per-tab geo settings from a VPN extension.
Convenience. I also don't mind it in the browser as it would not really add much complexity. Some lines of code at most? VPN's do not require complex client logic - they require actual servers that reroute the user traffic - that is the expensive part.
And for many non technical users that is very useful, if they can get that with a click. To get geoblocked content, etc.
Mozilla has done way worse things, much more distracting from their core mission - building a browser that people want to use and trust.
The core new functionality here seems to be MASQUE proxy support, which is genuinely useful and probably not possible to provide in a plugin.
Of course the UI itself could be extracted into a plugin, but I'm not really a fan of the pattern of shipping a large feature and extract only the thin UI layer into a plugin. It felt very weird when Mozilla tried it with "multi-user containers".
Could be useful to quick check simple things such i18n or default behavior of a website. But for actual use, I will wait for the technical "trade-offs" as mentioned in the article.
I think a VPN is a great add-on for Firefox and way for Mozilla to monetize itself, but I'm surprised it's free. Perhaps it's a free trial like Proton?
> "If you're not paying for it, you're the product being sold"
This is such a un-nuanced take.
In this case Firefox's route-to-market is the product. It's a distribution channel where some people who receive the free version will upgrade.
Free tiers for products where some will pay to upgrade seems like a reasonable compromise, but it does depend on how the deal is structured.
If Mullvad pays Firefox for the free users then Firefox's incentives are aligned with its users.
If Mullvad pays per conversion then it's a different story.
I doubt Mullvad would be doing this if they weren't getting compensated given they've always said (even right now[1]) they don't offer a free tier since they don't believe it makes sense.
The other aspect is I expect it would stain the IP pool further. VPN IPs often end up on various blacklists due to abuse and introducing a wave of free users would only make it worse for paying customers.
[1] https://mullvad.net/en/pricing
> Why no free plan? "Free" services nearly always come at some cost, whether that be the time you spend watching an intro ad, the collection of your data, or by limiting the functionality of the service. We don't operate that way – at all.
It's already pretty bad for mullvad. 3/4 of the websites I visit do bot checks it used to just be a few.
That's true. Definitely getting worse.
It's mainly because nearly all VPN providers all use the same shady providers - M247, xtom, fdc, datapacket etc.. Most CDN setups will "challenge" those ASNs.
People think Mullvad is special but it's same shit as all the others in most cities/markets, I wish they would use some of their big ad money spend to deleverage from these typical dodgy scam hosting ASNs.
I get that without any vpn in 2026. In fact theres been times I’ve been locked out, returned my user agent and ip and asked to email a webmaster to prove I am human. I guess because I use firefox.
"Firefox’s free VPN won’t be using Mullvad’s infra though; it’s hosted on Mozilla servers around the world (if beta testing of the feature done in late 2025 tracks)."
From OMG Ubuntu
What makes me not want to use it is I assume Mozilla has a legal presence all around the world.
Two huge reasons people use VPNs is piracy and saying things/accessing content that's not legal in their country. If that company has a legal presence in your country, then they'll hand over that data to the police should you criticize the wrong person or download a movie without permission. At which point a VPN becomes kind of pointless.
The only time i use a VPN is when i'm traveling and I don't trust "free coffee shop wifi"
I probably won't use Mozilla's offering, because i want any VPN to cover the whole system, not just the browser (correct me if i've made a bad assumption here)
It depends on whether the company keeps records or not. They can't turn over records they don't have.
how is that any different from any other VPN provider?
> This is such a un-nuanced take.
It's still correct though. In this context Mozilla uses the firefox-users as their test and demo base. At the end is commercial benefit.
And I think the core criticism still applies. Mozilla gave up on the browser years ago, let's be honest. It may be interesting from a historic point of view to find out how, when and why, but meanwhile the rest of the world has moved on already, so ...
It’s not correct. ‘You are the product’ implies some aspect of you -your activity or data is being sold.
In this case, you stent being sold. They are providing a limited free version and hoping you upgrade.
Just facts:
- June 2024. Mozilla acquires Anonym, an ad metrics firm.
- July 2024. Mozilla adds Privacy-Preserving Attribution (PPA), feature is enabled by default. Developed in cooperation with Meta (Facebook).
- Feb 2025. Mozilla updates its Privacy FAQ and TOS. "does not sell data about you." becomes "... in the way that most people think about it".
- Oct 2025. Sponsored “Privacy-Focused Direct Results” added to address bar. Not yet exposed in Settings UI.
- Dec 2025. Privacy Notice updated to formalize on-device ad processing and content personalization on New Tab. New Tab is actively marketed to advertisers as a native ad surface.
I'm curious on the source for these "facts".
- You state that PPA is enabled by default, but it was an experimental feature that was never activated and later removed: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attr...
- You state that Sponsored “Privacy-Focused Direct Results” were added to address bar, but 1. it's direct results in general, with some being sponsored and 2. it hasn't been released: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/better-search-suggestion.... The pref defaults to false in current stable.
- Yes, Anonym is an ad metrics firm, but you missed that it's focused on privacy. I am unsure whether they are actually able to achieve privacy or if it's just privacy-washing, but that's their stated goal. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/anonym/
- Privacy FAQ and TOS changes are true, but they rolled them back after backlash: (updated) https://www.thebridgechronicle.com/tech/mozilla-revises-fire... , (original) https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/firefox-deletes-...
- Privacy Notice update is true: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/update/dec2025...
>Mozilla gave up on the browser years ago, let's be honest.
They push million lines of new code every year, push thousands of patches, and regularly achieve performance measurable performance boosts to Webrender, the JavaScript and CSS rendering engines, on rapid release cycles that have improved speed and memory usage.
There are a lot of criticisms leveled at Mozilla some fair some unfair, but the amount of work poured into the browser is so extensively documented that there's no excuse for not knowing.
>This is such a un-nuanced take.
I agree in principle, but we interact with hundreds of companies per day. Which ones are honest and which ones are taking advantage of us? I really don't have the cycles to run it all down, and keep up with it over time. Perhaps Firefox VPN will be totally private initially and then violate privacy 2 years in? Would I ever know? Maybe? I need to err on the side of caution for a lot of these decisions because so many companies are bad actors. I'm sure I don't always err correctly, but I don't have better options.
Firefox already had a rebadged Mullvad VPN service. I thought about switching but I found it had way fewer payment options and the log policy did not look encouraging when I read it. Made it sound like not only did it keep some kind of connection logs but that they'd cough them up pretty easily. Maybe their policy has changed but it did not seem to be a compelling offering.
True but you chose to post in the comment section of a news story, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for more nuance than for something you see randomly in the wild.
And your point, HN would probably actually notify me if Mozilla became (more) evil. I'm just making a general point. Is my hardware store selling my information every time I enter it now that they have camera everywhere? I don't have a good way to audit it. Even if I did, I'd be failing to audit what some other evil company is doing.
This feature actually sounds like something that is aligned to Mozilla's mission of an open internet (paraphrasing).
Now, from where this cost is going to be recouped, how seamless the integration will be (in-browser translation is useful but the UX is not good enough), or if their VPN exit points aren't flagged to death as bad IPs; will remain to be seen.
The other thing about this feature, is that it will prove interesting in France and the UK; where it could be seen as a circumvention technique of the currently in place age restriction laws. And at the very least, it will bring those topics back into discussion.
Uk gov already talking about age verification (my read: identify verification) for VPN services. Grim. I'm guessing they'd block Firefox if they don't comply.
> (my read: identify verification)
My read: Identity theft
I'd love to have a free VPN directly integrated into the browser, it's not a distraction. It's a developer tool for website developers.
It's a distraction.
it's nice but i don't see why it has to be made and ran by the browser maker itself
Vivaldi integrates Proton VPN into theirs. I think it's pretty useful.
Mozilla only makes the integration between the browser and the VPN, not the VPN network itself - Mozilla VPN is white label Mullvad.
That's an existing product that may or may not be related. Unless you know something the article doesn't?
According to https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2026/03/firefox-adding-a-free-vp... Mullvad might not be used for the free service. Whether that's correct or incorrect extrapolation we will see...
I just tried it. It seems to be based on MASQUE and provided by (at least) Fastly.
Do you live in 2010? Whether you pay for a service or not is irrelevant to selling your data nowadays.
HN is "free" too. :)
At least free to data mine by everyone (as far as I know).
that isn't the gotcha you think it is.
Y combinator absolutely profits from encouraging group think and positive attitudes about things they're involved in.
How else would you get a large part of the tech world to somehow believe that suckling on the teat of Venture capital until that elusive "exit" is the holy grail of business models?
Regardless of how you think HN makes the service free, I'm pointing out to the OP that he is using a service that is free and he is the product. It seems like he is ok with this concept. So why wouldn't he be ok with he Mozilla free VPN concept.
How you are "valuable" as the product is absolutely a relevant distinction to make.
When the valuable part is data collection, you don't get a choice in how your user data is sold.
When the valuable part is influencing opinions, you do get a choice in what you believe.
> > Also, "free": "If you're not paying for it, you're the product being sold"
> HN is "free" too. :)
Indeed: you deliver valuable information about market trends, market sentiments, technology, ... to SV startups and investors.
Additionally, Hacker News is basically a marketing expense of YC.
Well pointed. Sometimes being the "product" is not a bad thing.
It's all about: do you derive an appropriate value for yourself from being the product?
For example, when you use the Google search engine, you are the product (Google's customers are advertisers). I hope you derive sufficient (average) value from each Google search so that you consider this to be worth it.
For a lot of people I think it's increasingly not worth it. Not only do we never click on ads, but results are getting worse, and often a (local) LLM can answer a large percentage of our questions faster and more privately.
And crowd sourced think tank.
Eh, a think tank usually has some kind of minimum requirements, such as education or industry experience. The usefulness of hackernews lies in "farming the opinions of the kind of dork that hangs out on hackernews" -- this is useful data, but "crowd sourced think tank" is trumping it up a bit i think
Eh, a think tank usually has some kind of minimum requirements
When paid for, I agree that is absolutely true.
When nearly free, thanks to team Daniel it's an input that can be weighted against paid options. The free but large crowd may have thought of things that paid think tank members members holding doctorates may not have. Great ideas are missed all the time and most often until it is too late. There may only be a few golden eggs and many bad eggs but there are quicker ways to sort that out nowadays without an Eggdicator and Oompa Loompas though I do miss the songs. One golden egg could pay for the entire cost of the staff running HN for a decade.
> "If you're not paying for it, you're the product being sold"
This must apply to Firefox itself, right?
of course it does.
Why do you think google buys the rights to firefox's search bar (as a default setting)?
That's not remotely the same? A default setting that can easily be changed for a feature the vendor didn't have a solution for?
To give you an example. Try to use Google Search without sending your data to Google. You cannot use the product without it, you cannot opt out. Firefox, you can use just fine with Google not being your search engine.
Why isn't it the same? The fact that it is possible to change that default means google simply pays less for it than they otherwise would if it wasn't changeable.
It's not a binary toggle - firefox is selling you as a source of revenue for themselves. They're just not making it as extreme as it is possible to be - in the hopes that you don't switch away.
You can compare same situation with safari in iOS. Except google pays a lot more, since you cannot switch away in iOS as easily, and culturally there's more reluctance compared to firefox users. This makes google pay more for iOS traffic, as those users are worth more.
The problem is that this is equivocating between "selling your data" and setting Google as the default search. The former implies Firefox is harvesting your telemetry and personally identifying you and selling it off to the highest bidder. The latter is setting Google search as an optional default, where any telemetry is part of customary interactions with Google search rather than anything specific that Firefox is doing.
The sense in which you are the product on Firefox is that they want to maintain a large enough user base that search licensing is valuable enough to sell to Google.
> Why isn't it the same? The fact that it is possible to change that default means google simply pays less for it than they otherwise would if it wasn't changeable.
Because I can change that default and still use the thing. That's how it's very different.
Typically when people say that when something is free you are the product. They mean that it's free because your data is being sold, implying that without telemetry it wouldn't be free. That's not the case here as far as I know
It isn't the same, but it's comparable.
Google is paying Mozilla to be the default search engine. Google is only paying Mozilla because Firefox has users, regardless if they use the default search engine or not. So, indirectly everyone is the 'product'.
I'm sure if 95% of people did swap to ddg, then google may change their mind.
Also I believe there is the possibility Google also pays Mozilla to offer competition so Chrome isn't considered a monopoly (but maybe Edge has changed that to some extent?)
Don’t they buy the search bar to have another competitor and not get forced to give away chrome for antitrust reasons? I don’t think they care about the search bar THAT much, it’s basically a donation right?
> for antitrust reasons?
well, a benefit is a benefit. It doesn't really matter how it manifests does it? It's not a donation, as it is not altruistic.
But then I’m not the product? The government is basically forcing google to pay my browser developer, how does that make me the product it is bad for me?
You are still "the product" even if google derives secondary benefits - because you are using firefox. Google doesn't pay the other forks of firefox money (at least, as far as i know). It's because you aren't using those browsers (you as in the royal you).
I didn't say you being a product is bad - but it does not align customer with software company. You may be OK with being sold as a product to google, as this relationship currently isn't damaging. But what if a future offer which would damage you is taken by mozilla because it's profitable?
And by extension, all users of FOSS must be the product, right?
I see it more like a question than a rule.
"The service is free. Am I the product?"
That is a valid thing to ask. Even with FOSS sometimes.
Some FOSS projects are backed by companies, then yes, plausible to ask.
Otherwise, I would answer with a clear no.
(Projects can still collect telemetry and other data and sell that, though the sell part should be very rare, imo...)
Edit: Was that a bad faith argument or a honest question?
Sometimes I can't tell, maybe because of old or ESL...
> all users of FOSS must be the product, right?
i would default to this being the truth, until demonstrated otherwise. Call it cynical, but it's the cynical that survive.
And by extension, all users of FOSS must be the product, right?
Crowd sourced Development and Quality Assurance for something multiple companies, governments and the military are using.
When you use a FOSS product more, the person that wrote the code doesn't end up spending more money. When you use a free service more, someone is paying for that usage and resources.
Browser integration means one does not need to enable the VPN system-wide as do most VPN applications. Useful if you want to switch region quickly without the OS and many apps now thinking you're in a different country and starting behaving as such.
As another Firefox user, I much prefer modern browser-centric solutions like iCloud Relay over VPNs, which seems like the wrong layer for what I'm using them for both in terms of implementation complexity and achievable privacy.
Happy to see that this solution is apparently using MASQUE, which is what iCloud Private Relay is also based on!
Can we go back to making all this garbage, I don’t know, a browser extension or something?
All of this crap that everyone keeps pulling into their browsers needs to be ripped back out and made a plugin or an extension. Stop shoving it in the core damn browser. I didn’t need the waste of space and I’m never going to touch it.
Why would a VPN be a good browser extension?
Why does the VPN need to be integrated into the browser itself?
I don't think it should. You think it should be a browser extension. I don't think it should either be integrated or a browser extension.
I think we can interpret "browser extension" as a catch-all for "not directly built into the browser", in whatever form that takes.
Quite frankly I don't think it should be either. I'm sick of browsers trying to sidestep my operating system's networking stack (be it forcing their own DNS implementations for 'security' or now this BS).
There are other usecases that don't affect you which are very handy for others, such as testing site access from different countries with per-tab geo settings from a VPN extension.
Convenience. I also don't mind it in the browser as it would not really add much complexity. Some lines of code at most? VPN's do not require complex client logic - they require actual servers that reroute the user traffic - that is the expensive part.
And for many non technical users that is very useful, if they can get that with a click. To get geoblocked content, etc.
Mozilla has done way worse things, much more distracting from their core mission - building a browser that people want to use and trust.
The core new functionality here seems to be MASQUE proxy support, which is genuinely useful and probably not possible to provide in a plugin.
Of course the UI itself could be extracted into a plugin, but I'm not really a fan of the pattern of shipping a large feature and extract only the thin UI layer into a plugin. It felt very weird when Mozilla tried it with "multi-user containers".
Could be useful to quick check simple things such i18n or default behavior of a website. But for actual use, I will wait for the technical "trade-offs" as mentioned in the article.
I think a VPN is a great add-on for Firefox and way for Mozilla to monetize itself, but I'm surprised it's free. Perhaps it's a free trial like Proton?
Proton also has a free tier.
Now we're the product whether we pay for something or not.
Why is this always upvoted to the top? You realize that if they focus on only making a browser they'll run out of money?
Are you the product for Firefox too?
VPNs are no longer optional for the current internet. This is as controversial as Firefox speaking ftp.
Yes?
I mean it's very provable that they sell access to your data and your eyeballs other companies.
Speaking ftp is a dev cost, not an ongoing infrastructure cost.