Mullvad

Mullvad VPN
Desktop client
DeveloperMullvad VPN AB[1]
TypeVirtual private network
Launch dateMarch 2009; 15 years ago (2009-03)
Current version2024.7[2] / 30 October 2024; 21 days ago (30 October 2024)
Platform(s)Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows (official app)
Websitemullvad.net Edit this at Wikidata

Mullvad is a commercial VPN service based in Sweden. Launched in March 2009, Mullvad operates using the WireGuard and OpenVPN protocols. It also supports Shadowsocks as a bridge protocol for censorship circumvention. Mullvad's VPN client software is released under the GPLv3, a free and open-source software license.[3][4][5]

History

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Mullvad was launched in March 2009 by Amagicom AB.[6] Its name is Swedish for mole.

Mullvad began supporting connections via the OpenVPN protocol in 2009.[7] Mullvad was an early adopter and supporter of the WireGuard protocol, announcing the availability of the new VPN protocol in March 2017[8] and making a "generous donation" supporting WireGuard development between July and December 2017.[9]

In September 2018, the cybersecurity firm Cure53 performed a penetration test on Mullvad's macOS, Windows and Linux applications.[10] Seven issues were found which were addressed by Mullvad.[11] Cure53 tested only the applications and supporting functions. No assessment was made on the Mullvad server side and back end. [10]

In October 2019, Mullvad partnered with Mozilla.[12] Mozilla's VPN service, Mozilla VPN, utilizes Mullvad's WireGuard servers.[13][14]

In April 2020, Mullvad partnered with Malwarebytes and provided WireGuard servers for their VPN service, Malwarebytes Privacy.[15]

In May 2022, Mullvad started officially accepting Monero.[16]

On 18 April 2023, Mullvad's head office in Gothenburg was visited by officers from the National Operations Department of the Swedish Police, who had a search warrant to seize computers containing customer data. Mullvad demonstrated that, in accordance with their policies, no such data existed on their systems. After consulting with the prosecutor, the officers left without seizing any equipment or obtaining customer information. Mullvad shared this information in a blog post two days later making the incident public knowledge and mentioning this was the first time their offices had been visited with a search warrant.[17] In a letter sent to Mullvad 9 days after the search the Swedish Police stated they conducted the search at the request of Germany for an ongoing investigation. The investigation involved a blackmail attack that hit several institutions in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania which uncovered IP addresses that led back to the Mullvad VPN service.[18]

On 29 May 2023 Mullvad announced that they would be removing support for port forwarding, effective on 1 July 2023. This was done due to malicious use from users leading to law enforcement involvement, Mullvad IP addresses getting blacklisted, and hosting providers cancelling their services.[19]

Service

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A TechRadar review noted 2019 that "Mullvad's core service is powerful, up-to-date, and absolutely stuffed with high-end technologies."[3] Complementing its use of the open-source OpenVPN and WireGuard protocols, Mullvad includes "industrial strength" encryption (employing AES-256 GCM methodology), 4096-bit RSA certificates with SHA-512 for server authentication, perfect forward secrecy, "multiple layers" of DNS leak protection, IPv6 leak protection and "multiple stealth options" to help bypass government or corporate VPN blocking.[3]

Mullvad provides VPN client applications for computers running under Windows, macOS and Linux operating systems. As of April 2020, native iOS and Android Mullvad VPN clients using the WireGuard protocol are available. iOS and Android mobile operating system users can also configure and use built-in VPN clients or the OpenVPN or WireGuard apps to access Mullvad's service.[20]

Privacy

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No email address or other identifying information is requested during Mullvad's registration process. Rather, a unique 16-digit account number is anonymously generated for each new user. This account number is henceforth used to log in to the Mullvad service.[21]

To help ensure the privacy of its users, Mullvad accepts the anonymous payment methods of cash and Monero. (Payment for the service can also be made via bank wire transfer, credit card, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, PayPal, Swish, EPS Transfer, Bancontact, iDEAL, Przelewy24, and vouchers sold by multiple resellers.[3][22][23] Payments made via cryptocurrency have a 10% discount.[24] In June 2022, the service announced that it will no longer offer new recurring subscriptions, as this would further reduce the amount of personal information that will have to be stored.[25]

Mullvad does not log VPN users' IP addresses, the VPN IP address used, browsing activity, bandwidth, connections, session duration, timestamps, and DNS requests.[3][21]

Mullvad has many privacy-focused features built into their VPN. The first is multi-hop, which routes all traffic through an additional Mullvad server before it arrives at its destination.[26] The second is the ability to add a quantum-resistant key exchange to the encryption process, making all data encrypted resistant to quantum computer related attacks.[27] Last is the ability to enable "Defense Against AI-guided Traffic Analysis" (DAITA), which ensures all packets are the same size and also inserts random network traffic (significantly increasing bandwidth usage), though this is only enabled on select servers.[28]

Mullvad has been actively campaigning against the EU's Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse (a.k.a Chat Control), which would require service providers to scan all users' online communications, even encrypted services, as this would diminish privacy for the users.[29][30]

Reception

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While Mullvad has been noted for taking a strong approach to privacy and maintaining good connection speeds, the VPN client setup and interface has been noted as being more onerous and technically involved than some other VPN providers especially on some client platforms.[31] However, a follow-up review by the same source in October 2018 notes, "Mullvad has a much improved, modern Windows client (and one for Mac, too)." A PC World review, also from October 2018, concludes, "With its commitment to privacy, anonymity (as close as you can realistically get online), and performance Mullvad remains our top recommendation for a VPN service."[20]

In November 2018, TechRadar noted Mullvad as one of five VPN providers to answer a set of trustworthiness questions posed by the Center for Democracy and Technology.[32][33] In March 2019, a TechRadar review noted slightly substandard speeds.[22] However, a more recent and more thorough TechRadar review dated June 11, 2019 stated that "speeds are excellent."[3] This is also backed up by a 2024 CNET review that showed 13.5% speed loss in spring 2024 tests.[34] While the latter review notes a shortcoming for mobile users in that Mullvad provided no mobile VPN client apps,[3] there is now a mobile app for both Android and iOS available.

The non-profit Freedom of the Press Foundation, in their "Choosing a VPN" guide, lists Mullvad amongst the five VPNs that meet their recommended settings and features for VPN use as a tool for protecting online activity.[35]

Browser

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Mullvad Browser
Developer(s)Mullvad VPN and Tor Project
Stable release
14.0[36] Edit this on Wikidata / 18 November 2024; 2 days ago (18 November 2024)
Repositorygithub.com/mullvad/mullvad-browser
EngineGecko
Operating system
LicenseMozilla Public License[37]
Websitemullvad.net/browser

On April 3, 2023, the Mullvad browser was released, built by the Tor Project team and distributed by Mullvad. It has similar safety levels as the Tor Browser, but works independently of the Tor network and is meant to be used with a VPN service instead.[38] The Mullvad browser has been designed to minimize the threat of tracking and fingerprinting.[39][40] It aims to achieve this through several measures:

  • Private mode is enabled by default. This means that cookies are never saved between sessions, nor are visited pages, forms or search bar entries.
  • It uses Firefox's 'resist fingerprinting' feature.
  • So-called 'first-party isolation' is in place, whereby cookies are placed in separate cookie jars so that trackers cannot connect to each other to build a profile of its user.
  • No collection of telemetry data.[41]

Search Engine

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On 20 June 2023 Mullvad announced their search engine Mullvad Leta. Mullvad Leta uses the Google Search API as a proxy and caches each search. The service is only accessible to paid Mullvad VPN accounts.[42] When a user searches something the service first checks if it has a cache of the search, which can be up to 30 days old, before making a call to the Google search API.[43]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Doing the corporate shuffle (Updated)". Mullvad VPN. 3 February 2020. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  2. ^ "Release 2024.7 · mullvad/mullvadvpn-app". Retrieved 1 November 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Williams, Mike (11 June 2019). "Mullvad VPN review". TechRadar.com. Archived from the original on 13 June 2019. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  4. ^ Newman, Lily Hay (3 April 2023). "Tor Project's New Privacy-Focused Browser Lets You Layer a VPN". Wired. Retrieved 23 December 2023.
  5. ^ "mullvadvpn-app/LICENSE.md at main · mullvad/mullvadvpn-app". Mullvad – via GitHub.
  6. ^ "What is privacy?". Mullvad VPN. Archived from the original on 6 December 2019. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  7. ^ "Services". Archived from the original on 25 September 2009.
  8. ^ "Test WireGuard with Mullvad". Mullvad. 27 June 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  9. ^ "Donations". WireGuard.com. Silver company donors. Archived from the original on 24 June 2019. Retrieved 24 June 2019.
  10. ^ a b https://cure53.de/pentest-report_mullvad_v2.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  11. ^ "Read results of security audit on Mullvad app - Blog". Mullvad VPN. 24 September 2018.
  12. ^ "Partnerships and Resellers". Mullvad. Archived from the original on 4 December 2019.
  13. ^ "We test Mozilla's new Wireguard-based $5/mo VPN service". Ars Technica. 22 July 2020. Retrieved 18 December 2021.
  14. ^ "Firefox Private Network". Mozilla Foundation. Archived from the original on 4 December 2019.
  15. ^ Labs, Malwarebytes (23 April 2020). "Introducing Malwarebytes Privacy". Malwarebytes Labs. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
  16. ^ "We now accept Monero - Blog". Mullvad VPN. 3 May 2022. Retrieved 5 May 2022.
  17. ^ "Mullvad VPN was subject to a search warrant. Customer data not compromised". Mullvad VPN. 20 April 2023. Archived from the original on 17 June 2023.
  18. ^ "Update: The Swedish authorities answered our protocol request". Mullvad VPN. 2 May 2023. Archived from the original on 26 June 2023. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
  19. ^ "Removing the support for forwarded ports". Mullvad VPN. 29 May 2023. Archived from the original on 23 June 2023. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
  20. ^ a b "Mullvad 2018 review: A fantastic VPN has a great new look". PC World. 17 October 2018. Archived from the original on 9 December 2019. Retrieved 9 December 2019.
  21. ^ a b "Mullvad review: A VPN that's all about privacy". Macworld.com. 28 August 2019. Archived from the original on 14 September 2019. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
  22. ^ a b Athow, Desire (19 March 2019). "The best Linux VPN 2019". TechRadar.com. Archived from the original on 27 June 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  23. ^ "Mullvad Partners". Mullvad. Retrieved 26 October 2024.
  24. ^ "Mullvad Pricing". Mullvad. Retrieved 26 October 2024.
  25. ^ Castro, Chiara (22 June 2022). "Mullvad VPN axes recurring subscriptions in the name of privacy". TechRadar.com. Retrieved 22 June 2022.
  26. ^ "Mullvad WireGuard Multihop". Mullvad. Retrieved 17 November 2024.
  27. ^ "Post-Quantum Resistance Mullvad". Mullvad. Retrieved 17 November 2024.
  28. ^ "DAITA Mullvad". Mullvad. Retrieved 17 November 2024.
  29. ^ Nasi, Michele (7 March 2023). "Scansione delle chat degli utenti: l'Europa potrebbe spiare i contenuti personali". IlSoftware.it (in Italian). Retrieved 10 March 2023.
  30. ^ Claburn, Thomas. "German Digital Committee heaps scorn on Chat Control". The Register. Retrieved 20 April 2023.
  31. ^ Paul, Ian (19 June 2017). "Mullvad review: The VPN that doesn't want to get to know you". PC World. Archived from the original on 22 December 2017.
  32. ^ Li, Harold. "Use this checklist to find a VPN you can trust". TechRadar.com. Archived from the original on 3 November 2018. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  33. ^ "Unedited Answers: Signals of Trustworthy VPNs". Center for Democracy and Technology. 7 March 2019. Archived from the original on 18 April 2019. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  34. ^ Tomaschek, Attila (29 May 2024). "Mullvad VPN Review 2024: A Budget-Friendly VPN That Pairs Excellent Speeds With Cutting-Edge Privacy". CNET.
  35. ^ "An in-depth guide to choosing a VPN". freedom.press. 15 February 2022. Retrieved 11 April 2023.
  36. ^ "Release Mullvad Browser 14.0 · mullvad/mullvad-browser". Retrieved 19 November 2024.
  37. ^ "Mullvad browser - Privacy-focused browser for Linux, macOS and Windows".
  38. ^ "We've Teamed Up With Mullvad VPN to Launch the Mullvad Browser". The Tor Project. 3 April 2023. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  39. ^ Rudra, Sourav (4 April 2023). "Mullvad VPN and Tor Project Unite to Create a New Browser That Puts Privacy First". It's FOSS. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  40. ^ Clark, Mitchell (3 April 2023). "The Mullvad browser protects privacy using standard VPNs". The Verge. Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  41. ^ Castro, Chiara (6 April 2023). "Mullvad browser: the privacy of Tor, with the perks of a VPN". TechRadar. Retrieved 4 October 2024.
  42. ^ "Introducing Mullvad Leta: a search engine used in the Mullvad Browser". Mullvad VPN. 20 June 2023. Archived from the original on 29 June 2023. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
  43. ^ "Mullvad Leta FAQ". Mullvad Leta. Archived from the original on 26 June 2023. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
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