So, first off, to make it for daily browsing use I did some basic alterations to the browser by allowing it to keep history, caches, cookies, disabling always-on incognito, and so on. I also installed my favorite addons (Dark Reader, Sponsorblock, I try to be as minimalistic in my choices as possible). This of course harms the privacy, but you can just ctrl+shift+p to basically turn all of that shit off when you decide you need to get serious. I kept the letterboxing on, its hard to get used to initially but after about a month of using Mullvad as a daily driver I got used to it. It seems most sites aren’t able to detect my alterations to the browser.
I don’t think any other privacy browser spin (Librewolf, Waterfox, Brave, Tor Browser etc) comes anywhere close to the snappiness and privacy intersection of Mullvad Browser. I’m able to skirt bans due to using anonymity services trivially and the captchas are short and quick and not a never-ending slug fest. Its good enough at faking a unique identity out of the box that most things cannot tell that its fake. I’m in such love that I’m going to swap away from my current vpn (IVPN, sub should end in November) to Mullvad due to how well polished this project is. I’m really interested if their multihop service can get around VPN IP bans better than Tor can.
Kudos to the Mullvad team 🥂 I hope you make an android version soon!
Mullvad is anonymity over security. It’s best to use something else for all your extensions.
deleted by creator
Interesting, first time I hear about this… Going thru the settings, do you use their default or are you changing anything? For example DNS over HTTPS - I usually use system (settings Off) because I have pi.hole in my network (where I also block bunch of shit like facebook, etc) or vpn to it when traveling - never heard about mullvad provider. Similar thing with the security of website feature settings, I usually switch it to safer - just not sure if it does anything if it’s already got stuff llike ankerfox embeded. Also the search engine? I have searx there
Neat. Never heard of it. I’ll take a look. One thing I read about was how Tor/Tails actually made itself more identifiable in some ways by having a “set” kind of user profile fingerprint (blank), and specific screen size/resolution and keyboard used. To actually pose as a real user, then spoofing a bunch of different hardware each time you turn on the OS/Browser seems like it would make you appear more authentic? That was a long time ago, maybe it’s being done already, or there is a reason they don’t that I do not understand. It seems like something they would obviously have thought of. At least in the US we aren’t using those kind of low resolutions as often anymore. When you say it’s based on tor, does it connect to the tor network? That always felt like a red flag for ISPs and spies to look deeper when connecting from say, a residential WiFi connection.
Using firefox + arkenfox user.js and addtional changes like disabling deletion of cookies per site took a lot of effort. Now I just use brave.
In Vivaldi I’ve an global/per site setting
0·2 months agoThe last line makes me wonder, how much is mullvad involved in the browser, and how much is just the Tor browser team?
Quite a lot of it is tor stuff with (edit:) some arkenfox slapped on. Most of the config are Tor base, Ublock added, and it has a New Identity feature that is similar to Tor. Biggest benefit is being able to use a comparatively much speedier VPN with it over Tor’s proxies. For the most private setup, you should run it stock with Mullvad’s VPN service, but I’ve found it works great with Proton VPN and IVPN as well. Personally, I have very sensitive eyes so I cannot run it with only stock, I need Dark Reader and uBlock at the minimum, and Sponsorblock and anything else is simply a nice thing to have.
I’ve been testing it on many sites and the amount of extra info from addons is very small and few sites keep track of it in my real world testing. It is readable though and a few can notice the difference, and its mostly financial sites that you need to use real ID for anyways.
Not just a lot. It is the same base as Tor Browser.
Edit: which is also why it is wrong to say it has arxenfox slapped on.
You can find a more in depth conversation on this (arkenfox additions and shortcomings vs what mullvad specifically does) here: https://github.com/mullvad/mullvad-browser/issues/1 and here https://mullvad.net/en/browser/hard-facts
I was mostly referring to some similarities between Mullvad and arkenfox’s base profile
They are similar, yes, but I dont think there is any arkenfox added on. Its just TB stuff.
Not that any of this matters.
I would just caution you to make sure the changes you make to Mullvad don’t change its fingerprint otherwise its kind of moot to use it over a privacy configured version of Firefox.
Even if you do change its fingerprint, I’d argue its still better than most privacy configured versions of Firefox. What you should be careful to do is only change things that can be reverted by going into incognito mode if you seek to daily drive this browser.
Librewolf is better if you are going to use a few extensions. Mullvad like FlTor are meant to be used as is, out of the box.
Just curious, why are you getting banned?
I’ve learned how to get under rich people’s skin and in my free time when I’m bored I harass them. It’s an unguilty pleasure of mine. It brings me great joy to see a multimillionaire or a transphobe so pissed about something I said that they complain to spez to get me banned.
I also just have a general interest in security and privacy, sometimes I just do things like spam an ad site to see how long it takes to react.
Share your secrets! How do you piss off multimillionaires?
They have big egos. You need to be sure they’re an avid poster and will respond to what you say. There’s also the public aspect, they don’t like having something awful they’ve done brought up in a community they like. You can set up a bot to post things like “Hey remember that time you sexually harassed a woman 20 years younger than you and a court ruled against you” as soon as they post an AMA so it’ll be the top comment. Reddit really hates when you use bots like this and will likely remove the comment after it gets a lot of attention which further inflames other people against the target.
A lot of this requires practice to get good at heckling. It’s all a case by case basis. You should always be aware of your audience and what the audience finds most unacceptable about someone’s behavior.
Running Librewolf myself and have done so for a while (at least before mullvad browser became a thing). I’m curious. How do they compare with each other? Mainly on the aspect of privacy.
Mullvad is much better privacy wise than Librewolf, its also snappier and has faster security and privacy updates. The only thing you really lose out on is Firefox sync (if you enabled it on Librewolf). The new identity button helps you reset to a stock state and allows you to circumvent fingerprinting (such as the fingerprinting used for enforcing bans) trivially. Mullvad takes Tor Browser’s approach to heart, while Librewolf takes Arkenfox’s changes to heart. Its factual that Tor Browser is the most private browser, so emulating aspects of it is certainly the way to go.
Some things you will probably find annoying:
-
Its so good at stock that you shouldn’t customize it much if you don’t know what you’re doing.
-
Letterboxing is hard to get used to
-
Without nonstock modifications, its not suitable as a daily driver in my opinion, its a privacy tool first and foremost with stock settings. When you make it nonstock, it becomes very good as a daily driver but you really must be as minimalist as possible in your alterations. Take only what you desperately need, and make sure your settings do not interfere with the normal function of incognito mode which will essentially set the browser back to stock for you fingerprint wise by disabling cookies, history, extra addons, etc.
Some things you will like:
- Librewolf is sort of bloated feeling stock. It doesn’f feel as quick and snappy as Mullvad does.
Thanks for info, which one is better on speed performance between Braze and Mullvad?
I did not use Mullvad before, would like to know it more before installation. I think switching from Chrome to Braze won’t bring many upgrades on privacy since they are all Chromium and the data like history, bookmarks are transferable to another.
Tor is great on privacy and anonymity but the loading speed takes longer than expected, so I want to look for a middle point balancing speed and privacy well over different browsers.
I don’t really consider brave to be in the running due to the advertising they have built into the browser
-
Good choice for Privacy, apart it’s an european browser (Sweden), but somewhat basic in other features and sync with Mozilla. Only 2 other EU browsers, Konqueror (KHTML, Germany) and Vivaldi (degoogled Chromium, Norway), UR (France) sadly death since years.
