"Mullvad AB and its parent company Amagicom AB are 100% owned by founders [1 person] and Daniel Berntsson [...]"[0]

So I'll assume he owns about 50%. Well, that ends my usage of Mullvad.[1] I appreciate that probably many of Mullvad's employees have different views, and obviously Berntsson has every right to his opinions and to express them, and I also appreciate that someone can have control over an opinionated company and run it for one particular set of reasons but not for other causes that someone believes in, but in the end I just don't want my money supporting anti-people causes.

[0] https://mullvad.net/en/about

[1] If it was a small amount, say less than 5% or maybe 10%, I might have decided differently. But it's still millions, so probably not.

To be fair, Örebropartiet can also be called an extreme left party. It’s complicated…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party

Their stance seems to be "people can do things on their own personal time":

https://mastodon.online/@mullvadnet/116822244689326681

I saw this a couple of days ago, here's the original article that broke the news, in Swedish: https://www.flamman.se/techprofil-ger-miljoner-till-orebropa...

It includes a short statement from the CEO.

I try to turn it other way in my head, like if Mullvad got to know somehow political views of some of their customers and say "We don't like what you say, so we decide to end our business with you. We don't want our infra to be used to spread opinions like yours."

Well guess I won’t be renewing my subscription this month then.

Any other verified sources?

Damn. Well, if that gets confirmed I'm going to get my company off mullvad.

I’m not Swedish. Does Mullvad do what it says on the tin? That’s all that matters.

The CEO’s extracurricular activities are none of my business.

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.

Great, I will definitely go out of my way to purchase their products.

Uncontrolled migration needs to stop.

Aren't far-right parties opposed to government control and censorship? Ideally a provider should be politically neutral, but I'm wondering if it's preferable to have one that is opposed to government control and censorship.

Any suggestions for a VPN service with similar security standards as Mullvad?

previously discussed[flagged: 251 comments]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48687508

The wikipedia article about the party is pretty interesting [1]. "The party has also been described as both right-wing populist and left-wing populist as well as left-conservative"

The party was founded after the founder was thrown out of the Left party for liking a far-left extremist group on Facebook and not backing down from that. Since then the party has evolved to also include goals traditionally attributed to the right, like large scale remigration and a stricter immigration policy.

The party also seems inconsequentially small, even at the municipal and regional level. They have 0 seats at the national level

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party

does it change your trust in the company?

For some people, the answer is obviously yes. For others, they'll judge Mullvad purely by its track record, audits, and technical design.

Honestly, you could say the same about the CEO of ANDURIL in the US - the Oculus guy...but he just cares about the US and wants to make money by making weapon systems etc.

Is he a bad person? Is he a patriot? Who knows, I ain't gonna play the ultimate judge game - but he did release a cool gameboy clone which is literally the closest I will ever get to his work... [1]

[1] https://modretro.com

Companies funding far-left parties seem to be much bigger problem.

A headline and 20 comments and no mention of what this party actually stands for. Only simple labels such as "far-right". Ehh. The Republican Party in America is EXTREMELY far right by Swedish standards. So maybe one should base this on the actual substance rather than labels?

I use Mullvad because it physically prevents anyone from logging my data.

What a co-owner does with his personal money in a local Swedish municipal election has zero impact on the code protecting my traffic.

Did a quick research - calling a party that campaigns for a 30-hour work week and socialist dental care 'far-right' just because they have a strict immigration policy shows how carelessly people throw labels around these days.

This is like the third duplicate I saw in a week

The party in question seems to be an anti-immigration strongly secularist left wing party with Marxist roots. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96rebro_Party

I am not sure "far right" is an accurate label. Maybe populist? Its a mix that would probably get a lot of support in other European countries.

Left/right doesn't matter much for a no-logs VPN.

Up/Down (authoritarian/libertarian) is what matters there.

If he has high allegiance to the extant power structure then promises should be questioned.

If he is for radical decentralization and antiwar then I'm more likely to trust promises made about privacy and autonomy.

Then there's international confusion about left/right. Scandinavia is known as a good place to run a business because businesses regulation is much lighter than places like the US which are heavily regulated. In the US business regulation is "left wing" in Scandinavia it's "right wing".

We'd use a 14-dimensional vector for political positioning if we wanted to be studious but most folks are just looking for a friend/enemy distinction. Even many of the comments here looking to dump a well-regarded service if either "tastes great" or "less filling" is confirmed. The false dialectic as means of control and all that jazz.

Discussed three days ago (251 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48687508

The other owner replied here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696800

Aren’t Swedish political parties mostly publicly funded?

If this is real I will stop my monthly subscriptions.

archive link? the post got deleted

[flagged]

I used Mullvad before this because they passed a bunch of tests and legally denied claims to user data. I don’t have the reference but it was on HN.

So who do people recommend now?

I love how we pretend to live in a free democratic society where everyone is free to make up their own mind and vote for what they believe...

...as long as they don't have opinions that differ from ours, in that case we might punch em in the face...

> The Örebro Party (Swedish: Örebropartiet, ÖP) is a political party in Sweden. The party was initially only a local party in Örebro, Sweden. Markus Allard is the party leader. According to Allard the party cannot be placed anywhere on the traditional left-right spectrum. Some of its key issues include lowered wages for politicians, ending the tax payer funding of various sculptures, monuments and art, large scale remigration, a stricter immigration policy, and free dental care.[3][4]

I see no problems

Why is Orebro a far-right party? I've not heard of them before so asked ChatGPT to summarise the party:

> Stricter immigration: The party supports significantly tighter immigration policies than Sweden has traditionally had. More recently, it has also advocated policies encouraging or expanding the return of some migrants to their countries of origin.

> Anti-establishment and anti-corruption: A central message is that established political parties are wasteful and disconnected from ordinary people. The party proposes reducing politicians' salaries and cutting what it considers unnecessary public spending.

> Protecting core public services: It argues that savings should come from administration and projects it views as non-essential, while prioritizing healthcare, schools, elderly care, and other local services. Free dental care: This has been one of its more prominent welfare proposals.

> Social conservatism and secularism: The party is generally described by political scientists and reference works as socially conservative and nationalist, while also supporting a secular state.

I asked more about the immigration point which seems to be the only right-wing position here and even that seems based around reducing immigration from culturally incompatible (and often far-right) countries and migrants who are an economic burden to Swedish tax payers. Which would be weird to brand far-right? Maybe slightly right-wing, but hardly unreasonable.

ChatGPT seems to think they're neither really right-wing or left-wing, but more populist which seems to be a better description if this is a good summary of their beliefs?

Asking because I don't really trust MSM sources to be unbiased against populist parties and I know ChatGPT has it's biases and issues. Would be nice if a Swede can explain if this is actually a far-right party, or just "far-right" by Swedish standards.

Far right? It's run by a literal marxist communist.

As is typical, left ultras are once again being drafted (manipulated) into service against the few businesses that actually look out for their interests. Look out! Nazis under the bed again!

Anyone who still listens to these people after the last decade is hopelessly gullible.

Hey guys, ever wonder why your masters never get you to swarm the actually clearly evil businesses? Too scared to fight the real bad guys or what?

Far right isn't good enough for these people. They are radical-ultra-far-hard-alt right.