WhatsApp officially names Mullvad and Amnezia VPN as go-to tools for bypassing censorship
Submitted 23 hours ago by fne8w2ah@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
ThePantser@sh.itjust.works 22 hours ago
Whatsapp, the Facebook property? They are telling people which VPN to use to bypass censorship? The same Facebook who censors anything critical of the US government? Yeah maybe they could you know just stop boosting the US government and tell the truth and we wouldn’t have to worry about censorship.
baggachipz@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
Wolf tells sheep about the best fences to keep predators out
artyom@piefed.social 20 hours ago
Mullvad is widely considered the best VPN, so they’re actually not wrong on this one. Don’t take it from Meta, there are tons of other unbiased sources on this.
z3rOR0ne@lemmy.ml 20 hours ago
Agreed. Sadly an endorsement from Meta and/or it’s various subsidiaries is more of a condemnation than any criticism.
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
That just means they don’t want you to leave their service and can get at your data anyway if you use a VPN.
morto@piefed.social 17 hours ago
They just fear or losing users to other apps in places with restricted access
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
They’re giving good advice but, in my opinion, they are using the reputation of Mullvad to ‘privacy-wash’ their public image by associating with a trusted brand.
WhatsApp is not a secure messaging service, your messages are not private. Being end to end encrypted doesn’t mean anything if both ends are compromised by having the app installed on them (or being vendor rooted).
AbidanYre@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Mullvad seems to have a good reputation, never heard of Amnezia, but coming from WhatsApp make me immediately suspicious of both.
WesternInfidels@feddit.online 21 hours ago
never heard of Amnezia
You said that before though
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
I did? Huh.
otter@lemmy.ca 22 hours ago
Supposedly Amnezia is an anti censorship tool, however Facebook has a terrible track record with recommending VPNs. The previous one turned out to be spyware
Onavo, Inc. was an Israeli mobile web analytics company that was purchased by Facebook, Inc. (now Meta Platforms), who changed the company’s name to Facebook Israel.[1] The company primarily performed its activities via consumer mobile apps, including the virtual private network (VPN) service Onavo Protect, which analysed web traffic sent through the VPN to provide statistics on the usage of other apps.
Guy Rosen and Roi Tiger founded Onavo in 2010. In October 2013, Onavo was acquired by Facebook, which used Onavo’s analytics platform to monitor competitors. This influenced Facebook to make various business decisions, including its 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp.
Since the acquisition, Onavo was frequently classified as being spyware, as the VPN was used to monetize application usage data collected within an allegedly privacy-focused environment. In August 2018, Facebook was forced to pull Onavo Protect from the iOS App Store due to violations of Apple’s policy forbidding apps from collecting data on the usage of other apps. In February 2019, in response to criticism over a Facebook market research program employing similar techniques (including, in particular, being targeted towards teens), Onavo announced that it would close the Android version of Protect as well.
itsmistermoon@piefed.social 18 hours ago
maybe is one of those “give a good one to sneak a bad one” cases (forgot the analogy name)
scytale@piefed.zip 21 hours ago
I guess the broken clock thing applies for the Mullvad recommendation. I haven’t seen any issues with them and they have had a good track record.
XLE@piefed.social 17 hours ago
Mullvad should sue for defamation
Nollij@sopuli.xyz 19 hours ago
Now is probably a good time to remember what a VPN can and cannot do. It can block your ISP from knowing which sites you’re going to. It can bypass ISP-level blocks, including geo-blocks.
It cannot stop the endpoints (WhatsApp, both the client and server) from harvesting whatever data they want from there.
Meta is clearly concerned about bans on WhatsApp. This is nothing more than their own self-interests.
IratePirate@feddit.org 21 hours ago
If I weren’t pretty convinced of Mullvad, this coming from the company that promoted a VPN to spy on people would make me immediately suspicious. Fuck you, Mark! You’ll never be a real human.
RandomDude@lemmy.ca 23 hours ago
I’ve never heard of Amnezia VPN, but agree with Mullvad. ProtonVPN is also up there
ptu@sopuli.xyz 19 hours ago
I tried Proton mail and was surprised of how aggressively they were upselling. Seemed like they were ran by venture capitalists although a non-profit controls the majority share.
nucleative@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Been with mullvad for a very long time but this scares the crap out of me and I might have to bail soon.
Nindelofocho@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
I think this might be a multi level move to get you to do just that (and to push whatever that other vpn is) Imo the best thing to do is disregard anything meta says and keep up your own diligence
Feyd@programming.dev 21 hours ago
If amnezia is sus they probably added mullvad to lend credibility to the overall statement
matlag@sh.itjust.works 21 hours ago
Whatsapp wants to make absolutely sure everyone in the world can be free of censorship on their app and therefore free to put oneself under a 24/24 tight surveillance under their app.
mr_noxx@lemmy.ml 21 hours ago
My guess is that this has more to do with the slew of recent bans on social media for youngsters. Think of all that lost ad revenue!
Asmodeus_Krang@infosec.pub 23 hours ago
I’ve used PIA for years with no issues.
bishoponarope@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Owned by an Israeli billionaire, with all the implications that come with that.
fne8w2ah@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Wouldn’t touch PIA even with a 10 foot long pole after all their past controversies.
Asmodeus_Krang@infosec.pub 21 hours ago
I’m not opposed to ditching them but could you provide me an article or source for these controversies?
paultimate14@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
- owned by Israeli billionaire
- based in the UK, subject to UK laws
- chief tech officer was previously the CEO of a Bitcoin exchange company and was convicted of fraud for stealing from it
lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
I think you mean Kape or whatever advertiser bought them
quips@slrpnk.net 22 hours ago
Which you shouldn’t continue to do.
crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 hours ago
cyberinsider.com/kape-technologies-owns-expressvp…
I bought a year of PIA before I found this out, after Mullvad dropped port forwarding. I guess I’ll switch to Proton?
Zubgub@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 hours ago
AirVPN still has port forwarding last i checked.
Abrinoxus@thelemmy.club 21 hours ago
This must be unwanted recognition by mullvad or THEY ARE IN ON IT (mass surveillance)
sonofearth@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Fuckers don’t even have a Linux Client.