[1]: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/expressvpn-c... [2]: https://www.techradar.com/news/expressvpn-to-join-kape-in-la...
I don't trust my ISP much at all, but I still trust them more than almost any VPN provider.
Saving/exporting as a PDF should be something you select in the same menu as saving a file normally. Or at least something very close an obvious.
Also, back when a lot of people first used computers the option to print as pdf might not have been available for them.
/JK
Edit: Sorry. Not Switzerland. Sweden. For some reason thought Switzerland.
> The mail service that handed over data of a customer to a foreign government
First, ProtonMail can only hand over meta-data, because data is encrypted.
Second, "ProtonMail does not give data to foreign governments; that’s illegal under Article 271 of the Swiss Criminal code. We only comply with legally binding orders from Swiss authorities."
> and changed the privacy statement on their site
The privacy policy was not misleading if you read it carefully. It was not "changed" as in removing a lie from the statement. At best, it was clarified to ensure *everyone* would correctly understand it in the future. It is accessible at https://protonmail.com/privacy-policy
What may have been misleading was the marketing message on the homepage. If you pondered each word of the one-sentence marketing message, you could have guessed that the expression "by default" was there for a purpose. Companies do not add useless words for marketing, they do it to avoid false advertisement. However, this is not the same thing as the privacy policy. And ProtonMail stated that they would fix that: "we will be making updates to our website to better clarify ProtonMail’s obligations in cases of criminal prosecution".
Quotes are taken from: https://protonmail.com/blog/climate-activist-arrest/
Not a fiasco as they're required by law to keep IP logs. You can disable the logging of IP sessions in the PM dashboard, but you can't guarantee that PM will not keep logs, since their servers are all Public Internet Facing. The only way Protonmail is 100% zero knowledge is to be a 100% a dark-net/Tor service, which immediately turns off 99% of their users.
In English they are similar as well but spelling and pronunciation are different enough that there should be less confusion, at least on paper. Not sure why there is such confusion in practice.
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[1]: Kind of a sub-genre of alternate history and/or history-simulation-game AI timelapse videos.
I don't understand how we should trust a company we know nothing about other than the text they put on their website which basically means nothing.
As for why to trust Mullvad in particular, you can't trust them completely but they list all their employees and their ownership structure publicly, they have a good track record, they have documentation which seems like it's written by people who know about security and their customers' potential threat models, and they don't have a suspiciously large advertising budget.
However, I wouldn't trust any VPN if you have to withstand targeted scrutiny from governments.
Gotcha
> Plus setting up a DO droplet VPN sounds like a PITA
It's actually very easy using https://getoutline.org/ - can highly recommend it if you need a fixed IP. And you can buy DO droplets with cryptocurrency through Bithost
I would not trust VPNs for any kind of serious privacy, at least not the popular ones. Maybe some small niche VPNs can fly under the radar.
That's like saying: "you really really need to trust a Bitcoin miner"
I'd hope the VPN service is built and operated in a way that doesn't require trust, but provides the same level of security.
edit: Since there is confusion in the responses. I'd prefer to trust no-one.
We take steps to reduce the amount of trust required, such as splitting that trust across many parties, so any one party hopefully can't betray us enough that it matters or that we don't notice, but there's still a lot of trust. For example, we use SSL certificates and certificate authorities that are known ahead of time to protect from problems on the network, but that requires you trust your OS and/or your browser, which is generally how you receive those certificate authorities. If I'm able to get my own CA on your system and trusted, and I can see your traffic, it doesn't matter whether you're using HTTPS connections.
A VPN provider might say they're not keeping logs, or that their servers are not beholden to a third party and traffic is not being analyzed, but ultimately all you have is their word on that. Ultimately, the only thing different between you connecting to the NSA and routing all your traffic (even if your traffic is mostly encrypted) through them so they can look at it and a VPN provider is that you trust the VPN provider when they say they aren't the NSA and they aren't looking at your traffic.
I wouldn’t blindly trust CAs either.
There's DNS and root servers to consider as well (but that might be harder to hide with all the caching going on).
I almost edited my above comment a few minutes afterwards to append something like "and honestly, it would be pretty hard to convince me the NSA or some other group hasn't run one or more VPN providers in the past. The only question in my eye is whether it was a popular one or not."
Or have we already forgot about Zoom's "end-to-end encryption?"
Unless you're continuously verifying, this requires trust that it is built that way and/or won't be changed in the future.
Since the VM company (unlike a VPN such as mullvad) makes zero promises with respect to keeping logs, if you visited badsite.com, then later the FBI raids badsite.com, sees a VM company IP address, subpoenas your VM company who says that your particular VM was leasing that specific IP at time XX:XX:XX, then you're done.
Further, mullvad gives you several relatively anonymous means of purchasing a VPN, whereas the vast majority of VM companies (digital ocean, linode) will require and store all manner of personally identifiable information about you.
Quite. Depends on your threat model and what you’re using the VPN for in the first place.
- That billion more than covers. Given the circumstances, the settlement is a bit paltry.