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Comment by throwanem | Hacker News Reader

I use (and really like!) Mullvad, but have never tried the app, preferring to use my existing OpenVPN clients with the profiles Mullvad provides.

This isn't because I have any reason to mistrust their app, but just because if I've already got a perfectly serviceable client on my device, why add another binary to do the same thing?

But I would be interested to hear, from folks who have used the app, what you like and don't like about it. In particular, I've had some headaches setting up split tunneling/proxying via OpenVPN - I was never all that good at its config language - and I'm wondering if the Mullvad app might make those easier to achieve.

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I've found their apps to be (subjectively) higher quality than most OpenVPN clients on platforms I care about (macOS, iOS, Windows). It's nice to have a consistent UI, and not have to think or care about specific profiles — it's easy for me to jump between servers much more easily (I typically connect relatively locally, but occasionally find that certain out IP addresses have been blacklisted from specific sites; it's trivial to "refresh" the connection to hop over to a different server and not have to think about it).

And, of course, easier (for me) to set up and configure. Maybe no _huge_ incentive to switch over to it if your setup works, but might be worth trying out if you're curious.

I'll +1 your anecdote with mine: that Mullvad's app is pretty great. It's very simple, isn't buggy, has just what's needed, and has a good UI. I'm pleased with it. Better than the others I've used.

I'll also +1 your anecdote that the Mullvad app is simple, convenient and stable.

I would agree with a couple additional points. The first is that the app has a nice GUI that works across all platforms I'm interested in (mainly Linux) - but it also has a very handy CLI.

I've also found that the client devs respond to issues. This is great as well as I feel as though I'm getting a complete solution with Mullvad.

While I have no doubt Mullvad is great as a vanilla VPN without their client - I feel as though I'd be missing out on a few features and convenience items if I were forced to bring my own.

And to be clear - while Multihop is new, it's not new as in today. It's been out for a while in beta (if I'm remembering right) and landed in GA about a month ago. I don't see much need for it in my use case, but it's nice they're continually enhancing the overall product.

If you don't want to switch to the Mullvad app, it's still worthwhile to switch to their wireguard profiles. Connections seem more stable and wireguard is far easier to configure.

Hey I’m curious about the terminology you guys are using here. Is there a manual or a page which I can read to learn more about wireguard profiles and what mullvad has done for them perhaps?

Wireguard is the latest VPN protocol. Check out the Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WireGuard) or it's homepage (https://www.wireguard.com/). Not all VPN providers support it yet (notably Proton VPN), but it is generally faster and more secure than OpenVPN.

It was made by Jason A. Donenfeld.

Search HN re Wireguard. It's a much more secure, efficient, and very widely respected. Linus has integrated it into the kernel, for example.

Linus has integrated more than a few questionable things into the kernel so that’s not a ringing endorsement for me. Perhaps it’s a good implementation for the new standard, perhaps not. Regardless, I want to say to you that I appreciate your comment and I’m going to go off and do some further research before I begin to have an opinion.

I don't use OpenVPN but wireguard, but I do use split tunneling and my setup is a bit complex but not hard to achieve.

I wanted to have a VPN up 24/7 but certain sites apps don't really like VPNs. I basically have steam and privoxy set as my split tunneling apps. Steam because it seems their website's CDN breaks half the time and privoxy so I can access specific websites without a VPN.

For privoxy to work properly I use a browser extension called SmartProxy[1] which lets me setup a proxy and then I can quickly add/delete sites from using that proxy, I just add 127.0.0.1:8118 and I can basically have any site either use the VPN (default) or whitelist it so it goes through my home connection.

[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smartproxy/jogcnpl...

I've been using the app for a couple of years now and I have mostly enjoyed the experience relative to the few other VPN solutions I've tried (OpenVPN, Nord (old version), ProtonVPN).

Things I mostly like:

- The relative simplicity of the app interface (though 'advanced' settings should just be a sub-section of 'preferences')

- How quickly/easily I can get connected (download, paste in account #, click connect - or change location.

- Relatively easy split-tunneling

- Easy switch between OpenVPN and Wireguard protocols

- Easy local network sharing (preference toggle)

- Tracker and ad block options (have not tested efficacy, appears to be DNS-based)

- Internet kill switch (will not fall back to non-vpn connections if set)

Things I don't like:

- Can cause issues on boot/reboot if kill switch is enabled (Windows - disable kill switch, restart app, re-enable kill switch)

- Limited options for mobile apps (and some unexpected disconnections on android)

- No configuration of app layout or color scheme

- Somewhat annoying upgrade (not bad, just no in-place upgrade solution)

The Mullvad app is huge ~100MB which is odd for what it needs to do.

I believe it's Electron-based, which is another reason I've hesitated to try it out. I like Electron - from the developer's perspective, it's great! - but I do still try to avoid its resource impact until there's a compelling reason to take the hit.

My mullvad installation on Windows has 258MB but memory footprint is low. I find 5 entries in the task manager with a total of 14.6MB with active connection.

Maybe not Electron, then. Perhaps I'm confusing it with ExpressVPN's first-party app, which definitely was Electron when I tried them a few years back.

It does use electron. The source code is available on github.

https://github.com/mullvad/mullvadvpn-app

That is one of the nitpicks that I missed, along with their downloads being excruciatingly slow when already connected to the service, for whatever reason (I may just be doing something wrong).

I've noticed that as well. The trick as I found (and even recommended by their support) is to download from their GitHub repo.

The app is great in my opinion, giving less-technical users a simple interface to toggle their VPN connection and see at a glance where their chosen server is on a map.

If you're comfortable setting up OpenVPN profiles, the Mullvad app doesn't have much to offer you as far as I can tell. I don't recall seeing split tunneling options, though that would be cool to see

Split tunneling an app to NOT GO THROUGH the tunnel is easy

Setting split tunneling to ONLY TUNNEL A SPECIFIC APP is hard

My main application is to get passed region block to keep up with news/TV in other places I've lived previously. The app makes changing your exit node very straight forward and I've not encountered any bugs, so it does what it should.

Why not use a wireguard client instead? Connection is instant (unlike openvpn which can take a few seconds to connect) and drains less battery as well. Their app uses wireguard as well, and you can use other wireguard client too.

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