Hacker News Reader

Comment by mcpackieh | Hacker News Reader

This is bizarre. Why would Tor lend the credibility of their association to an inferior privacy product? My spidey senses are tingling, something is very wrong here.

View on HN

Both projects benefit. Tor gets funding to improve parts of the main Tor browser to meet Mullvad's specifications, Mullvad gets a new product and incidentally gets to financially support a project that they obviously admire.

The actual reskin is technically not all that challenging, for all that I'd still not want to do it just for fun. I'm sure that if Mullvad wanted to, they could have released a rebranded Tor Browser with their own development team. But that would have meant missing out on what is probably the main point of the exercise, which is giving more¹ money to the Tor project to make things better for everyone.

[1]: See also https://www.torproject.org/about/membership/, wherein we discover that Mullvad gives Tor a minimum of $100k/year for membership.

Another reason is that the Tor network has been overloaded since it's inception. If Mullvad can take off the load slightly for the uh... less necessary users (aka those who used Tor Browser for anti-fingerprinting uses rather than the type of protection offered by its onion routing), then that would be a win in the books of the Tor Project.

All Tor users benefit from mundane lawful "less necessary" users providing cover to all the rest.

Because not everyone wants to use the Tor network but may still be interested in a browser that comes configured for as much privacy as possible by default instead of having to configure various settings/extensions manually?

Options for incrementally improving privacy are still good, even if it doesn't go as far as the normal Tor browser.

For a superior privacy product to neuter itself for the benefit of supposed people who want inferior privacy is bizarre. Who are these people, who would want to use Tor Browser but wish it were less private? All this does is make the inferior privacy product seem better than it really is, by associating it with a superior one.

This whole thing STINKS.

I can think of some good uses. Lots of websites block Tor, some websites (like your bank) may lock your account if you start logging in from random countries. Tor can also be a bit slow for some uses.

What's the point of using a private browser (anti-fingerprinting/etc) for logging into your bank? They already know who you are. I understand using a VPN with the exit node in your country to do banking, but that's to hide your location not your identity.

Your time zone can reveal your location. WebRTC can reveal your IP address.

Sorry, late reply. I don't care if my bank knows who I am, but I might care if my bank can learn about my online history/preferences via the many analytics platforms and third party cookies. That shit needs to get shut down.

"inferior privacy product"

I think Tor is inferior to be honest.

If someone uses a commercial VPN I think they're privacy conscious. If someone uses Tor I subconsciously assume something else.

I wouldn't be recommending Tor to my friends of family.

That sounds like more of a personal problem than a Tor problem

> Why would Tor lend the credibility of their association

Huh? The Tor Project is primarily funded by the US Government.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com