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Comment by nl | Hacker News Reader

> "If you're not paying for it, you're the product being sold"

This is such a un-nuanced take.

In this case Firefox's route-to-market is the product. It's a distribution channel where some people who receive the free version will upgrade.

Free tiers for products where some will pay to upgrade seems like a reasonable compromise, but it does depend on how the deal is structured.

If Mullvad pays Firefox for the free users then Firefox's incentives are aligned with its users.

If Mullvad pays per conversion then it's a different story.

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I doubt Mullvad would be doing this if they weren't getting compensated given they've always said (even right now[1]) they don't offer a free tier since they don't believe it makes sense.

The other aspect is I expect it would stain the IP pool further. VPN IPs often end up on various blacklists due to abuse and introducing a wave of free users would only make it worse for paying customers.

[1] https://mullvad.net/en/pricing

> Why no free plan? "Free" services nearly always come at some cost, whether that be the time you spend watching an intro ad, the collection of your data, or by limiting the functionality of the service. We don't operate that way – at all.

It's already pretty bad for mullvad. 3/4 of the websites I visit do bot checks it used to just be a few.

That's true. Definitely getting worse.

It's mainly because nearly all VPN providers all use the same shady providers - M247, xtom, fdc, datapacket etc.. Most CDN setups will "challenge" those ASNs.

People think Mullvad is special but it's same shit as all the others in most cities/markets, I wish they would use some of their big ad money spend to deleverage from these typical dodgy scam hosting ASNs.

I get that without any vpn in 2026. In fact theres been times I’ve been locked out, returned my user agent and ip and asked to email a webmaster to prove I am human. I guess because I use firefox.

"Firefox’s free VPN won’t be using Mullvad’s infra though; it’s hosted on Mozilla servers around the world (if beta testing of the feature done in late 2025 tracks)."

From OMG Ubuntu

What makes me not want to use it is I assume Mozilla has a legal presence all around the world.

Two huge reasons people use VPNs is piracy and saying things/accessing content that's not legal in their country. If that company has a legal presence in your country, then they'll hand over that data to the police should you criticize the wrong person or download a movie without permission. At which point a VPN becomes kind of pointless.

The only time i use a VPN is when i'm traveling and I don't trust "free coffee shop wifi"

I probably won't use Mozilla's offering, because i want any VPN to cover the whole system, not just the browser (correct me if i've made a bad assumption here)

It depends on whether the company keeps records or not. They can't turn over records they don't have.

how is that any different from any other VPN provider?

>This is such a un-nuanced take.

I agree in principle, but we interact with hundreds of companies per day. Which ones are honest and which ones are taking advantage of us? I really don't have the cycles to run it all down, and keep up with it over time. Perhaps Firefox VPN will be totally private initially and then violate privacy 2 years in? Would I ever know? Maybe? I need to err on the side of caution for a lot of these decisions because so many companies are bad actors. I'm sure I don't always err correctly, but I don't have better options.

Firefox already had a rebadged Mullvad VPN service. I thought about switching but I found it had way fewer payment options and the log policy did not look encouraging when I read it. Made it sound like not only did it keep some kind of connection logs but that they'd cough them up pretty easily. Maybe their policy has changed but it did not seem to be a compelling offering.

True but you chose to post in the comment section of a news story, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for more nuance than for something you see randomly in the wild.

And your point, HN would probably actually notify me if Mozilla became (more) evil. I'm just making a general point. Is my hardware store selling my information every time I enter it now that they have camera everywhere? I don't have a good way to audit it. Even if I did, I'd be failing to audit what some other evil company is doing.

> This is such a un-nuanced take.

It's still correct though. In this context Mozilla uses the firefox-users as their test and demo base. At the end is commercial benefit.

And I think the core criticism still applies. Mozilla gave up on the browser years ago, let's be honest. It may be interesting from a historic point of view to find out how, when and why, but meanwhile the rest of the world has moved on already, so ...

It’s not correct. ‘You are the product’ implies some aspect of you -your activity or data is being sold.

In this case, you stent being sold. They are providing a limited free version and hoping you upgrade.

Just facts:

- June 2024. Mozilla acquires Anonym, an ad metrics firm.

- July 2024. Mozilla adds Privacy-Preserving Attribution (PPA), feature is enabled by default. Developed in cooperation with Meta (Facebook).

- Feb 2025. Mozilla updates its Privacy FAQ and TOS. "does not sell data about you." becomes "... in the way that most people think about it".

- Oct 2025. Sponsored “Privacy-Focused Direct Results” added to address bar. Not yet exposed in Settings UI.

- Dec 2025. Privacy Notice updated to formalize on-device ad processing and content personalization on New Tab. New Tab is actively marketed to advertisers as a native ad surface.

I'm curious on the source for these "facts".

- You state that PPA is enabled by default, but it was an experimental feature that was never activated and later removed: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attr...

- You state that Sponsored “Privacy-Focused Direct Results” were added to address bar, but 1. it's direct results in general, with some being sponsored and 2. it hasn't been released: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/better-search-suggestion.... The pref defaults to false in current stable.

- Yes, Anonym is an ad metrics firm, but you missed that it's focused on privacy. I am unsure whether they are actually able to achieve privacy or if it's just privacy-washing, but that's their stated goal. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/anonym/

- Privacy FAQ and TOS changes are true, but they rolled them back after backlash: (updated) https://www.thebridgechronicle.com/tech/mozilla-revises-fire... , (original) https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/firefox-deletes-...

- Privacy Notice update is true: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/update/dec2025...

>Mozilla gave up on the browser years ago, let's be honest.

They push million lines of new code every year, push thousands of patches, and regularly achieve performance measurable performance boosts to Webrender, the JavaScript and CSS rendering engines, on rapid release cycles that have improved speed and memory usage.

There are a lot of criticisms leveled at Mozilla some fair some unfair, but the amount of work poured into the browser is so extensively documented that there's no excuse for not knowing.

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