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[–] 109 points 8 months ago (5 children)

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.

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  • [–] 91 points 8 months ago
    [–] 70 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

    I've heard good things about Mullvad, never heard of Amnezia. This coming from WhatsApp makes me immediately suspicious of both.

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  • [–] 28 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    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.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnezia_VPN

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  • [–] 48 points 8 months 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).

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  • [–] 42 points 8 months 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.

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  • [–] 37 points 8 months ago

    Mullvad should sue for defamation

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  • [–] 24 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Been with mullvad for a very long time but this scares the crap out of me and I might have to bail soon.

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  • [–] 31 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    I’ve never heard of Amnezia VPN, but agree with Mullvad. ProtonVPN is also up there

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  • [–] 4 points 8 months 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.

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  • [–] 8 points 8 months 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.

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  • [–] 3 points 8 months ago

    This must be unwanted recognition by mullvad or THEY ARE IN ON IT (mass surveillance)

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  • [+] -22 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (8 children)
  • [–] [S] 31 points 8 months ago (1 child)

    Wouldn't touch PIA even with a 10 foot long pole after all their past controversies.

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