I’m using Mullvad because I like their company. F***! These is no way I can formulate this sentence without it sounding weird…
Anyway!
It seems like the state’s websites and the municipalities’ websites allow Mullvad but the counties’ websites block it.
What the actual f… 😂
What’s the situation in YOUR country/region? Are you able to do taxes, surf on healthcare related websites (hospitals etc) and on government bodies’ sites without issues?
I would never use a VPN for sites that require me to log in with my real name, in that case the VPN has no added value and you are actively sabotaging the privacy you’re trying to gain by using a VPN for general browsing.
In fact, I have a seperate browser for sites that require me to log in with my real identity.
Are you trying to say that I’m leaving a fingerprint by using a VPN? How? My threat model doesn’t require me to hide the fact that my real identity is using one.
Your bank now knows your ID. Now they know the IP address of your VPN exit node and your browser fingerprint. Theoretically if they give that information to Google (or more likely, both Google and your bank give your information to Peter Thiel) then Palantir can track you despite using a VPN.
Who knows how realistic this scenario is, but why chance it when your bank is also going to suspect you of fraud every time you log in via VPN.
they are tracking you with a VPN whether you want to admit it or not. Or how does a VPN stop tracking. And what stops the VPN from doing exactly what you say your ISP is doing.
they are tracking you with a VPN whether you want to admit it or not. Or how does a VPN stop tracking.
They hide your IP address from the sites you visit. IIRC they also use the same IP address for multiple users for further mix things up. You aren’t necessarily untrackable with a VPN, but if you’re IP address is out in the open you are 100% trackable.
And what stops the VPN from doing exactly what you say your ISP is doing.
Nothing technically. But there are three reasons why your VPN is more trustworthy.
- They trade on trust. Selling your data would undermine their entire selling point.
- The ISP’s are openly doing it so a whisteblower would be meaningless, your VPN is not openly selling your data.
- Your ISP has a monopoly (in America) so they can do whatever they want. Your VPN doesn’t. Changing a VPN is not only possible but extremely easy.
I can do whatever with Mullvad VPN here in Sweden besides of logging into my bank. They are blocking the Swedish servers for whatever reason so I just change to the Norwegian servers instead.
That is so… Interesting? 😅 What do they have to gain by blocking their own IPs/locations but not the neighboring country’s…
That is a good question. I contacted Mullvad few years ago and since I download my emails for local storage and then delete them from the server, I can’t find their response (am not home at this very moment).
But I want to remember is that my bank blocks the Swedish VPN servers due to fraud/misuse.
Tangentially related, but I tried to update Linux once but the downloads were super slow. I switched on my VPN and suddenly it updated super fast.
I’m in India, and most government websites block VPN usage. I have to turn off my VPN to access them. There is no other way.
One more thing I have noticed is that when I using Mullvad’s ad-blocking DNS (just the DNS, no VPN), many government sites do not load, as in the domain name does not get resolved.
Online anonymity is not appreciated by authorities, it would seem…
Why do you use a VPN? I only use one when torrenting. Basically all my traffic is over HTTPS, and my DNS is encrypted via NextDNS so I don’t think I need one usually
No amount of traffic/DNS encryption actually hides where your requests are coming from, or where they are going to. Your IP address and the IP addresses of the sites you visit are always unencrypted. VPNs hide both of these; realistically that’s their sole purpose on the modern web.
Not all websites support https.
I use strict HTTPS-only mode in my web browser and legitimately can’t remember the last time it’s broken a website that I wasn’t personally hosting as a dev server. At this point, I would never expect to be able to keep my interactions with any website that doesn’t support HTTPS private, VPN or not.
