Mozilla Is Selling a VPN, Really?

Mozilla, one of the search engine giants, has announced that it will partner with one of the famous VPN service providers in the market today, ProtonVPN. With this, Mozilla is going to launch an experiment on selected Mozilla users where it will introduce ProtonVPN to protect their users’ online privacy.

With the many VPN service providers out there, Mozilla was able to pick ProtonVPN because of their data retention policies as well as a transparent process. With ProtonVPN, Mozilla aimed to introduce to its users an ad to purchase ProtonVPN to protect their user’s network.

Starting October 24, the ad will be offered to selected Firefox users who are located in the USA. Also, only those who are running the latest version of Firefox, the Firefox 62, on a desktop will receive the VPN ad subscription.

If a user is eligible and is currently browsing in an unsecured connection or network, the ad will pop up on the user’s computer. It will be located on the top right corner of the Firefox window. The pop up will ask you to click a sign-up page.

ProtonVPNs usually charge $10 for its monthly plan. This is also the same price that Mozilla is offering its users. However, if you directly go to ProtonVPN for a subscription, you can get a discount and have a yearly subscription that will only cost you $8 a month.

However, according to reports, once you sign with Mozilla’s VPN subscription ad, it will go directly to Mozilla and not to ProtonVPN. Both parties have agreed with this since they are both promoting safer internet browsing.

Even though ProtonVPN will not get the revenue, it is still a fruitful partnership as it will make ProtonVPN more popular. Aside from creating a safer internet browsing activity, the partnership will be able to achieve a subscription service that is built into a browser.

This is not the first time that Mozilla tries to monetize its services. They’ve tried to monetize Pocket, their web and app service application that was known before as “Read it Later”. They tried monetizing it by inserting sponsored articles.

Features of ProtonVPN

Mozilla made a good partnership with ProtonVPN as it has a good record, reputation, and features. It is one of the many trusted VPNs in the market today.

One good feature of ProtonVPN is its strict “no log” policy. They don’t keep logs of activities, sessions, IP addresses and data of their users, unlike other VPN service providers.

Aside from that, they also have a transparent process on how they try to limit potential abuse of usage. They do this by keeping a log of the user’s last session. This is to ensure that the user is not making many connections. They don’t keep this log, they only use this for monitoring usage.

They are also among the many VPNs who allow a peer to peer traffic. Thus, BitTorrent and other file sharing sites are allowed. However, this feature is only limited to premium and paid subscriptions. If you are using its free version, you might not be able to access other file sharing sites.

ProtonVPN is also flexible when it comes to payment. But it does not keep a record of its users’ sensitive information. It accepts payments via PayPal and Bitcoin. Their VPN product also has a kill switch feature that is both available in Windows and MacOS devices.

What is good about ProtonVPN and probably one of the reasons that Mozilla has chosen them for a partnership is that it owns their own control servers. However, for their additional servers, they partner with trusted data centers that meet their security and quality requirements.

Another good thing about ProtonVPN is that it does not use virtual locations or fake servers. They are also catering to 14 countries with over 120 servers.

If this partnership becomes successful, ProtonVPN will be able to expand its clientele to 300 million Mozilla users.

The VPN Subscription Ad

This is just a mini experiment with selected Firefox users in the US. However, once it is successful, it will be implemented to every Firefox user.

On the other hand, this is just an advertisement. It does not force users to get a subscription. Users can still choose if they would like to subscribe or not. They are also free to consider other VPN service providers out there.

There are a lot of VPN service providers out there. Others may choose to find other VPNs that are more applicable to their needs.

Be Careful in Choosing a VPN

Users are encouraged to be careful in using VPNs. There have been reports of malicious software disguising as VPNs. This malware is very sneaky. It gets screenshots of your activities or the page you are currently looking and these screenshots will be sent to their control servers.

Other malware that is hiding as a VPN can get your real IP address and your real location, which is very dangerous. There are also others who inject ads on your computer and trick you by clicking on them. Once you click them more ads will come. These are also pay-per-click ads that create money for hackers.

Another thing that users should be wary about is getting free VPNs. Mostly, these free VPNs are malicious software that can give hackers the power to do everything that was mentioned above.

There are other free VPNs out there and there are people and business falling for these VPNs.

Bugs on ProtonVPN

VPNs are not perfect. Some VPNs were reported to have vulnerabilities. Even ProtonVPN has a reported vulnerability together with other big and famous VPN – NordVPN. However, this vulnerability is not easy to access and ProtonVPN has already reported having fixed the bug.

Having the right VPN, whether it is a paid subscription from Mozilla, will give you the online privacy protection that you need. The internet is a public place. Everyone can snoop into your activities. That is why everyone should get a little protection when it comes to their web traffic.

These VPNs are best at hiding your web traffic so attackers will not be able to know you activities or find your location.