What's the best alternative for the more privacy/safety paranoid?

Run your own?

There are lots of guide online of getting a cheap VPS and installing Wireguard on it.

What's the best alternative for the more privacy/safety paranoid? One thing I admire about Mullvad is that you technically don't need to provide personal information to set up an account, or have it tied to a billing address/name. You can pay by post or crypto, and make it much harder for a hostile government to get the information by legally pressuring Mullvad themselves.

It's not something I've needed myself, but I can see it being useful for journalists and whistleblowers working to expose government corruption or something, and the whole 'registration + account' thing feels like the weak point in the chain for said use cases.

I'm happy with proton vpn.

• al_borland

  yesterday at 11:24 PM

  The OP is likely posting this due to this post about one of Mullvad’s CEOs supporting a right-leaning political party, rather than anything to do with Mullvad’s quality of service.

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717469

  Proton’s CEO has done the same thing.

  https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-tru...

  I’m sure if they look into any company suggested, they will find someone involved who has done something they don’t like. If they don’t find anything, it’s likely only because it hasn’t been made public.

  • rpastuszak

    today at 6:00 PM

    Yes, although I don't think this effort is futile as you seem to be implying.

    A more interesting question is how much effort we're willing to put into making those choices. My answer was posting here and doing a bit of research. Maybe I'll stick with Mullvad for the time being, maybe I won't and I'll help a few people make the same choice. It's better than shrugging and being defeatist, cynicism is cheap.

    (Adobe subs weren't https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/alternatives-to-adobe/)

• emmettbt

  today at 12:48 AM

  proton is nice but their "open source" claim is deceptive as it is only their client that is open source.

Mullvad is the best. You should ask for the socialist alternative

• rekabis

  yesterday at 9:18 PM

  Okay, what is the socialist/leftist alternative?

  • Chu4eeno

    today at 11:05 AM

    riseup provides VPN, though they are not a commercial service and funded through donations.

I'm honestly quite happy with ExpressVPN

I took the advice of the other Mullvad founder in the other thread here on HN and signed up for IVPN.

So far I have to say I am really impressed. Clients are all open source, really configurable, and speed and reliability seems as good as Mullvad.

Will I find out tomorrow that their founder is also a fascist? Hopefully not.

• runjake

  today at 2:03 PM

  What makes Berntsson a fascist? What makes the Örebro Party fascist?

  (I am a Mullvad user, but I am not Swedish, or familiar with Swedish politics, so I only have Wikipedia to go from.)