- The highly anticipated Mozilla VPN is finally here.
I'm gonna be giving you my first impressions
in this video, but the main gist is this,
Mozilla VPN lacks a number of features
that I've come to expect in a VPN,
but it has the one feature that most VPNs
don't have, trustworthiness.
And as I'll explain later, that might be a big deal.
Now, I admit that I'm a happy Firefox user.
I dumped Chrome a long time ago
and for the past 20 years, that's right, more than 20 years,
they've earned a solid reputation
for being privacy conscious and security focused.
So when the world's third most popular web browser
comes out with a virtual private network,
people start paying attention.
Now Mozilla has been testing this
for a little over a year now
with a browser extension that went by the name
of Firefox Private Network or Firefox VPN,
but it's only been in the past month
that Mozilla VPN has exited beta
and launched as a paid standalone product.
So what kind of features does Mozilla VPN offer?
Well what I'm about to share with you is true
as of August 2020,
but once they start releasing new features
and finish completing all of the apps for Linux and Mac,
I'll be doing more of a full review
that I'll link to here when it's finished.
The first thing you'll notice
is that Mozilla VPN offers a flat monthly subscription
that has no annual obligation
and covers you on five registered devices.
I find this very interesting because with most VPNs
you can download the software
on as many devices as you like,
you just have limits set on simultaneous connections.
Mozilla VPN is far more restrictive in this regard
and registering a device requires a Mozilla account,
but thankfully de-registering that device
is just as simple as a single click.
Mozilla VPN also exclusively uses the WireGuard protocol,
which is a bold move considering how relatively new
this protocol is in the market.
I've already done a video on WireGuard
that you can see here,
but the benefits in terms of speed and security
and connection stability are really amazing.
Most other VPNs give you the option to choose
from a number of protocols,
including IPsec, PPTP or open VPN.
As far as Mozilla VPN is concerned,
I don't mind losing all those options,
but that's only because my experience
with WireGuard has been so positive.
Mozilla VPN has servers in 31 countries,
spread all across the globe and these servers are powered
by Mullvad, another company that's really well known
for its security reputation.
Of course, Mozilla VPNs 280 plus servers
in 31 countries pales in comparison
to the thousands of servers in 50, 60 plus countries
that other VPN companies market.
Now, I'm kind of torn about this,
because despite what you'll read in other VPN reviews,
this whole number of VPN servers
is a vanity metric in my opinion.
Many of the VPNs that market these thousands of servers
don't tell you how many of those servers
are virtual servers,
which means that they're not actually located
in that physical location.
It's a shady marketing trick that's been the subject
of a lot of debate.
Finally, Mozilla VPN offers a kill switch
and split tunneling features.
The kill switch feature is one that is on by default
for all the platforms, so you don't have to go
into your advanced settings
to turn something like that on it and that's a good thing.
The split tunneling feature is only available
on Android unfortunately, but honestly,
that's not one that I use very often
on my Mac or my iOS devices.
So to sum up the disadvantages here,
Mozilla VPN is very restrictive
in their device usage policy.
They only have the WireGuard connection protocol.
They have limited server options
and very few advanced features.
So that's it.
That's an easy two star review and we can move on, right?
Well, not so fast.
If you've watched any of my other VPN reviews,
you know that I hammer other companies
for the one thing that I think
that they lack and is very important, trust.
As in sure, I'll send all of my internet data
through your servers and trust that you're managing
those servers well and not logging any data whatsoever.
You see the vast majority of VPNs on the market today
won't tell you anything about their ownership or management.
In fact, a lot of them are registered in one country
and operated out of an entirely different country.
Think of it this way.
Let's say that you need to send some important documents
like your credit card or your ID card
to another country in the mail.
You have the option of dropping it off at a FedEx location
or handing it over to an anonymous delivery driver
who promise to deliver it for half the price.
Now, if you were smart, you dropped it off at FedEx,
because let's be honest, these are important documents.
I mean, there's risk that these documents
will be mishandled either way,
but at least with FedEx you know that someone
will have to be held accountable.
That anonymous delivery driver,
yeah, good luck tracking him down.
The biggest thing Mozilla VPN has going for it is, trust
and hopefully I've been able to convey
just how important that is.
I'm willing to accept a limited feature set
with Mozilla VPN, because I trust
that they're going to handle my data properly
and I anticipate that over time,
Mozilla VPN will be adding additional features
that will put them more on par
with the rest of the competition.
That's my two cents, but I'm curious what you think.
Are you as concerned about trust as I am?
Does the privacy focused reputation of Mozilla make up
for the disadvantages that I shared?
Leave a comment below and let me know what you think.
And once they release the Mac and Linux software,
I'll do a more comprehensive review.
In the meantime, you can watch all of these other videos
I have here on the All Things Secured channel.
Thanks for watching and have a great week.