Firefox’s free VPN will offer 50 gigabytes of monthly data, which is pretty generous for a browser-based VPN. A Mozilla account is required to make use of it, which isn’t a hardship (they’re free), but is a point of friction some may wish to know upfront.
Please stop adding bloat to my browser. I have nothing against VPN, but it’s not a fucking core feature of a web browser. Put that stuff in an extension that I can install if I want.
Arguable
If anyone missed them removing the “we will never sell your data” from their promise to their users, this is clearly their next step in monetizing their users.
“Free” as you pay with your data?
It doesn’t seem like it, or at least there’s zero evidence I’ve seen that this is the case. As the linked OMG Ubuntu article speculates, probably the main benefit financially is making users more likely to sign up to their paid VPN.
Aside: Based on their blog post, the service seems like a proxy rather than a VPN.
with a 50GB quota, I actually believe it’s free. I use 15-20x that much on an average month.
Yep!
Usable addition, and the fact that it is only in-browser is actually a merit in some cases. Firefox gets a lot of hate but is way more privacy centric out of the box compared to Chrome. AI is only opt-in and you can literally customize the entire browser using about:config. Mozilla also maintains the only real competing web engine (not considering Apple’s locked in ecosystem) and they are the reason browsers are open source these days.
AI is only opt-in
Not to take anything away from your overall point, which I completely agree with, but this may be a bit of a stretch. All of the “AI” buttons and features are - to my knowledge - on by default. They have made it a lot easier to change that to “off by default now and in the future”, which is very welcome, but “only opt-in” is, again, a bit of a stretch.
Well, yes. In so far as they’ve added a new opt in button, and it would be silly to assume every user wants it off now. Instead, users that previously installed get a “turn off AI here” button when the update happens.
I’d say that’s a good trade off.
It’s not on by default.
It was on my computer, on, until well after they implemented it, they allowed an opt out.
Weird. I was just setting up three Linux laptops and was asked if I wanted to turn these features on every time.
I am still on windows, I want to make the switch but my main computer broke, the cursor and the keyboard stopped working despite not being connected to the internet for years. And my backup computer the C drive is almost completely full which I have no fucking idea how that happened as I have barely done anything on this piece of shit. So I’m afraid if I try to download Linux I will end up with no computer that works. I am not a tech guy obviously.
You could try connecting an external keyboard/mouse to your main computer.
As for the backup one - how much space do you have left? You’d need between 4 and 6 GB to download a Linux ISO and around 2 MB for Rufus with which you’d build a bootable “live USB”.
If you don’t have even that much, grab WinDirStat to check what exactly is taking up so much space - maybe you can remove some of it.
Thanks for the help, I did buy an external keyboard and mouse despite not knowing if that works without authorizing it. Someone else told me I could take apart the back and sometimes the wire comes loose. The old one should have a lot of memory the thing is a beast.
The backup one however the c Drive is like 90 some percent full and keeps sending me messages about clearing up space but I’ve already done everything I can. I have no idea what is even on the C drive. I barely saved anything, 95% of my music is that my old one, and documents and whatever that’s all I save.
And how exactly do we know for certain that all that juicy web access data complete linked to whatever identifying information associated with a Mozilla account isn’t going to be sold?!
The same could be said about any VPN out there. Read the ToS and privacy policy, and either believe it or don’t.
True, but Mozilla being what it had been the past few years I trust them no further than I can throw them
Edit: pay the few dollars for mullvad
Yeah, sadly Mozilla lost most of the trust one would have given to them in advance a few years ago.
Of course, my mozilla account will have the name John Smith and I was born in 1996.
Same as every other vpn???
So they know it’s you all the traffic comes from?
They also know it’s you when you don’t use it. I’m not sure how is it worse? Seems like a handy way to go around geoblocks.
Uhm, what? Maybe my ISP knows, but they are regulated (at least here). But VPN is a virtual direct-line to another server.
Looking forward to seeing people complain that they got caught torrenting while the “Firefox vpn” was turned on because nobody understands how anything fucking works any more.
Right, this is just a proxy, isn’t it?
If it’s running inside Firefox, it can only encrypt/modify Firefox’s traffic.
For everyone who thinks this is just gonna be a way for them to somehow sell your data, I don’t think so.
Think about it like this. You can buy a VPN plan for as little as $2 a month or less depending on the provider if you have a long-term commitment (e.g. 1-2 years). That pricing includes margin.
Firefox can essentially operate at lower prices than that, because they:
- Don’t have to charge themselves an extra margin
- Have an economy of scale since they’re not just one user paying for themselves, they’re a company paying for thousands at a time
- Cap their per-user cost well below what most users actually use. (I used over 300 GB of data in the last 30 days just on my PC, almost all through Firefox, with even more on Firefox on my phone.)
I would bet this would probably cost Mozilla less than a dollar per user per month, and that’s also assuming all those users are continuing to use the VPN service over time, maxing out their data limit, but refusing to pay for anything else after.
Meanwhile, Mozilla conveniently sells their own VPN service provided through Mullvad, which they make a profit on.
If a user cares enough to continue using the VPN because they want a VPN, they’ll blow through the data limit and be more inclined than the average user to pay for Mozilla’s option. (rather than going “I guess I’ll only care about my privacy for 5 days out of the month”)
If a user doesn’t care enough to continue using the VPN because they were just trying it out, but they chose to use Firefox because it had a free VPN bundled in, which sold them on it over another browser, Mozilla just paid less than an ad would cost for a conversion.
And at the end of the day, it also just helps keep up their reputation as a browser that respects your privacy, which makes it easier to promote the browser elsewhere, in ads or otherwise.
This feels more like a marketing ploy that’s likely to just save money on ad conversions for new Firefox users, and increase Mozilla VPN conversions, rather than something they’re gonna use to super secretly siphon off your data and sell it to advertisers.
Yeah, but they also added an AI feature that’s enabled by default that I never asked for.
And I normally advocate for Firefox. It’s been a good solid privacy focused browser for a while but now I’m starting to think maybe not as much.
Still better than the Chrome-alikes, but all the same I’ve switched to Librewolf. Problem is, foss mozilla teams like Librewolf are small and underfunded, and their ability to continue sanitizing and debloating the app forever is not garaunteed. A new vanguard FOSS browser project is needed, ideally one that continues the Netscape lineage of open and non-coercive web standards with a more durable and democratic organizational structure.
Absolutely
Ladybird alpha is schedueled for 2026. Hopefully that has a beneficial impact.
Aha so that’s why they have been sabotaging themselves in the last few years. To allow for higher bandwidth per user on their vpn!!
This announcement comes suspiciously close to the announcement of them including a lot more AI bullshit.
How far Firefox has fallen. This is really sad to see.
Great for newcomers, especially in restricted regions.
Usable addition, and the fact that it is only in-browser is actually a merit in some cases. Firefox gets a lot of hate but is way more privacy centric out of the box compared to Chrome. AI is only opt-in and you can literally customize the entire browser using about:config. Mozilla also maintains the only real competing web engine (not considering Apple’s locked in ecosystem) and they are the reason browsers are open source these days.
Just use Mullvad then instead of this roundabout way of using Mullvad.
ofc, this is a free alternative, not a mullvad competitor
This isn’t using Mullvad.
I don’t trust mozilla though.
