I’m thinking of configuring a VPN in my router so that all traffic runs via Mullvad, just trying to consider if there are any downsides to this?
If I buy Mullvad via the onion site with Monero, obviously there’s no link to me, and they appear to keep no logs, as has been tested. In any case I trust them to keep no logs more than my ISP and government.
I do already have ProtonVPN but it’s attached to my debit card details, my email address, and name etc. No need to give them all my traffic too.
I know I can still be tracked by browser fingerprint and IP but I’ll be one of many users using the same Mullvad IP and I also employ adguard DNS, anti fingerprinting on my browsers etc.
My threat model is generally removing as much passive data gathering and tracking as possible, corporate or state. My threat model does not include active investigation from the law enforcement or state
My threat model is generally removing as much passive data gathering and tracking as possible, corporate or state. My threat model does not include active investigation from the law enforcement or state
Honestly just route your tcp traffic through Tor, even if you’re being snooped on by guard and exit nodes owned by the state when using clearnet sites, no advertiser is going to know who you are, and state owned exit nodes aren’t going to investigate you for visiting random common clearnet sites (note even if you’re deanonymized you’re still protected by tls). No reason to pay for a VPN for this, and the more Tor users the safer Tor gets against certain types of attacks.
It’s worth noting neither a VPN nor Tor will protect you from advertisers fingerprinting you due to poor opsec; and that is very difficult to get around if you’re doing something like using popular social media platforms with an account.
Imo the most important thing is the separation of what you do. If you’re logged in on facebook, you can do that from your public ip. Anything you’re not associated with your name you want to use a diffferent browser identity and maybe a different ip.
If you use Torrents or do anything illegal or whistleblowing or similar stuff, use a live linux iso with no persistence and a vpn bought with monero.
I did try to install Qubes recently for this purpose but it’s not well supported on my laptop hardware.
You could try Tails maybe? I found that a lot easier to set up that Qubes personally.
I think your in a situation that a lot of users fall into, where your making your life harder without any benefit to your threat model.
You really have no reason to switch from Proton to Mullvad based on your threat model.
I’ve been doing this for a while now with opnsense being what masks the whole network behind the mullvad VPN.
Pros:
- Even fresh new devices that have all that crap junkware installed get routed through the VPN, meaning no tracking to you immediately (unless they sniff the rest of the network and relay your network AP I guess)
- one device instead of many, leaving extra devices available to use for a single mullvad account (limited to 5 devices, at least for wireguard)
- if using wireguard, you honestly won’t be hit with network performance issues. Just don’t choose a server across the world from you. I chose one in the same country as myself and get an average 95-97% of my internet speed, and that’s because I also have IDS/IPS enabled
Cons:
- as others mentioned, increase captcha annoyances
- some banks may lock your account if you try to log in with the VPN
- if the VPN server goes down, the whole network will. This may be a good thing since your don’t want traffic to leak, but just pointing out you now have another single point of failure outside your ISP
- when someone’s hoarding the entire VPN server you’re connected to, you’ll probably witness a slowdown
That all being said, if you’re not very technically savvy on the networking side or haven’t ever setup a custom router/firewall, this will be a pain. But it you want to learn something new and are up for the challenge, eventually it gets down to almost never having to worry about it. I’ve been doing it for a long time now, so for me personally, I’ve gotten to the point of only needing to login to the firewall for a VPN setting update or server change maybe once a month
