Privacy Without Compromise: Proton VPN is Now Built Into Vivaldi

Hadden89

@jon one thing I didn't understood clearly... using a proton account or linking the vivaldi account is exactly is the same, is it ?
(ok, we exclude the revenue to our devs of linking the service, of course and the slightly better integration)

funtaril

@ThePfromtheO said in Privacy Without Compromise: Proton VPN is Now Built Into Vivaldi:

@chillZ But this is NOT enabled by default!
The extension is installed only when you tap on the VPN button, and you can then uninstall it at any time!

You're acting like clicking on suddenly appeared button is some kind of fully aware decision made after reading all terms and conditions (of which there is none presented to user after the update), and not just natural action if you want to find out what can you do to make it disappear.

Ricarda

Damn it all! Please fix all the old errors, bugs and the disastrous junk that has accumulated here over the past few months.

Damn it all! Please read the MANY, MANY error messages and malfunctions of the past months in this so-called browser!!!!

Damn it again! Instead of constantly implementing gimmicks here that nobody asked for and that many people don't even want.

What the hell has happened to the once great VIVALDI?

An untidy construction site like no other ....

Pesala

@Ricarda said in Privacy Without Compromise: Proton VPN is Now Built Into Vivaldi:

Damn it all!

Language!

funtaril

@mossman said in Privacy Without Compromise: Proton VPN is Now Built Into Vivaldi:

Don't want it? Don't click it - and delete the button if it bothers you.

Welcome to our exquisite restaurant!
Oh, I see you have touched a note on your table that said "butt plug". You might have noticed that a shiny new plug was indeed quietly inserted up your butt after that.

But no need to worry - you can always safely remove it and live your life like nothing ever happened. And if you didn't want it inside of you, you shouldn't have touched the note in first place!

Really, your dissatisfaction with our impeccable service is your own fault. Our partner makes the the most comfortable, clean and safe butt plugs and there's no reason to be upset. It doesn't even vibrate unless you turn it on.

Pesala

@Zalex108 That is not the point. I just wanted to show that clicking the button installed and enabled the VPN extension. After clicking that button, users have to take positive steps to disable or remove the extension, which is not a good default policy.

I suggest removing the button, and doing everything in Settings, Privacy and Security. Install, Enable, Disable, and uninstall.

Catweazle

@luetage, maybe not

https://insights.priva.cat/p/a-follow-up-on-does-proton-still

funtaril

@yngve said in Privacy Without Compromise: Proton VPN is Now Built Into Vivaldi:

I suspect that a number of users who know what is going on will file bug reports asking us to "remove that unnecessary dialog"

Are you saying that notifications which properly inform users about new features (and request permission to integrate unsolicited 3rd party software) should not be added to programs because someone more experienced might get annoyed by them?
This is the hottest take I've seen here.

RedSnt

This is a great team-up. Sure, you can't select a specific country without paying, but it's a lot better than nothing.
And sure I don't agree with Proton's CEO's pro-Trump sentiments.
But I had a look at European VPN providers and I couldn't really find another one that provides an in-browser extension/addon like Proton does. It has been over 15 years since I needed a VPN for anything but avoiding geoblocking after all, so system-wide VPN seems overkill for my use.

I've used NordVPN for maybe 4 years, but my subscription ends in 2 months. I might just go with Proton VPN now.

electryon

@npro said in Privacy Without Compromise: Proton VPN is Now Built Into Vivaldi:

@electryon said in Privacy Without Compromise: Proton VPN is Now Built Into Vivaldi:

In case you do not know Vivaldi comes with 6 extensions pre-installed.

Google Store
Vivaldi Picture-In-Picture
Vivaldi Theme Store
Chromium PDF Viewer
Google Hangouts
Vivaldi
Should they ask for every extension they ship to be installed or not?

Well of all those 6, 3 are Vivaldi-made, Chromium is what Vivaldi is based on anyway so it is basically "Vivaldi", and Chromium is basically Google's owned open-source project so it includes the Google Store for the extensions and themes anyway, while the VPN extension is written by Proton AG which is a 3rd-party. So the question would be only about Google Hangouts basically. But I agree with you about that mistake, and that is what happens when you bypass your standard release model in order to... "surprise" everyone.

I would agree if the extension wasn't open source. So it doesn't matter who is coding it.
Vivaldi no matter how it is shipped (normal extension or oem extension) has the obligation now to monitor it.
Vivaldi is responsible for it because it ships it, not Proton AG.
Oem or not oem if something goes wrong with the extension Vivaldi Technologies is responsible for it.
Also the extension they ship is a modified one, you can only login with a proton account in the original extension.
Vivaldi is modifying it.
Vivaldi would avoid all this discussion and wouldn't give to people arguments for confirmations dialogs etc if they just shipped it as oem.
This is one of the most requested features Vivaldi ever had and you see what happens.
Anyone who thought that a small company like Vivaldi Technologies would be capable to build its own global server infrastructure and to offer the feature without a 3rd party involved is just unreasonable.
This whole discussion would be avoided if Vivaldi wasn't that "nice" and if they shipped it like every other extension they ship.
They should follow the Opera, the Brave and the Edge way of including their VPN proxy feature.

dalinar

this is pretty amazing.. I get over 400mbps on speed test with it.. that's basically as fast as my connection is even without a VPN on

I always wondered why VPN providers couldn't just build an extension for it, rather their extensions are usually just a way to control the OS's VPN software. So this really is great.

Does it use Wireguard?

DoctorG

Switching VPN on and off can sometimes cause Vivaldi Sync to break without any reconnect.
Restart Vivaldi helps.

yngve

@funtaril It will be up to the UI/design team whether to add such a dialog (but even if they do, you won't see it in 7.3 due to translation requirements). Personally, I think it is unnecessary, and as mentioned I think it is going to annoy many users, even if it is a once-only dialog.

There is, however, another, general, aspect of blocking dialogs like this, especially error/warning dialogs (and may, or may not, include dialogs like the information dialog mentioned above). What has been discovered over the past 10-20 years is that they tend to be counterproductive, especially in the security area.

What was discovered was that users would ignore (click through) warnings so that they could continue on with what they were doing, even if that meant doing the security/privacy equivalent of driving off a Mount Everest sized cliff (more colorful expressions exists).

That is the reason why many of the errors and warning dialogs in browsers are now either difficult, or impossible, to bypass.

I am pretty sure this "click it away before reading" tendency extends to informational dialogs, as well. Just think about the GDPR dialog/banners.

dalinar

if someone buys a subscription to Proton VPN will it work through this extension? or do you have to install software on windows as well for that?

RedSnt

@dalinar If it works like NordVPN's extension, then it works just fine in the browser alone. But you can install software if you like on the side and connect that way as well, although it's been over a decade since I needed to do that.

luetage

@Catweazle The article you linked is AI written, I didn’t say it contains wrong information. Although what do I know, I didn’t try to find original sources for anything. You gotta be able to discern between the two anyway.

luetage

@dalinar Yes, it works through the extension alone, but in this case only for connections made through the browser. If you need all your internet traffic to go through Proton you will need to download an extra application.

npro

@electryon said in Privacy Without Compromise: Proton VPN is Now Built Into Vivaldi:

Also the extension they ship is a modified one, you can only login with a proton account in the original extension.
Vivaldi is modifying it.

From the little I researched Proton modified it, not Vivaldi, they added some entries in their extension code 2 days ago (about accepting partner mails and whatnot).

Vivaldi would avoid all this discussion and wouldn't give to people arguments for confirmations dialogs etc if they just shipped it as oem.

If they would ship it as oem then people would complain that they integrated in their browser code that is related to their privacy or unnecessary bloat no one asked for, because last time I checked,

This is one of the most requested features Vivaldi ever had and you see what happens.

adding a VPN was never one of the most requested features Vivaldi ever had, or I am completely blind or drunk https://forum.vivaldi.net/category/185/desktop-feature-requests?sort=most_votes&page=1 or you are making things up.

Therefore the best solution would still be to just say after clicking that button that "Hi, starting with this release we offer <blah blah>. If you are interested press continue in order to install the Proton PVN extension needed, "it's open-source and totally checked by us" -and whatever other friendly sauce you want, I think you got the point already-. And adding "you can completely remove it anytime from 'there'", but again, they didn't want user feedback, so it did what it did now.

electryon

@npro said in Privacy Without Compromise: Proton VPN is Now Built Into Vivaldi:

From the little I researched Proton modified it, not Vivaldi, they added some entries in their extension code 2 days ago (about accepting partner mails and whatnot).

So it is a partnership after all between Vivaldi and Proton. To the level they code the extension based on this partnership. Because they were people posting nonsense there isn't even a partnership and it's an ad lol.

If they would ship it as oem then people would complain that they integrated in their browser code that is related to their privacy or unnecessary bloat no one asked for, because last time I checked,

They would complain anyway. If they add confirmation dialogs, then they would find something else to complain against it.
So they should just make it more integrated like they do with the other extensions they ship and be done with it.

adding a VPN was never one of the most requested features Vivaldi ever had, or I am completely blind or drunk https://forum.vivaldi.net/category/185/desktop-feature-requests?sort=most_votes&page=1 or you are making things up.

Just have a look at how many people keep asking for it for years lol.
And eventually they stopped because there were the same and same replies that it would never be added.
https://forum.vivaldi.net/search?in=titles&term=VPN&matchWords=all&by=&categories=185&searchChildren=true&hasTags=&replies=&repliesFilter=atleast&timeFilter=newer&timeRange=&sortBy=relevance&sortDirection=desc&showAs=posts&page=1

Therefore the best solution would still be to just say after clicking that button that "Hi, starting with this release we offer <blah blah>. If you are interested press continue in order to install the Proton PVN extension needed, "it's open-source and totally checked by us" -and whatever other friendly sauce you want, I think you got the point already-. And adding "you can completely remove it anytime from 'there'", but again, they didn't want user feedback, so it did what it did now.

No, the best solution would be to be an OEM extension like all the extensions Vivaldi installs and not bother with nonsense.
And just add in Vivaldi settings the option to enable/disable the OEM extension the same way they have options for Google store and Hangouts.

errantKnight

@Catweazle said in Privacy Without Compromise: Proton VPN is Now Built Into Vivaldi:>

The MAGA support by Proton isn't true, it was about an tuit out of context, related to the antitrust lawsuite, which was spreeded by Reddit. Proton has nothing to do with MAGA.
https://medium.com/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e

I have to respectfully disagree with this take, I think to get a proper understanding of the issue you have to delve into the official subreddits where this drama really took place. That Medium article is largely "apologism" for the behavior of the CEO, behavior Proton very clearly tried to back away from but still raises questions.

FWIW, I want to respect this forum isn't really for long back and forths on a political topic, I'll just refer to this article from a respected independent media outlet, that isn't someone's personal Medium blog post:

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

I will also note that fundamentally: the CEO was wrong. His argument is a specific Trump appointee is better positioned to go after big tech and enforce antitrust law than Democrats. Why he would say this is very hard to understand, the appointee he was praising has spent her entire career lobbying for big businesses. Almost immediately upon his inauguration Trump received huge donations from Big Tech, all of whose major CEOs have bent their knees in fealty.

I don't just object to Yen's political opinion, I object to his factual assertion--there is simply no evidence whatsoever the Trump Administration is interested in "reigning in big tech." In fact they are in the process of trying to use public resources to acquire TikTok for Oracle (a big tech firm owned by a mega billionaire Trump supporter.) Trump and his majordomo J.D. Vance have also been using the soft power of the U.S. government to threaten, and bully, longstanding European allies warning them to drop their big tech regulations, give U.S. big tech firms favorable tax treatment etc. These guys are the opposite of "reigning in big tech." Sorry, but Yen was dead wrong about this.

And if you dig into the subreddit drama, Proton's initial response was just to say "this was never an official statement from Proton", even though the CEO posted it under an official Proton account. They later changed their tune to "well we shouldn't post political opinions under official accounts." Then their CEO got on his personal account on Reddit and doubled down on literally everything he said, and expressed the typical tech CEO narcissistic ego that "everyone who disagrees with me just doesn't understand me." Because of course, no one could disagree with the immense genius of a tech CEO other than through misunderstanding.