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.
Great for newcomers, especially in restricted regions.
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.
They should make a “Firefox Core” which contains only the browser with basic features, and then make another version which contains all the “fun” stuff.
They need to separate gecko properly so we can build things using just the renderer.
Install LibreWolf then disable the cookie clearing and resistFingerprinting.
Isn’t that what extensions are for? This basically already exists. It’s a shame Mozilla doesn’t utilize it for this
It depends on the country you are living in. There are plenty of people with restricted and surveilled internet.
Sure, but do you think they’re going to allow Firefox if it comes with a built-in VPN?
Texas and Florida haven’t banned it yet.
How exactly are you going to ‘disallow’ a piece of software?
Arguable
Firefox’s free VPN won’t be using Mullvad’s infra though; it’s hosted on Mozilla servers around the world (if beta testing of the feature done in late 2025 tracks).
…oh.
How long before that data gets sold?
-1 year
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.
They added dangerous bullshit that nobody wanted with no good ability to turn it off, and then, year or so later, added a switch to turn it off.
Most of the Firefox users don’t want for llm to read web pages for them and group their tabs based on whatever bullshit rules it hallucinated this day. People go to Google and Microslop for this treatment.I definitely wouldn’t call “local llm features” dangerous.
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.
It absolutely, positively is on by default. Moreover, it’s actually quite hard to completely turn off. Even their new fancy switches are sus, but for the longest time you needed to go to about:config and switch like ten different weirdly named parameters to turn everything off.
Weird. I was just setting up three Linux laptops and was asked if I wanted to turn these features on every time.
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.
This is exactly my worry. Usually the reason a VPN is free is because they’re selling your data on the backend. No thank you.
“Free” as you pay with your data?
~~ No, Mozilla uses Mullvad as a partner, they’re a serious and nolog VPN provider.
https://mullvad.net/en/blog/mullvad-vpn-was-subject-to-a-search-warrant-customer-data-not-compromised ~~ EDIT: Didn’t read the article, the free VPN won’t be using Mullvad apparently.
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.
I’m sure that’s the condition, to use your data (that they protect of course) to better improve the browser. And I’m sure they are in a country where they don’t have to show logs (that I’m sure they don’t keep, yet somehow use your data).
They need to stick with just the browser, period. Stop trying to drift into other areas. Firefox has unfortunately gotten too heavy for what it should be, and adding even more features (good or bad) doesn’t help the core performance.
The other options out there have their pluses and minuses, but if Firefox keeps pushing people will live with the negatives of the browsers that seem to care about the browsing experience of their users.
to google most likely.
Yep!
So they know it’s you all the traffic comes from?
Exactly. No thanks. Nothing is ever “free”.
If something is free then you are the product
How does that sqaure away with FOSS?
You are either going to donate, or spread word to others, who will pick it up and donate themselves.
Money still gets made, its just less opportunistic and predatory.
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.
And while Mozilla has some telemetry and “experiments”, they don’t track your browsing habits.
Another server that belongs to the same company as your browser, so they have an access to both ends of the direct line. If you don’t trust Mozilla to be thrustworthy vpn server (which is good, shouldn’t trust anyone), bad news, they already have an access to your whole traffic because they own your browser
But unlike the VPN server, the browser is on my end and i can make sure it doesn’t rat me out. Coincidentally, my policies.json over the years was almost the same as Waterfox’.
People’s conception of what VPN actually does is skewed by shady ads. Now they hear VPN and assume it’s suppose to be this unbreakable anonymizer that somehow also secures you from some unspecified dangers.
A VPN to me is a way to prevent my ISP from seeing I torrent and to go around geoblocks. It’s not a privacy tool at all. So yeah, I’m evaluating them from that angle.
every fucking youtuber is sponsored with those ads i hate this timeline
its better than betterhelp i guess
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?!
Yeah, sadly Mozilla lost most of the trust one would have given to them in advance a few years ago.
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
Of course, my mozilla account will have the name John Smith and I was born in 1996.
Samme as every other vpn???
Other vpns aren’t integrated into your browser that you’re globally logged in into.
Nah just integrated in your machine
Processed by LLMs no doubt.
I loved Mozilla for years but trust nothing from them these days.
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.
I think it would be better to compare this offer to well-known VPN providers instead of all VPN providers, since the sketchiest ones tend to have the lowest prices. The two reputable ones I can think of, Proton and Mullvad, both cost over $5/month. But cost is only half of the picture: They’ve also earned their reputation through a lot of time, effort, audits, even government raids.
Regardless, you have some good points. Let’s take for granted that Mozilla will not attempt to share or sell user data with this free service, that it’s all above-board (a fair assumption): They still have to build their reputation from zero.
Then why are they not offering at least a low cost subscription? Why are they spending money on infrastructure and support but getting no revenue in return?
Either they are okay with losing even more money, OR they plan to enshittify.
For this and many many other reasons, it’s time to switch to a privacy fork like LibreWolf or WaterFox
Why are they spending money on infrastructure and support but getting no revenue in return?
I already addressed this in my comment. If you want me to expand on how they most definitely can make money from something like this, Mozilla:
- Gets revenue from their paid VPN service that already exists, and it would be a way to convert users to a revenue source, since the thing being taken away after the data cap is itself a VPN
- Gets donations, which more users with a good opinion of the browser will bring
- Has sponsored integrations, which pay money on a per-click basis, (e.g. AccuWeather integration where Mozilla gets paid if you click through to their website, pinned sites like Amazon that appear on the new tab page for new users) and ones that are influenced by overall number of Firefox users (e.g. Google’s deal to be the default search engine when you first install Firefox)
If this feature brings in new users, they can get revenue from any of these 3 sources, especially the sponsored listings. If this feature is just a benefit for existing users that might have already changed all their defaults and disabled sponsored content, it increases the chance of VPN conversions and donations, and increases the likelihood someone will recommend Firefox to a friend.
Either they are okay with losing even more money, OR they plan to enshittify.
Or they’re trying to get and retain users, which helps them make money from existing revenue options without having to make anything worse, while also providing a beneficial feature. I’m not saying there’s no chance they’ll enshittify, but I don’t think unconditional pessimism is the right move here.
For this and many many other reasons, it’s time to switch to a privacy fork like LibreWolf or WaterFox
I can’t speak to Waterfox myself, but I would agree with saying LibreWolf is a good idea if you care.
I just personally haven’t bothered switching since Firefox currently works fine for me, and anything they’ve done I dislike is fairly easy to just disable in settings and never see again.
Get out of here with your level headed take. The pitchforks already have been distributed and it has been decided Mozilla will sell the data asap! /s
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.
How is it better than something like Vivaldi
Vivaldi is Chromium, which I avoid because I consider it an advertising corporation’s attempt to erode open web standards.
I don’t trust mozilla though.
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!!
Just use Mullvad then instead of this roundabout way of using Mullvad.
ofc, this is a free alternative, not a mullvad competitor
“Just use Mullvad instead” is good advice compared to almost any other option.
Unfortunate that to get this experience in Firefox, we will have to disable a built-in feature and download some extension.
idk about you, but when I use a VPN I want all the device’s traffic to go through it, not just the browser. So I’d always disable the built-in feature in that case.
This isn’t using Mullvad.
