Mozilla partners with ProtonVPN to test a paid VPN service for Firefox, reports Ghacks

Yesterday, Ghacks reported that Mozilla has partnered up with a Swiss VPN provider named, ProtonVPN. They are currently testing its VPN service for a sample of Firefox 62 users in the United States and this test starts on October 24th.

Users who connect to an unencrypted wireless network, visit privacy-focused websites, or streaming sites, might see a recommendation by Firefox. The recommendation confirms that Mozilla has selected ProtonVPN as the partner for this test and also shows the price of the subscription. This price matches the price that users pay for a monthly ProtonVPN subscription ($10 monthly) when they subscribe directly on the ProtonVPN website.

Why use VPN?

In case you are wondering what Virtual Private Network (VPN) is, it is an encrypted connection over the internet from a device to a network. This encrypted connection ensures safe transmission of sensitive and prevents unauthorized people from eavesdropping. It makes use of tunneling protocols such as PPTP, L2TP/IPSec, SSTP, and OpenVPN to establish a secure connection.

With VPN, users working at home, on the road, or at a branch office can securely connect to a remote corporate server using the internet. From the user’s perspective, it is a point-to-point connection between the user's computer and a corporate server. The nature of the intermediate network is irrelevant to the user because it appears as if the data is being sent over a dedicated private link.

Why is Mozilla partnering with ProtonVPN?

Mozilla conducted a thorough evaluation of a long list of market-leading VPN services based on a wide variety of factors, ranging from the design and implementation of each VPN service. As a result of this evaluation, they selected ProtonVPN for this experiment.

According to Mozilla ProtonVPN service offers a secure, reliable, and easy-to-use VPN service. ProtonVPN comes with the following advantages:

Strong security practices for better protection against hacking attempts.

It does not store or logs information about the browsing of its users.

It follows the same mission as Mozilla: to improve data safety and security on the Web.

Mozilla also issued an announcement yesterday, explaining their decision to partner with ProtonVPN:

“Mozilla will be the partly collecting payment from Firefox users who decide to subscribe. A portion of these proceeds will be shared with ProtonVPN, to offset their costs in operating the service, and a portion will go to Mozilla. In this way, subscribers will be directly supporting Mozilla while benefiting from one of the very best VPN services on the market today.”

According to Ghacks, this partnership will provide Mozilla another way of generating revenue:

“Mozilla has two main intentions when it comes to the new offering. First, to add a new revenue stream that is independent of the money that the organization gets from search engine companies like Google.

The affiliate revenue earned from promoting the VPN in Firefox would reduce the stranglehold that search engine companies have on Mozilla. The bulk of Mozilla's revenue comes from deals with search engine companies like Google or Yandex.

The second reason is that VPNs improve user privacy and security on the Internet. VPNs like ProtonVPN include security features that block certain attacks outright and they hide the IP address of the user device.”

Although this introduction of VPN can ensure better security to users browsing the internet, the monthly charge of $10 is a bit steep. Also, since Firefox will be getting a share of the $10/month revenue if users subscribe to the service, it feels like a promotion of the VPN. It would have been much better if Mozilla would have come up with their own VPN.

To know more about Mozilla testing ProtonVPN, check out the full story at ghacks.net and also read Mozilla’s official announcement.

Note: Yesterday, we reported that the test will begin on 22nd. We have now corrected the date according to the official announcement to 24th. We have also added based on what criteria Mozilla has selected ProtonVPN and the reason they are partnering with them.