With all the sponsored VPN posts on the internet I would like to put my personal experience out there with my current choice Mullvad VPN. It is a privacy focused VPN based in Sweden which claims to hold no logs of it’s users. If you are using a VPN to obfuscate your traffic from spying eyes like your ISP or the government, you definitely want to vet the practices of the VPN you are using.
Speed
Firstly we can look at the speeds of the service. I’d rate them as mid to mid-high in terms of VPN speed.
Mullvad Speeds from a Bay Area node from a Bay Area location:
Speed on open connection 
Speed through Mullvad VPN
Service & Features
In terms of features, Mullvad falls fairly low in the pack. If you are using a VPN simply to spoof your location in order to watch Netflix, Hulu, etc. this VPN will most likely not be your first choice. It does have some useful features that are very useful to me such as: port forwarding and split tunneling. I would say the features it does implement feel robust. It feels like they are in no rush to implement a lot of the popular features of other VPNs as they are competing for a different group of consumers. Overall, I’d say the feature set falls a little flat for Mullvad.
Trustworthiness
This is where I rate Mullvad the highest and where I put the most weight in my VPN service. Mullvad claims to be a ‘privacy-focused’ and ‘no logs’ VPN but consumers can never know until a government subpoena proves it so. However, the closest thing we can get are independent audits which vouch for the nature of these VPNs which Mullvad has done in the past. In addition, Mullvad is the ‘white-label’ VPN for Mozilla VPN which means they provide the underlying service with Mozilla’s brand name. I personally trust in Mozilla for their highly praised Firefox browser, and trust in their ability to vet and audit the VPN provider they use for their own service. I trust in Mozilla’s dedication to privacy and, by extension, am willing to pass that trust onto Mullvad which has shown nothing but good faith in their blogs and business model.
Pricing
Mullvad frankly has a gimmick pricing model. It is a 5€ per month model with no discounts for longterm subscriptions(although you can pay 5 USD through their IOS app). More than that, they offer no avenue for referral kickbacks for people who want to recommend Mullvad. While this may make VPN reviewers stray away from it, I actually commend Mullvad for having the confidence to let the service stand on it’s own merits rather than a large advertising campaign. While well advertised ≠ a lack of quality, I personally believe there is a correlation.
The payment system is also interesting. You don’t have to tie your Mullvad account to any of your personal information. You can simply generate a 16 digit key, and add funds to that key using any form of private payment ranging from crypto to straight mailed-in cash. I’d say this system is less of a gimmick, and more of an actual benefit of Mullvad’s model.
Conclusion
I’d say for what Mullvad is trying to be, it accomplishes nicely. It fills a niche in the VPN market for people who actually want a VPN for privacy. From it’s partnership with Mozilla to it’s implementation of privacy-centric features, I am willing to give Mullvad the benefit of the doubt over many other VPNs that saturate the market. At the end of the day, it’s stubborn pricing model might as well be consumer-centric as all their consumers are not tied down to one provider. You better believe privacy focused VPN consumers are ready to leave at the drop of a hat if Mullvad shows even the slightest hint of anti-consumer practices.
