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A comment on DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android. Parent comment

Re:DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android by wepple on Friday May 03, 2024 @03:47PM (#40251577)
They’re in it for the money.

They’ve made some claims that are downright lies, I chuckle at the idea anyone would trust them.

The NYC subway ads state that they save you from online web ad systems; blatantly false.

I’ll take a photo next time I see the ad to store away.

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Re:DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android by cjaybo on Friday May 03, 2024 @04:10PM (#40251841)
> They’ve made some claims that are downright lies

Which claims are you referring to?

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Re:DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android by wepple on Saturday May 04, 2024 @06:34AM (#40256510)
From my above post:

> The NYC subway ads state that they save you from online web ad systems; blatantly false.

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Re:DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android by wepple on Wednesday May 08, 2024 @05:12PM (#40302760)
NYC subway, today: https://ibb.co/v3rdHcm
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Re:DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android by Rastonbury on Friday May 03, 2024 @04:16PM (#40251897)
What were the lies?
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Re:DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android by wepple on Saturday May 04, 2024 @06:34AM (#40256513)
From my above post:

> The NYC subway ads state that they save you from online web ad systems; blatantly false.

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Re:DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android by TheCraiggers on Saturday May 04, 2024 @08:24AM (#40257128)
A very cursory search online shows that it's actually your statement which is blatantly false. They've offered ad blocking for years.

While it's true they've not always offered this, it's on you when making such claims to ensure you're still factual.

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Re:DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android by wepple on Saturday May 04, 2024 @11:17AM (#40258289)
> They've offered ad blocking for years.

Please show me evidence to back this up and I’ll happily walk back my statements.

The “mullvad” browser is not their VPN product. And if you think DNS denylisting prevents “ad networks from spying on you”, I have some unfortunate news for you. It works to prevent the rendering of a subset of ads (especially in the browser), but isn’t worth a damn for actual behavioral analysis.

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Re:DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android by trelane on Saturday May 04, 2024 @02:33PM (#40259420)
https://mullvad.net/en/blog/how-set-ad-blocking-our-app

"How to set up ad blocking in our app"

Dated May 27, 2021

I would guess it started with something like this: they serve DNS to prevent DNS leaks when using the VPN. They realize they can use this to block domains, just like a pihole or Cloudflare DNS. They integrate that into their VPN offering.

It's pretty logical once you think about it, but it was a surprise to me too.

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Re:DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android by Rastonbury on Tuesday May 07, 2024 @09:43AM (#40285365)
It blocks almost all analytics, social pixels which likely covers 90% of the market. Between DNS blocking and uBlock, whatever behavior analysis they can do beyond that doesn't seem to work because the ads I see are entirely irrelevant
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Re:DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android by kfreds on Friday May 03, 2024 @05:55PM (#40252839)
A VPN is not enough for privacy. But in combination with a privacy-focused browser, you make sure to block third-party cookies and other tracking technologies used by the data collectors.

The paragraph above is clearly visible on our landing page. We don't want people using our service for things it's not designed for.

The paragraph below is also a direct quote from our website.

"When you visit a website, you can be identified and tracked through your IP address, third-party cookies, all kinds of tracking scripts, and through so called browser fingerprints. That’s why masking your IP address is not enough to stop the data collection. However, by using a trustworthy VPN in combination with a privacy-focused browser, you can put up a better resistance against the mass surveillance of today. That's why we partnered with the Tor Project to develop Mullvad Browser – a browser designed to minimize tracking and fingerprints."

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Re:DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android by tredre3 on Friday May 03, 2024 @08:21PM (#40253753)
Your knowledge might be a bit out of date, they do offer an ad-blocking DNS now.

I don't know if it's easily configurable in the app, though.

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Re:DNS traffic can leak outside the VPN tunnel on Android by trelane on Saturday May 04, 2024 @02:32PM (#40259414)
> I don't know if it's easily configurable in the app, though.

I just discovered it by accident the other day.

It's super easy.

See "DNS content blockers" at https://mullvad.net/de/help/using-mullvad-vpn-on-android#vpn...

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