It seems that a lot of major browsers are shipping with some sort of VPN or proxy service now:
- Brave: Brave VPN
- Edge: Microsoft Edge Secure Network
- Opera: Opera VPN
- Safari: iCloud Private Relay (technically not part of Safari, but the service only works in Safari)
And other browser vendors push their own, albeit not in the browser itself.
- Chrome: Google One VPN, not part of the browser
- Firefox: Mozilla VPN, there is a link in the browser but doesn’t come with it.
My question is that what is the purpose behind these moves. Is it a money grab thing, like hoping people would sign up for their premium VPN services, or is it a way to get more user data? Also, is there any statistics that customers actually prefer a browser for having these services built-in?
My guess would be that they are pretty easy to run (pay someone else to), and can generate some decent consistent income. Depending on the company it also allows them to sell all your traffic a bit easier
its a lowkey buzzword thanks to so many vpns (trustworthy or not, usually the latter) advertising on youtube via sponsorships with creators. wanting to do those ads to get new customers in probably but more likely because generally more people are vaguely aware of what it does (though a lot of it is hinged on a misconception thanks to those ads) people are more likely gonna wanna buy into one
and theyre even more likely to buy into one thats provided by the browser they use and already trust.
Because they’re hella profitable and a lot of people are buying them to “protect” themselves.
To recapture the data brokering market they’ve lost to third party VPN providers
Very cheap entry cost and very high returns, why not.
VPN = privacy in many user’s eyes. Even though many times it is probably worse, as now you are trusting Apple with all your data including internet traffic. Yet these users are probably still signed in to their Google account so they are sending data to Google too.
So just like AI, it makes your product feel better.
because ppl that use them are more paranoiac about their privacy
Well, vpn had become quite popular in the last couple of years. And since most people use said browsers to search for a vpn, it makes sense to attempt to make a vpn that can be incorporated into the browser. Since you already trust the browser with your data, the same can be said about the vpn, since it’s going to be a part of it. Same company, different services.
Just another path to feed on your precious personal data.
It’s a bit like “green washing” where a company pays a PR company to claim a lot of work in helping the environment or whatever but doesn’t actually do anything to reduce pollution.
Unfortunately VPNs can be anywhere from extremely private to not at all private. So this is “privacy washing” as there are at least two on your list I wouldn’t go anywhere near.
Opera’s VPN at least at one point offered some improved caching and compression that enabled faster internet service, albeit lower quality. That was a cool feature but unfortunately they don’t really have any kind of reputation for privacy.
I can say that Mozilla is using it to diversify their revenue so they’re not as dependent on Google’s default search engine for income. Since that’s probably going away. They do have a good privacy reputation.
Conspiracy theorist activity in browser forums.
easy way to collect data.
For Apple’s one at least, your data is actually private because it uses two different servers owned and operated by two different companies
I mean, then you are trusting these two companies to not share info with Apple.
VPN is not a magic pill to privacy