It had a vary suspicions statement. They stated that they see specifically a lot of Mullvad ads. Not general VPN ads. That is what makes is sound malicious. Mullvad is not even close to being in the group of biggest marketing spenders.

You need a minute on their website to see that they have a very simple approach to funding their business. No "life time subscription" exclusive offers, no BS privacy claims...

Also this is HN, not a comment section on something like Yahoo news, really hard to consider people commenting here as being detached from tech trends and news.

>They stated that they see specifically a lot of Mullvad ads. Not general VPN ads.

I've only seen VPN ads from one company actually plastered in metro stations and inside subway cars: Mullvad. I've never seen physical ads for any other VPN provider.

I've seen lots of horribly annoying ads (or "sponsor segments") from various other VPNs, and I'm sure I've blocked orders of magnitude more of them by using SponsorBlock. But for real, in-person ads? Only Mullvad.

I'm not criticizing Mullvad here. In fact, this is probably a smart strategy on their part: if you're too clueless to use an ad-blocker online, you're not going to see other VPN providers' ads very much. But if you're highly privacy-focused, you'll already be using an ad-blocker and probably SponsorBlock too if you watch YouTube videos, so you really won't see other companies online ads much. But you can't miss physical ads on your subway ride. Their ads are also cute and clever, pointing out that a piece of paper stuck to the wall isn't tracking you the way most internet advertising does.

Mullvad has a small number of well targeted ads in my experience.

If the person above frequents certain torrent trackers, reads Torrent Freak, or travels in other small VPN adjacent circles then it's no stretch to imagine they have seen Mullvad mentioned a great deal, both through ads and through unsponsered forum members ranking Mullvad high on their HOWTO safely do {X} guides.

Surprising! I would have expected that the Venn diagram of potential Mullvad customers and uBlock Origin users would be a circle.

Thinking outside the uBlock box most of the Mullvad advertorial placement I see is from Best VPNs for the coming Dystopia articles and host forum site banners (not on typical ad black lists), fellow user guides, etc.

So, not Mullvad ads being blocked but actual Mullvad themed content positioned as of direct interest to the target demographic.

This is indeed HN, and here is a guideline for you to consider:

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Especially from someone who doesn't know all that much about the VPN business beyond seeing ads for it in some public locations and the very basics of what it is.