Memes

As clear as I can make it out, it seems like it was related to a search warrant that was executed on Mullvad.

https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/4/20/mullvad-vpn-was-subject-to-a-search-warrant-customer-data-not-compromised/

Because just a little over a month after the news of the failed raid, there was news of them removing port forwarding.

https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/5/29/removing-the-support-for-forwarded-ports/

Emphasis mine.

Unfortunately port forwarding also allows avenues for abuse, which in some cases can result in a far worse experience for the majority of our users. Regrettably individuals have frequently used this feature to host undesirable content and malicious services from ports that are forwarded from our VPN servers. This has led to law enforcement contacting us, our IPs getting blacklisted, and hosting providers cancelling us.

The result is that it affects the majority of our users negatively, because they cannot use our service without having services being blocked.

The abuse vector of port forwarding has caught up with us, and today we announce the discontinuation of support for port forwarding. This means that if you are a user of forwarded ports, you will not be able to add or modify the ports you have in use.

They made a smart call that has probably increased the long term privacy of their users.

People were using port forwarding to host illegal shit, and governments were getting pissed off about it. Mullvad has been able to prove in court that they don't keep logs, but that's not a perfect deterrent; a properly motivated government, perhaps if somebody is using Mullvad to host CSAM, might attempt to legally force Mullvad to put logging in and add anti-canary clauses.

Preventing port forwarding keeps customers as consumers rather than hosters, and avoids this issue.

And that proves what exactly? Swiss law required them to hand over an IP address. Swiss ptivacy is not absolute. They have laws. An IP address didn't grant them access to the encrypted emails. Proton openly admits they had no idea who the user was. The activist should have used a VPN, which Proton also offers as a service, and then whatever activity trail they linked to the IP would have died at Proton's VPN network.

Until Gmail/Hotmail decides your IP is a spammer and forever you have deliverability issues from then on

keepass is a different paradigm. it uses a locally encrypted file. many frontends for it (use keepassxc and keepassdx). dont have to rely on some 3rd party, even if they say they have e2ee. theres no better privacy (and security) for an app than not using it with the internet. im not too concerned about ui for pw manager personally, the less time i spend w it unlocked the better. only (slight) problem for me: multi device usage (i just copy the file onto my phone occasionally). general rule of thumb: if it can be selfhosted, it is best to.

i think bitwarden is the best one of its type, it comes down to your needs and threat model