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It’s taken a couple years, but regional sports networks are starting to realize they charge too much to stream local games. NESN 360, which offers live streams of the Boston Red Sox and Bruins, just dropped its annual price from $330 to $240, while also throwing in four Red Sox tickets. Main Street Sports Group, which operates regional FanDuel Sports Network channels, has hinted at lower prices as well, and in some markets, local games stream for free or are available over-the-air with an antenna. What you’re witnessing are the first tweaks to a misguided sports streaming strategy, one that assumes high direct-to-consumer prices will discourage cord-cutting while offsetting the revenue losses linked to the decline of cable TV. That strategy hasn’t been working for regional sports networks, and it’s not going to work for the likes of ESPN and Fox, which plan to launch their own expensive streaming services later this year. A broken model The regional sports model—and live sports in general—used to be extremely lucrative. Sports networks earned per-subscriber fees from every cable customer, so they made money even from folks who never watched sports. That model’s been unraveling as more folks cancel their cable and satellite subscriptions. Most live TV streaming services don’t offer regional sports networks because they don’t bring in enough viewers to justify the cost, and those that do—namely DirecTV Stream and Fubo—relegate regional sports to more expensive tiers. Even on the cable side, Comcast has stopped offering regional sports in its base packages to keep prices down. Meanwhile, a growing proportion of cord-cutters are realizing they don’t need pay TV bundles at all. These trends have put regional sports networks in a bind. They don’t want to offer anything that would risk the easy money that still comes from cable, but they also can’t ignore their declining customer base and the growing proportion of viewers who’ve moved away from pay TV. The failed solution To address this dilemma, most regional sports networks have opted to charge excessive rates for standalone streaming. FanDuel Sports Network, for instance, only costs between $3 to $8 per month as part of a cable bundle, yet it costs $20 per month on its own. NESN’s carriage fee was a little over $5 per month as of 2021, yet NESN 360 costs $30 per month. The thinking goes that if standalone streaming is expensive enough, it’ll reach a new generation of cable-free superfans without actively encouraging more cord-cutting. Too bad the strategy isn’t working. When FanDuel Sports Network’s streaming service launched in 2022 (under the name Bally Sports+), its owners hoped it would eventually reach 4.4 million subscribers. The actual subscriber count today is only around a half-million, and now it projects to reach a less-ambitious 2.8 million subscribers by 2027. Meanwhile, the channel has lost 22 million pay TV subscribers over the past four years, and by 2027 its owners expect to lose 6 million more. The truth is that there just aren’t aren’t enough people willing to pay $20 to $30 per month for regional sports, nor are there enough people willing to keep expensive pay TV packages just to watch those channels. Like a lot of streamers, the regional sports networks have underestimated peoples’ ability to tune out. Lowering the paywall All this brings us to the news that NESN 360 is cutting the price of annual plans, from $330 to $240. The service’s monthly plan still costs $30, but the annual option will make a lot more sense for year-round Boston sports fans, especially with Red Sox tickets thrown in. Speaking to Mollie Cahillane at Sports Business Journal, NESN president David Wisnia acknowledged that it was asking too much. “Inflation is high,” he said. “There’s a saturation limit in terms of DTC [direct-to-consumer] right now, and we wanted to get into people’s homes and make it as available as we can, while balancing the financials of it and making sure it still makes sense for us.” NESN isn’t alone in changing its tune. Last month, Main Street Sports Group CEO David Preschlack told CNBC’s Alexander Sherman that the company is considering price cuts for FanDuel Sports Network as well. “We have the ability to go lower, and we’re going to test different price points, absolutely,” he said. Meanwhile, some teams are already embracing a philosophy of long-term reach over short-term subscription revenues. In Utah, a subscription to watch local Jazz games still costs $20 per month, but you can also watch for free with an antenna or your can stream individual games for $5 each. Jazz owner Ryan Smith told Sherman he’d never go back to the old model. “The more people watch, the more people come to games, the more we sell in concessions, the more money we bring in with sponsorships,” Smith said. Omens for ESPN and Fox The strategy of charging high standalone rates for sports streaming isn’t just going to be troublesome for regional sports networks. This year, both ESPN and Fox plan to launch their own standalone services. ESPN’s is rumored to cost between $25 and $30 per month, and Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch has told investors that it will intentionally charge a high price, so as not to cannibalize its pay TV business. “We don’t want, and we have no intention of, turning a traditional distribution customer into our direct-to-consumer customer,” Murdoch said. “So, our subscriber expectations will be modest, and we’re going to price the service accordingly.” Good luck with that. If sports fans are balking at $30 per month to watch their favorite teams every day or two, why would casual sports fans pay similar prices for a smattering of nationally televised games they might not even care about? Moreover, what’s even the point of offering a service whose price is intentionally unappealing? Regional sports networks are already failing at the same strategy, and the national sports networks will be next. What’s the solution? Sports streamers still have to pay astronomical costs for live sports rights, and those costs aren’t coming down anytime soon. That means direct-to-consumer streaming probably won’t get much cheaper on its own. What we’ll likely see instead is more attractive and flexible bundling. Disney and Max are already finding success bundling their non-sports streaming services together at a discount, and Disney could pursue something similar for ESPN with Fox’s streaming service. Perhaps they could also offer regional sports add-ons at lower-than-standalone rates. Instead of making everyone pay for sports, they can offer fairer pricing by putting lots of sports in one place. Sports networks have spent far too long trying to prop up traditional TV packages with little to show for it. They’d be wise to start building something better to replace it. Sign up for Jared’s Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter for more streaming TV insights. Read...

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If your laptop is running low on storage space, don’t fret just yet. There are ways to expand your storage, and I’m not even talking about installing a new drive inside the machine. (That’s an option, but it can be a lot of work… or near impossible on some machines.) It’s usually best to buy a laptop with lots of storage in the first place, but you can’t go back in time and do anything about that now, can you? Fortunately, there are other ways to expand your laptop’s storage. Let’s dive into the various options available to you. SD and microSD cards are cheap If your laptop has an SD card slot, this is the easiest storage upgrade you can make. SD cards are relatively inexpensive compared to other storage options, and all you have to do is pop one into the slot. But there’s a trade-off: they’re slower than other storage options. Most laptops support UHS-I SD cards, which offer speeds up to 104 MB/s. Faster UHS-II cards can go up to 312 MB/s, but many laptops don’t support those. Maybe yours does. Ultimately, it’s your laptop’s SD card reader that determines the maximum data speed. Chris Hoffman / Foundry For speed, look for a card that’s rated A2 or V30. For example, I’ve been using this 512GB Samsung Pro Plus microSD card, which offers A2/V30 performance for under $50. If you don’t need the fastest card and just want as much storage capacity as possible, an A1-rated card should do — like this 1.5TB SanDisk Ultra microSD card for under $110. These days, microSD cards have become more popular than SD cards. They’re smaller, they sit flush in the slot, and they can be permanent if you want them to be. Meanwhile, SD cards are somewhat bulkier and stick out when plugged in, which could get in the way at times. Note: If all of these specs and terms are causing your head to spin, don’t worry. You aren’t alone. Get up to speed with our quick guide to demystifying SD and microSD card specs. USB flash drives are widely compatible USB flash drives might be the first thing that came to mind when you thought about expanding your laptop’s storage. They quick and easy to use, and they’re usually faster than SD cards, but they aren’t quite as seamless if you plan on leaving them plugged in full-time. Most laptops support USB 3.2 Gen 1 (up to 625 MB/s theoretical speed) or Gen 2 (up to 1,250 MB/s theoretical speed). However, in the real world, a typical USB flash drive might run somewhere between 300 to 500 MB/s. If your laptop has a Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 port, you could see speeds up to around 2,800 MB/s, but that’s generally with external SSDs and not traditional USB flash drives. Chris Hoffman / Foundry For an almost-permanent storage upgrade option, you can get a low-profile drive like this 512GB SanDisk Ultra Fit USB drive. It’s like a tiny nub that barely sticks out of your laptop, and it can be left in all the time. (Unfortunately, it’s harder to find low-profile USB-C drives due to design constraints around the connector. There just isn’t enough room.) External drives offer the best performance External drives are the greatest way to add tons of storage to your laptop, especially if you don’t need all that storage connected 24/7 or if you mainly use your laptop at your desk and rarely on the go. As a bonus, portable SSDs have so many other practical uses, too. Portable SSD speeds vary depending on the connection technology, ranging from 500 MB/s with USB 3.0/3.2 Gen 1 (typical on older laptops) to 1,000 MB/s with USB 3.2 Gen 2 (common on newer laptops). If your laptop has Thunderbolt 4, you can transfer even faster — up to 2,800 MB/s (real-world speeds) with a high-end drive. Samsung Check out PCWorld’s recommended external drives to find the best one for your needs. Summed up, look to the Adata SE920 for fast USB4 performance, the Teamgroup T-Force M200 for budget-friendly 20Gbps performance, and the Crucial X9 Pro for 10Gbps performance. For a streamlined setup, consider using a USB dock. With it, you can keep your external drive and other peripherals like mouse, keyboard, and monitors plugged in, then connect them all to your laptop in one fell swoop by simply plugging the dock into your laptop. NAS devices grant extra storage via Wi-Fi A network-attached storage (NAS) device is a server with multiple hard drives that connects to your network and can be accessed by any other device on the same network, including your laptops, PCs, phones, etc. (It’s a tiny bit more complicated than that, but not much more.) Buffalo What this means is, you can set up a NAS device like the 2TB Buffalo LinkStation 210 and it’ll act like an external drive, except you access it over the network instead of a USB cable. It’s super convenient. The catch? Your transfer speeds will be bottlenecked by your connection, whether that’s Wi-Fi (wireless) or Ethernet (wired). If you want a high-performance NAS that’s capable of streaming media and more, you’ll have to pay up. For example, the Ugreen NASync DXP2800 has two bays that support up to 64TB of storage plus an ultra-fast 2.5Gbps Ethernet port. The Ugreen NASync DXP4800 Plus goes further with four bays for a total 112TB of storage. Cloud storage is a last resort If none of the above appeal to you, cloud storage is always an option. OneDrive, which is integrated into Windows, can download files on demand. You’ll see those files in your OneDrive folder in File Explorer and they’ll be downloaded on the fly when you open them. DC Studio / Shutterstock.com The free plan for OneDrive only offers 5GB of storage, which probably isn’t enough except for mere documents. Fortunately, the paid plans offer more storage, including Microsoft 365 Basic (100GB for $19.99/year) and Microsoft 365 Personal (1TB for $99.99/year). It’s just one of the reasons why Microsoft 365 is a pretty good deal. Or you can opt for one of the many other cloud storage options out there, including Mega, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Sync. But for best results, upgrade your drive If you need more storage on your laptop, an internal storage upgrade gives you the fastest possible storage speed. Modern laptops generally use NVMe M.2 SSDs, capable of hitting 3,500 MB/s with a PCIe 3.0 drive and 7,000 MB/s with a PCIe 4.0 drive. By comparison, the fastest USB 3.0 external drives top out around 500 MB/s and the latest USB4 or Thunderbolt 4 external SSDs can almost reach 2,800 MB/s. Meanwhile, typical SD cards and USB flash drives usually deliver speeds below 200 MB/s. If you’re gaming, editing 4K video, or otherwise dealing with large files, you’re going to want to switch out your existing drive for a large-capacity high-end SSD. It’s not for everyone, though. Even if you’re comfortable opening up your laptop, it may not be designed for easy SSD upgrades, especially if it’s a thin-and-light “ultrabook” laptops. (Gaming laptops and business-oriented machines are often easier to upgrade.) Chris Hoffman / Foundry To see if your laptop’s internal storage can be upgraded, check the manufacturer’s website for a specification sheet or service manual. It’ll often say if the drive is replaceable or if it’s soldered on — even if the laptop is easily openable, the drive itself may be soldered to the motherboard and not removable. Alternatively, you can run a quick web search for “[laptop model] SSD upgrade.” That’s a good way to find resources like forum posts and teardown videos on YouTube that show you everything you need to know about taking it out and replacing it with something better. Ready to buy a laptop SSD? Check out our top SSD recommendations. But be sure you’re ready for the upgrade process, which could mean cloning your existing drive or reinstalling Windows. Not sure how big of an SSD you should get? We break it down for you in our explainer on how much SSD space you need on a laptop. Read...

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We expect USB-C cables to perform a specific task: transferring either data or files between devices. We give little more thought to the matter, but malicious USB-C cables can do much more than what we expect. These cables hide malicious hardware that can intercept data, eavesdrop on phone calls and messages, or, in the worst cases, take complete control of your PC or cellphone. The first of these appeared in 2008, but back then they were very rare and expensive — which meant the average user was largely safeguarded. Since then, their availability has increased 100-fold and now with both specialist spy retailers selling them as “spy cables” as well as unscrupulous sellers passing them off as legitimate products, it’s all too easy to buy one by accident and get hacked. So, how do you know if your USB-C cable is malicious? Further reading: We tested 43 old USB-C to USB-A cables. 1 was great. 10 were dangerous Identifying malicious USB-C cables Identifying malicious USB-C cables is no easy task since they are designed to look just like regular cables. Scanning techniques have been largely thought of as the best way to sort the wheat from the chaff, which is what industrial scanning company, Lumafield of the Lumafield Neptune industrial scanner fame, recently set out to show. The company employed both 2D and 3D scanning techniques on the O.MG USB-C cable — a well-known hacked cable built for covert field-use and research. It hides an embedded Wi-Fi server and a keylogger in its USB connector. Former PCWorld Executive Editor Gordon Ung covered it back in 2021, and it sounds scary as hell. What Lumafield discovered is interesting to say the least. A 2D X-ray image could identify the cable’s antenna and microcontroller, but only the 3D CT scan could reveal another band of wires connected to a die stacked on top of the cable’s microcontroller. You can explore a 3D model of the scan yourself on Lumafield’s website. The malicious hardware was visible with a 3D CT scan.  Lumafield It confirms the worst — that you can only unequivocally confirm that a USB-C cable harbors malicious hardware with a 3D CT scanner, which unless you’re a medical radiographer or 3D industrial scientist is going to be impossible for you to do. That being so, here are some tips to avoid and identify suspicious USB-C cables without high-tech gear: Buy from a reputable seller: If you don’t know and trust the brand, simply don’t buy. Manufacturers like Anker, Apple, Belkin, and Ugreen have rigorous quality-control processes that prevent malicious hardware parts from making it into cables. Of course, the other reason is simply that you’ll get a better product — 3D scans have similarly revealed how less reputable brands can lack normal USB-C componentry, which can result in substandard performance. If you’re in the market for a new cable right now, see our top picks for USB-C cables. Look for the warning signs: Look for brand names or logos that don’t look right. Strange markings, cords that are inconsistent lengths or widths, and USB-C connectors with heat emanating from them when not plugged in can all be giveaways that a USB-C cable is malicious. Use the O.MG malicious cable detector: This detector by O.MG claims to detect all malicious USB cables. Use data blockers: If you’re just charging and not transferring data, a blocker will ensure no data is extracted. Apart from detecting malicious USB-C cables, the O.MG malicious cable detector functions as such a data blocker. Use a detection service: If you’re dealing with extremely sensitive data for a business or governmental organization, you might want to employ the services of a company like Lumafield to detect malicious cables with 100 percent accuracy. Any such service will come with a fee, but it could be a small price to pay for security and peace of mind. If this article has been an eye-opener about the dodgy tactics hackers employ to steal your data, you’re not alone. Malicious USB-C cables are still not widely known about. That being so, be sure to share the tips above with your family and friends. The more people that take time to safeguard their data, the safer we will all be in the long run. Further reading: Buying a USB-C cable? 6 gotchas to watch out for Read...

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At a GlanceExpert`s Rating Pros Good speeds Inexpensive pricing Unrivaled user anonymity Versatile payment options Cons Struggles with unblocking streaming services Smaller server network Not as feature-rich as competitors Our Verdict Mullvad VPN is one of the most private and secure VPNs on the market. It also offers a user-friendly interface, good speeds, and inexpensive pricing. All of these things and more make it one of the top VPN services—especially for the privacy-Conscious user. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Sweden-based Mullvad is like the Swiss Bank account of VPNs—it doesn’t ask questions and gives you the best privacy and security possible.  When I say that Mullvad takes your privacy seriously, I mean it. Unlike other VPNs, Mullvad goes so far as to disconnect your account from an email by auto-generating an account number for you. They will even let you pay in cash. And this level of anonymity goes well beyond just registration, permeating everything you do with the app. Since our last review the service has undergone another independent audit and adopted post-quantum encryption on all platforms, further cementing its place as one of the most secure and trustworthy VPNs on the market. Read on to learn more, and then see our roundup of the best VPNs for comparison. Mullvad VPN in brief: P2P allowed: Yes Device connections: 5 simultaneous connections Business location: Sweden Number of servers: 650+ Number of country locations: 44 Cost: $5.16 per month What are Mullvad VPN’s features and services? Mullvad’s Windows app is clean and easy to use. Sam Singleton When you open Mullvad’s Windows app it strikes one as modern and clean. It starts with a non-interactive map in the primary section of the window and a red banner up top to indicate you’re not currently connected, with the device name and remaining time left on your account listed. Towards the bottom of the app screen you’ll find a button showing your currently selected VPN server and below that a Connect button which you can click to connect to the chosen server. When connected, you’ll see a Switch location and Disconnect button at the bottom of the window. The top of the screen, meanwhile, becomes a green banner with the Mullvad VPN logo indicating you’re now connected to the VPN. Mullvad has a relatively small server network, but provides a lot of useful detail for each server.Sam Singleton If you jump into the country listings, you can either select a country, select a specific location within the country if more than one is available, and even drill down to individual servers. The app doesn’t show any specific metrics about each server such as ping times or load, but if there’s a red circle next to a server, that means it’s not available for use. Green, meanwhile, means it’s working. With over 650 total servers, Mullvad VPN’s server network is rather small compared to some of its competitors. Services such as CyberGhost VPN and Private Internet Access boast server networks of over 10,000. Still, I never felt that I was limited in my options while using the service. The app itself is very easy to read and understand both in the Windows and Android versions. The default Windows’ app panel is automatically fixed to the bottom-right corner of the screen, but you can change this under settings if you wish. Mullvad traditionally hasn’t been big on extra features or services compared to other VPNs. It doesn’t promise to get past Netflix VPN restrictions (though sometimes it does), there aren’t any double-hop connections, or smart DNS; however, that doesn’t mean it’s a barebones VPN by any stretch. Mullvad recently did away with automatic-renewals on its subscription plans in order to minimize the private information it stores. Mullvad’s settings menu allows a ton of customization and is packed full of tweakable privacy options. Sam Singleton The service still provides the most important and frequently used features such as a kill-switch, split-tunneling, and ad-/tracker-blocking. It even takes its kill-switch one step further with a feature called Lockdown mode that will only allow your device to connect to the internet when it’s connected to a Mullvad VPN server. All of these features can be found by clicking the gear icon on the homescreen to access the settings menu. Go to Settings > VPN settings, and you can enable Mullvad’s IPv6 option, as well as manually choose between using OpenVPN or WireGuard. Mullvad was one of the earliest VPN services to implement WireGuard. Its multi-hop feature for WireGuard is also available here as well.  Since 2024, all WireGuard connections through Mullvad come with default “quantum-resistant” encryption technology. Mullvad once again places itself at the forefront of security innovations by fully adopting this standard. Another nice tool to use with the VPN is Mullvad’s connection check webpage. It lets you know if the app is working and currently connected to Mullvad. It also checks to see if you are leaking DNS requests, suffering from a WebRTC leak, or using a blacklisted IP address. Mullvad has apps for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android, all of which are open-source. How much does Mullvad VPN cost? Mullvad’s pricing is pretty cut and dry. For one month you’ll pay €5, or about $5.16 at the time of writing. It also offers subscription options for one year and a staggeringly long one decade. That’s practically a lifetime in the VPN market and just goes to show you how confident it is in the future of its service. Despite these long-term subscription options, the price still remains the same €5 every month. To compare, other VPN services typically offer their monthly subscription for around $10 per month and longer-term subscriptions average out to around $3 or $4 per month. That makes Mullvad VPN an extremely affordable short-term month-to-month VPN, but a more expensive long-term option. It’s also worth noting that Mullvad recently did away with automatic-renewals on its subscription plans. According to the company, this was “in order to store less data” such as on-file credit cards and other private information. As a result, you will need to manually re-up each month, or year, or decade, in order to keep using the service. A bit tedious, but that’s the price you pay for ultimate privacy. How is Mullvad VPN’s performance? In order to test Mullvad VPN’s speeds I measured connection rates across servers in different countries around the world for multiple days and then compared them to my baseline internet speed. I did this using both the OpenVPN and WireGuard protocols. The average download speeds across both protocols were rather impressive, clocking in at 53 percent of base speeds. The upload speeds were similar, maintaining an average of 49 percent of the baseline. That makes Mullvad a contender for one of the fastest VPNs, but still a ways behind speed demons such as Hotspot Shield and ProtonVPN. While testing speeds using different protocols I didn’t notice too much of a difference. WireGuard, as expected, had slightly faster averages than OpenVPN but the margins were so slim in my testing that I would be hard pressed to recommend one over the other for speed. The bottom line is that, overall, Mullvad’s speeds are more than enough for everyday internet activities, with the usual caveat that your experience may vary depending on your location in the world, equipment, and ISP. On Mullvad’s website you can find a list of which servers are rentals and which are owned by the service. Sam Singleton In recent years Mullvad started renting servers in addition to those it owns itself. Despite this change, there are no apparent speed decreases and from what I could tell, virtually no differences between the servers it owns and those it rents. If you’re interested, you can see which servers are owned and rented on its servers page. While Mullvad has a lot going for it, one area where it doesn’t impress is in unblocking streaming services. In my previous testing I found that the ability to access services such as Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max while connected was extremely hit or miss. Some servers had no issues while others detected the VPN and blocked access. This time around I found a slight improvement to the services I could access though. While Mullvad is certainly not the best VPN for streaming, it does okay at unblocking content. The good news is that once you’re able to find a connection that isn’t blocked, the speeds are fast enough to provide a seamless viewing experience with no buffering. How is Mullvad VPN’s security and privacy? The short answer is: excellent. Mullvad prides itself on user privacy, anonymity, and security. And it shows, too. Even from the time that you first pay for the service, it takes this seriously.  You have multiple options to pay for the VPN including by cash—unique among all other VPNs to my knowledge. Should you choose this method, Mullvad says it will take the cash, add credits to the account number included in the envelope, and then shred the envelope and the note. If you choose to use credit cards or PayPal, however, your usage of the service will be identifiable through those payment services—but it won’t be connected to any of your online activity. My DNS leak tests for both the Windows and Android apps came up clean with no leaks detected. This means you can trust Mullvad to keep your true IP address hidden while connected to its servers. By default, its DNS leak protection is always-on and can’t be disabled. Mullvad provides an additional feature called DAITA, or Defence Against AI-guided Traffic Analysis, which you can turn on under the settings menu. This will add network noise and make all network packets the same size.  It’s a way to further obfuscate your VPN traffic from sophisticated AI which may be able to distinguish your individual traffic patterns. Very few VPNs currently offer this advanced level of obfuscation, making it one reason Mullvad is a great option for privacy-conscious users. Mullvad offers WireGuard and OpenVPN protocol options with configurable settings for each. Sam Singleton In regards to VPN protocols, Mullvad keeps it simple by only offering the choice between OpenVPN and WireGuard. These are the two most secure protocols currently available and probably the best options anyways.  You also have the option to tweak and configure each connection to your own needs by choosing Ports, Obfuscation, and whether you want to use a Quantum-resistant tunnel. In the last year, Mullvad made all WireGuard connections quantum-resistant by default. While that might be a bit unnecessary now, we’ll all probably be thankful for this feature when quantum computers become more widely used in the future. Moving onto its privacy policy, Mullvad’s policy has exactly what you’re looking for in a VPN. Though it has now been split into two different documents: the general privacy policy and the “no-logging of user activity policy.” In those two documents the company says it does not “store any activity logs or metadata.” There’s no logging of your online traffic, DNS requests, connections, timestamps, IP addresses, bandwidth, nothing.  The only data Mullvad saves are the total number of current connections of all users on its network, the CPU load per core on its servers, and the total bandwidth used per server. It also logs the real-time number of connections per account as the service allows five simultaneous for each account. In 2023, Mullvad completed migration of its servers to RAM-only diskless servers meaning data does not persist on its servers nor can it be confiscated should the servers be physically removed—this goes for both the servers it owns and those it rents. Another welcomed development since our last review is that Mullvad underwent two new independent security audits by Cure53 and X41 D-Sec. Independent audits are always a good sign that a VPN is sticking to its no-log policy and maintaining strong security. They go a long way towards building user trust. Mullvad is owned and operated by Amagicom AB and based in Sweden. This means that it could be subject to mandatory government data sharing regulations since Sweden is a member of the 14 Eyes signals intelligence sharing alliance.  It’s not a huge deal as Mullvad does not log user data, but it’s good to be aware of, especially for the ultra-privacy conscious. Notably, Mullvad does seem to publish a notice on its blog whenever it’s subject to a search warrant. Is Mullvad VPN worth it? Mullvad VPN promises privacy and security and delivers both in droves. It might not have all of the flashy extraneous features of some other VPNs, nor does it excel at unblocking Netflix, but in practically every other area it shines. Its dedication to protecting user anonymity has never been in question and the latest independent security audits further prove this point. With this level of commitment to privacy as well as performance, Mullvad continues to be one of our top recommendations. Editor’s note: Because online services are often iterative, gaining new features and performance improvements over time, this review is subject to change in order to accurately reflect the current state of the service. Any changes to text or our final review verdict will be noted at the top of this article. Read...