Tor Project Defies Backlash, Continues Mullvad Tech Ties

The Tor Project has confirmed it will not sever ties with Mullvad, a VPN provider, despite intense community pressure. This decision follows a political donation made by a Mullvad co-founder to a controversial Swedish populist party earlier this year. The privacy nonprofit is instead setting clear boundaries, pausing all proactive co-branding and joint promotional activities to prevent any perceived endorsement that could compromise its human rights mission.

While public-facing collaborations are scaled back, the essential technical partnership will continue. Tor emphasizes that this ongoing joint effort has significantly improved the Tor Browser's codebase and provided a safer environment for testing new features. The organization stated that ending the partnership would ultimately harm the communities relying on its privacy tools, highlighting the severe under-resourcing of efforts to preserve digital privacy and free speech.

The collaboration has yielded benefits, including the development of an open-source browser offering anti-tracking features without requiring users to route traffic through Tor's slower nodes. Tor acknowledges that this decision may cause a 'cost to trust' for some community members but believes the technical advantages for vulnerable users outweigh the political fallout.