PeachMan

SIM cards do sometimes malfunction, so if that happens and you glued it in you're kinda screwed.

This is utter nonsense. First, let me point out that this is an ad for Surfshark, a VPN company. They're trying to sell you their service by scaring you.

Second, their methodology is absolutely useless, it's an easy and very common way to come up with a clickbait article like this. They're just looking at app store permissions, and assuming the app with the most permissions is bad and the one with the least permissions is good. Which is utter nonsense, it might be that the apps with more permissions NEED those permissions because they have more FEATURES.

I could make a "language learning" app that ONLY asks for the audio recording permission, and then sell audio recordings of my users to the highest bidder. But Surfshark would praise my literal spyware as "privacy-focused" because it only needs one privacy permission!

The way to ACTUALLY do this properly would be to fully audit each app, find out WHY it's asking for additional permissions, go over the full privacy policy, and do some packet captures to figure out when the app is phoning home to send data, and what servers it's connecting to. Contact the app owners, ask them why exactly their app needs each permission. Consult some experts.

But that's too hard for Surfshark, they just want to write a scary article so that they can sell you a VPN that doesn't really make you safer on the internet.

EDIT: You know why I dropped Surfshark? They started bundling a "virus scanner" in with their "privacy-focused" VPN client. So my "privacy" tool wanted to scan all my files all of a sudden? GTFO.

It's basically the gold standard, audited and proven. I hear good things about IVPN as well.

Yeah a lot of these little VPN companies are getting bought up by larger companies with unknown investors, it's kinda worrying. There's one company that owns ExpressVPN, PIA, and CyberGhost now: https://www.kape.com/our-brands/

Kape Technologies (previously named CrossRider) has a pretty sketchy history of making adware: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/06/09/from-israel-unit-8200-to-ad-men/?sh=7c46d70e26e2

Can you upgrade the mailboxes by assigning a different license? Like E3?

You can do a lot better by buying your own modem and router, but that can be expensive. The thing you're doing right now is a good idea if you don't want to spend a lot of money, whine at your internet provider and get them to send you a better router.

You don't use Mullvad for their performance, you use them for their insanely paranoid security and privacy practices.

And for the record, I was never impressed with Surfshark speeds. I dropped them when they bundled a virus scanner into their VPN client, that's sketchy as hell. I don't want my VPN provider scanning my files.

You are incorrect. Look through their blog archive (scroll to the bottom): https://mullvad.net/en/blog/

They've been posting steadily for over a decade, maybe the posts just got more popular this year on whatever sites you browse

You're not wrong, BUT that's why Mullvad offers other forms of anonymous payment, the flexibility lets you be as paranoid as YOU want to be. You can pay in Bitcoin, or you can literally mail them an envelope of cash with no return address. Amazon scratch cards are just the most convenient option, and as always, you trade security for convenience.

No. There have been many attempts at this, and just as many failures. Centralization is not the answer.

The game has been free for 16 years. This is the paid version to support the devs, literally because they're getting old and they have medical bills to pay.