Firefox may be monetized by the built-in paid VPN add-on.

Mozilla decided to follow in the footsteps of the Opera browser and will try to add a built-in traffic encryption function.

Mozilla intends to begin an experiment to provide built-in workflow via VPN in Firefox. The experiment began on Monday, October 22, and by default will affect only some users of the English-language build of Firefox 62 from the United States. Randomly selected participants in the experiment will be installed system addition, allowing you to connect to sites via an encrypted VPN-connection.

Unlike Opera, which offers its own VPN service , Mozilla did not begin to create its own VPN network, but uses the network infrastructure of its partner, the Swiss provider ProtonVPN. Another difference from the similar function in the Opera browser will be that VPN can only work in paid mode for $ 10 per month. Mozilla plans to use the paid service of VPN tunneling as one of the sources of monetization.

A VPN service will be recommended whenever you use a not-so-secure connection, for example, public Wi-Fi. The service will offer users protection from malicious websites, unsafe connections, work on untrusted networks, etc. In other words, almost everything that the VPN service implies.



A pop-up window will say: “Firefox recommends ProtonVPN, it looks like you are working on an unsecured wireless network. Firefox has teamed up with ProtonVPN to provide you with a private and secure Internet connection. No matter where you are. ”

The ProtonVPN service was developed by scientists at CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research). It was they who in 2013 launched ProtonMail , the largest encrypted email service used by journalists, activists and ordinary users from around the world, especially in countries with repressive regimes. At the moment, the development team has a solid reputation and a loyal user community.

Although VPN technology has been around for a long time, ProtonVPN represents a number of important innovations. For example, the Secure Core architecture, which routes traffic through several encrypted tunnels in Iceland, Switzerland and Sweden. The privacy laws of these countries are among the most trusted in the world. There is support for the IKEv2 protocol, which provides maximum speed and stability even in difficult conditions of receiving a mobile network. There is a possibility of surfing in onion-network through special TOR servers, as well as connection profiles for saving your favorite servers.

While Firefox will offer a subscription for $ 10, ProtonVPN also provides a free subscription option on the official website, and an option for $ 5 per month. It is assumed that the subscription for $ 10 can be used not only in Firefox, but also to protect the connections of other programs on the computer (when installing the appropriate client software).

Main features of ProtonVPN:

• AES-256 traffic encryption using 2048-bit RSA
• DNS leak protection
• TOR onion routing support
• VPN protocol OpenVPN
• VPN traffic leak protection
• protection against attacks based on correlation of data streams
• clients also exist for Windows, Linux, Mac, as well as Android and iOS

A small fly in the ointment of this experiment will be that the ProtonVPN add-on is a third-party object from the proprietary service, while the Firefox browser has completely open and free source code. Adding proprietary extensions to the basic package can cause discontent among paranoids and people who are acutely allergic to any advertising components in free software.