Why does the Mullvad installer need 500mb and access to my downloads folder?

8 points by geuis 2y ago ↗ HN

I've only heard good things about this product, in terms of their non-tracking/non-logging policies.

However 2 red flags immediately just went off. First, their installer is 500mb. Half a gig? Its a VPN, something that can be done extremely secure with builtin software and/or openssh. And it denied installing itself until I gave permissions to access my downloads folder.

These seem like glaring issues to me as a new user and entirely antithetical to what Mullvad claims to be doing.

7 comments

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faern 2y ago ↗

The 500 MiB thing is because the frontend is an Electron app. That's sadly how it is with Electron. The UI can of course be re-written into a language/framework that produces way smaller programs, but it's not currently really worth the tradeoff. Most people are not that constrained in disk or internet speeds. https://github.com/mullvad/mullvadvpn-app/issues/1572

The downloads folder access thing is because Apple made it so. If you run an installer from the downloads folder it will need access to the downloads folder. This has nothing to do with Mullvad, but is a permission check macOS puts on all software. The Mullvad VPN app has no code for doing anything in the Downloads folder specifically.

sp332 2y ago ↗

The Windows installer is 1/3 the size of the Mac one. It's just kinda surprising.

faern 2y ago ↗

The macOS installer is a universal installer. Meaning it contains the entire app twice. Once for Intel and one for Apple Silicon. With a macOS installer for only one architecture its size would be cut in half. Windows don't have this problem.

[deleted] 2y ago ↗

(comment deleted)

KomoD 2y ago ↗

A large file size is incompatible with their claims of privacy? Also you aren't forced to use their client, you can use a wireguard or openvpn config directly if you want to.

throwaway167 2y ago ↗

Mullvad gives config files to use with Wireguard and OpenVPN clients. Links to do so are on the app download page(s): https://mullvad.net/en/download/vpn/linux

an_aparallel 2y ago ↗

i've made a new pact with myself to stop downloading trivial apps which take up orders of magnitude more than their function.

Mullvad - a VPN = 500mb Reaper - a full blown DAW = 10mb

seriously?

The same applies for simple text editors with lovely UI's which again - are 500mb, ridiculous. There are cases where i dont have an alternative - but - i expect single task, fast response apps to be several MB.

A beautiful example is SumatraPDF - 3MB for a PDF viewer....perfection...runs like lightening.