Tor Project Mullvad: technical work continues, joint promotion stops
The Tor Project Mullvad announcement, posted 9 October 2026, does not end the relationship. Tor says it is "not terminating the relationship" with Mullvad, that technical collaboration continues, and that proactive co-branding is paused. Nothing in that post, or in Mullvad's own post from 20 July, tells a Tor Browser user or a Mullvad Browser user to uninstall anything. The argument is about a political donation and about whose name sits next to whose. It is not a vulnerability notice.
What Tor announced on 9 October
The post, bylined isabela, says "recent concerns about a political donation by a Mullvad co-founder" had raised questions about Tor's funding relationship with the company. The decision, in the post's words, followed due diligence: discussions with community members, staff and the board, a staff survey, and a financial analysis. Tor writes that it defends free speech and that "not all speech is equally compatible with our mission," and that it "strongly oppose[s] rhetoric that threatens other human rights and freedoms." The post does not name the donor, the party, the amount, or the date of the gift.
We are not terminating the relationship but are setting clear boundaries on our relationship with Mullvad.
Is Tor ending its partnership with Mullvad? No. The sentence above is the announcement. The boundary is the part people have been paraphrasing as a breakup.
| Paused | Continues |
|---|---|
| Proactive co-branding: joint promotion, and language on Tor's own channels that suggested a broader alignment of values. Tor says it reviewed how Mullvad Browser is described there so the wording would not read as an endorsement. | Technical collaboration, under what Tor calls a narrowly scoped agreement. Tor lists what that work has already done: structure, maintainability and auditability of Tor Browser's code, feedback from people outside Tor Browser's usual users, a place to test features, and another free tool for people who need something Tor Browser is not. |
Tor also says continuing "carries a cost to trust for some in our community, and we take that seriously." That is the reaction Tor chose to print. It is not a claim that the community agreed.
What Mullvad said, and what only later articles added
On 20 July 2026 Mullvad posted its own note. The company said one of its owners had made a donation to a Swedish political party, that it was "a private donation from Daniel the individual," and that Mullvad and its parent and sister companies "did not endorse and were not involved." Mullvad's line on the gift is that the company "does not condone it, nor condemn it," that it "most likely was a bad idea," and that Daniel's reasons are on his personal blog. The founders, Mullvad writes, "have always been in strong disagreement on important issues, including this one," and the company intends to keep its mission separate from the founders' broader views, as it says it has for 17 years. No amount. No party name. No surname. No date for the gift. The post does not mention Mullvad Browser, Tor Browser, or the VPN.
- 20 July 2026
- Mullvad's post. A private donation by Daniel to an unnamed Swedish party. The company says it was not involved.
- 9 October 2026
- Tor's post. Relationship continues. Co-branding pauses. No donor details added.
- 12 October 2026
- CyberInsider and TechRadar report the donor, the party and the sum that neither post names. Those details come from the articles, not from Tor or Mullvad.
CyberInsider, on 12 October, is the account that names them: co-founder Daniel Berntsson, Sweden's Örebro Party, and Swedish newspaper Flamman. CyberInsider writes that Flamman reported in June that he gave SEK 5 million during 2025, 72 percent of the party's income that year, and describes the party as advocating large-scale remigration, including proposals to send immigrants out of Sweden. That paragraph is CyberInsider's. The article does not link a Flamman story. Tor's post and Mullvad's post do not confirm the sum, the percentage, or the party. TechRadar the same day does not name Flamman, Berntsson, a sum, or a party. It says the donation went to "a controversial Swedish populist party" and that the controversy began earlier in the year. Use the July and October posts for what the organisations stand behind. Use the October articles for what reporters added, and do not collapse them into one sentence. The month's other primary-source stories are on the news page.
What Mullvad Browser is, and whether you should stop using it
Mullvad's browser page says the company "partnered with the Tor Project to develop Mullvad Browser," and that you could call it "a Tor Browser without the Tor Network," meant to be used with a VPN or without one. It is free, open source, and for Windows, macOS and Linux. Mullvad says it does not make money from the browser. The income is the VPN. Tor's 9 October post does not restate that product description. It talks about Mullvad Browser as something Tor's channels had endorsed, and about a technical collaboration that has fed work back into Tor Browser.
An unnamed comment, reported later, says something stronger, and Tor has not confirmed it. CyberInsider wrote that a commenter identifying as a Tor Browser developer called the decision too weak and said it prompted their resignation, and that this person claimed Tor builds Mullvad Browser entirely while Mullvad supplies funding rather than developers. The commenter is not named. Tor's post has no such confirmation. Treat it as a comment someone made, not as a staffing announcement.
Does this change the security of Tor Browser or Mullvad Browser? Neither organisation says it does. Tor describes the collaboration as having improved the auditability of Tor Browser's code, which is a claim about past engineering, not a new audit issued on 9 October. There is no instruction to update, downgrade, or remove either browser. Is Mullvad Browser still safe? Nothing in these statements withdraws the browser or reports a flaw in it. The thing withdrawn is promotional language on Tor's channels.
Mullvad VPN is a different product, and this exchange barely mentions it. Mullvad's July post does not discuss the VPN's logging, jurisdiction, or apps. Tor's October post does not tell anyone to drop the VPN. If the question is whether the no-logs record still holds, that evidence is not in this controversy. The privacy-tools page is where that record is weighed. A political donation by a co-founder, which the company says was personal, is not a substitute for it and does not erase it.
Should you keep using them? If you wanted the Tor Project's name on the marketing, that is the piece Tor says it clarified. If you wanted the browser Mullvad describes, developed with the Tor Project and usable without routing traffic through Tor, that is the piece the technical agreement still covers. Tor Browser itself is unchanged by this post: same download, same signature check, no new warning in the 9 October statement. What Tor decided is who may promote whom, not how its software is built or installed.
