Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I had similar concerns. This VPN is not reliable at all. It experiences dropouts, making it unclear whether you are connected or not, and you can still browse while exposing your activities. I appreciate the tip about starting the computer; I wasn’t aware of that. I tried it, and my internet activity was still visible. I will stick with iCloud Private Relay, as it offers faster speeds, and if the service goes down, you can’t browse anymore.
I also had a bad experience with Obscura regarding browsing. Many websites have blocked the IP addresses from Mullvad VPN, so you have to turn off the VPN to access them. This makes me question the purpose of a VPN if you can’t use it. For streaming, Apple’s iCloud Private Relay is more than sufficient, and I don’t need to change my IP to other countries since there are sites where you can watch all series regardless of your location.
I think Obscura could be useful for hiding from governments, but I wonder if it uses the same server provider as Mullvad. In that case, the government could just obtain a court order from the server provider. For me, this service isn’t worth it. It was fun to try, but I don’t need a VPN for anything other than streaming and obscuring my data traffic, which iCloud Private Relay handles just fine.
After my first day of use, I reached out to support about connection issues, but I haven’t received a response, and now almost a month has passed. I tried to find a way to contact them directly, but I ended up in some forum where they seem to be active, yet my emails are completely ignored. You can’t resolve every issue in a public forum. This has made it clear to me that this provider does not prioritize addressing customer issues, so I will be looking for alternatives.