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Show HN: A small bootstrapped independent VPN company in the Netherlands

wifimask.com

41–50 of 111 posts

Re: Show HN: A small bootstrapped independent VPN company in the Netherlands

#43

Isn't Netherlands in the nine eyes? EDIT: "We will never share your personal information with any third party, except when we need to respond to a legal request from Dutch authorities" - https://www.wifimask.com/terms As a VPN service that means it is not thoughtful about privacy.

Obviously if they are a Dutch company, then they must comply with Dutch regulations and authority demands. This is to be expected.

What is under their control (which I have not investigated) is how much logging they do. If they do the absolute minimal logging, then there's very little for the Dutch authorities to review. This of course excludes the very likely possibility that the overly performant Dutch intelligence service is monitoring everything from every angle (they have thus far proven to be very, very capable of doing so).

Re: Show HN: A small bootstrapped independent VPN company in the Netherlands

#44

Isn't Netherlands in the nine eyes? EDIT: "We will never share your personal information with any third party, except when we need to respond to a legal request from Dutch authorities" - https://www.wifimask.com/terms As a VPN service that means it is not thoughtful about privacy.

As a counterpoint: any VPN service that claims that they will ignore the authorities legal requests is lying. No matter what, as soon as it is a business, has a registered address and a nominal director it can be put under pressure.

I think this is true. We want to be as honest and open as possible, that includes being honest about the laws we have to comply too. On the other hand, we have a strict no log policy, we have nothing to hand over to authorities accept for the registered email address, a hashed password and the last 4 numbers of a creditcard. Authorities will need to find different ways to get the information they want.

Re: Show HN: A small bootstrapped independent VPN company in the Netherlands

#45
As I see it, many main stream users use such a service to avoid geo blocking. Which is a feature you call teleporting. How do you plan to resolve the problem of Netflix/Amazon Prime blacklisting your VPN servers' IPs? Obviously this is part of your product as you list it as a feature. Hence, people might argue that your product is faulty and ask you to return their money.

Re: Show HN: A small bootstrapped independent VPN company in the Netherlands

#46
post #41

As a minor nitpick, I dislike the term "Holland" when referring to the Netherlands. Additionally, you're based in Den Bosch, which is not even in Holland. (you say "made in Holland" in your logo)

I was thinking/reconsidering this same thing today too! ;-) I have to discuss with my brother, but I think it will be changed soon into "Made in the Netherlands". Thanks for the feedback. ;-)

Re: Show HN: A small bootstrapped independent VPN company in the Netherlands

#47
post #41

As a minor nitpick, I dislike the term "Holland" when referring to the Netherlands. Additionally, you're based in Den Bosch, which is not even in Holland. (you say "made in Holland" in your logo)

I get why though. I frequently get blank looks from non-Europeans when I say I live in the Netherlands, and have to add a reluctant "Holland."

Re: Show HN: A small bootstrapped independent VPN company in the Netherlands

#49
post #12
post #10

Some feedback/q's: - Your last two bullet points for 'what we do not allow' is missing newlines ( https://www.wifimask.com/terms ) - You load a number of JS files from third party CDNs including Cloudflare and Google without subresource integrity - What does this offer me? It seems a lot more restrictive than other companies at lower price points, inability to use it on own libre devices, requiring proprietary softwa…

Many thanks for your feedback! Much appreciated. The missing newlines and subresource integrity are now fixed. The Privacy Policy is now updated with information on how to opt-out. WifiMask uses OpenVPN for the macOS app and IKEv2/IPSec for iOS. Examples of OpenVPN config files can be found at https://www.wifimask.com/contact#androidwindows which allows you to use the WifiMask service on every OpenVPN capable device.…

No 2FA other than mandatory phone number? This is a really, really bad thing. (+ forcing proprietary app?)

Can't find list of hostnames to use with OVPN, seemingly

Re: Show HN: A small bootstrapped independent VPN company in the Netherlands

#50
post #45

As I see it, many main stream users use such a service to avoid geo blocking. Which is a feature you call teleporting. How do you plan to resolve the problem of Netflix/Amazon Prime blacklisting your VPN servers' IPs? Obviously this is part of your product as you list it as a feature. Hence, people might argue that your product is faulty and ask you to return their money.

We have now sort of "hidden" the information that Netflix is not unblockable under the FAQ part of this page: https://wifimask.com/contact Maybe we should say we cannot unblock Netflix on the frontpage, because I also realize that's why a lot of people are looking for a VPN who does. Nevertheless, besides Netflix, there is still a lot of content to be unblocked. And ofcourse, if unblocking Netflix was the main reason the get WifiMask and it doesn't work, you'll get your money back.
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