Live data from Hacker News

VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

vpnpro.com

201–210 of 236 posts

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#201
post #97

None of these are seriously privacy-centric VPNs. I was very pleased to not see any of my old favorites (AirVPN, IVPN, Mullvad and PIA). Although it's not easy to find them on their site, I believe that the https://cure53.de/ vulnerability assessments are more interesting. Google "vpn site:cure53.de".

Mullvad is great! They don't require email, and they accept crypto for payment.

And together with AzireVPN one of the few working with WireGuard!

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#202
post #2

Nearly as disturbing as the number of people who tell me they use free VPNs. It is a bit mind boggling that folks are concerned about something and use a VPN...but choose a free one...

Paying for it means losing any semblance of anonymity, without any guarantee that they won't just keep on logging everything that passes through.

Anonymous from who though? Copyright infringement is civil law.

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#203

Why would I need a VPN for browsing if all my traffic is https and I use HTTPS DNS?

Your ISP could still see the servers you connect to and how much data is transferred, they don't need to look in any packets to know you browse YouTube or PornHub, and when, and for how long. But its also about hiding your identity from the sites you visit (dependent on how well your browser protects your privacy).

Your ISP is only going to see the IPs of the VPN nodes, times you connect, and the bandwidth used but not what sites you are browsing.

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to point out that they could similarly hire someone working at microsoft, or get someone up for a position there, to do this and it would be at least as hard to detect...

You could, but it would be more difficult (though easily within the ability of the NSA). To contribute to the Windows kernel you'd have to get someone hired by Microsoft, who presumably check their employment history (maybe), they have to actually go and work for Microsoft, etc. Obviously none of that is impossible but it's also obviously much harder than sending a patch to a mailing list.

Or you find someone who already works there who's having an affair and blackmail them into working for you. It's no different to how spies have operated for centuries.

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#205
post #95
post #91

People should take this list with a serious health warning. Firstly, a lot of this is just 'internet sleuth'ing and innuendo. Plenty of companies want to operate multiple services to be able to use different marketing and differentiation strategies. Secondly, the fact that the site is funded by affiliate links to a coupole of the big VPN services should really ring alarm bells. I trust we all learned from the Mattres…

VPNs are the best data mining solution out there. You're literally giving them all traffic plus using their DNS. TLS helps a lot now but DNS hurts.

And that is different from your ISP how? The distribution is less international?

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#206
post #91

People should take this list with a serious health warning. Firstly, a lot of this is just 'internet sleuth'ing and innuendo. Plenty of companies want to operate multiple services to be able to use different marketing and differentiation strategies. Secondly, the fact that the site is funded by affiliate links to a coupole of the big VPN services should really ring alarm bells. I trust we all learned from the Mattres…

This is why I self host algo vpn. I seriously doubt my hosting provider would jeopardize their business by snooping on/messing with a vpn given the breach of trust would cause large customers to ditch them.

I feel like thats just trading one ISP for another. At least with a VPN service they can do things like not keep logs and make torrenting email nastygrams go to /dev/null, because they honestly cannot forward it to the right person.

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

eh. I wouldn't take that as a strike against them. It's pretty impossible to communicate crypto to laypeople using technical language, like AES or even SSL. You have to use analogies, to banks or militaries. For better or worse, that's just how it goes.

> For better or worse, that's just how it goes. No, it isn't. You don't have to use "bank-grade", "military-grade", etc. in your marketing. They don't actually mean anything, and only serve as a red flag for "we don't know what the fuck we're doing". You can use almost-equally meaningless phrases like "state of the art", "industry standard", etc. You can sell on a "proven track record" of not selling out to data brok…

I fail to see how using "equally-meaningless phrases" is worse than using other "equally-meaningless phrases."

Nord also says they never hold logs, and locate in Panama to avoid gov't subpoenas. It's not either/or. You can (should) put the technical information on a 'security' page for the people who know enough to find it and read it.

Re: VPN owners: 97 VPN products run by 23 companies

#210

Private Internet Access (PIA) doesn't seem to be mentioned in the article nor HN posts. I think that must be good then. I've been a happy PIA customer for about 5 years. They probably arn't the fastest (I get aprox 3.5mbit/sec on them) but so far none of the mud slung against them sticks. There's a lot of shady shit in the VPN industry, so glad they are above it.

I also use them, I really like that they seem to semi-regularly donate to free software. Hope they keep it up.
Post reply on HN