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

wifimask.com

61–70 of 111 posts

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

#61

Considering just how aggressive BREIN is, I would not use any VPN service headquartered in the Netherlands.

BREIN doesn't care if you use a VPN to protect your privacy and security when you're not doing anything illegal. Especially not when you're connected to a VPN server somewhere on the other side of the planet. ;-)

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

#64

Nice. Wifimask looks promising, esp with ad-blocking built-in. A few questions: Where do you purchase your servers from? How trustworthy are the underlying VPS providers across different countries that you've got presence in? It was recently pointed out that PIA was $30 million in debt... Looks like VPN is a brutal business, but your pricing is (low?) at $4 for unlimited devices and you're bootstrapped. How do you ma…

All servers are purchased from Digital Ocean only at the moment. I think it is very important to buy servers from a thrustworthy party especially in the VPN business, even if that means we pay a little bit extra.

VPN is a brutal business. But because we are bootstrapped and thus no screaming investors/banks behind our backs and we are a small team, costs are low and there's no one who can pull the plug but ourselves. I don't know how many people are working for PIA, but in my opinion you don't need ten's or hundred's of people to build and run a VPN company. I'm not very surprised they are supposedly in that much debt.

The most requested feature is an Android app. ;-) And unblocking Netflix ofcourse, but they seem to get even better at blocking VPN's than the Great Firewall of China. What would your feature request be? :-)

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

#65
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A 'no log policy' is a hard one, it may be true but you can't really prove a negative. So it is as good as your word and your reputation, which in this case may be very good but it may not be enough to reduce skepticism. FWIW I do tech DD for a living and I've seen several places that had 'no log' policies on the outside and yet they would occasionally - or even structurally - log data in order to comply with the law…

Your comment makes me think of a "Warrant canary" which we could set up to inform our customers that we have been served with a government subpoena: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary

Thanks!

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

#66
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A 'no log policy' is a hard one, it may be true but you can't really prove a negative. So it is as good as your word and your reputation, which in this case may be very good but it may not be enough to reduce skepticism. FWIW I do tech DD for a living and I've seen several places that had 'no log' policies on the outside and yet they would occasionally - or even structurally - log data in order to comply with the law…

Is anything a VPN company says any better than their reputation? We can't see what's going on behind closed doors.

Even the authorities asking for data have an interest in keeping the VPN's reputation alive in case the VPN does cooperate.

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

#67
post #62

Suggestion for the macOS menubar icon. Make the icon change colour to red when disconnected or the VPN is not in use. Maybe even a notification should be displayed.

Nice one! I think an optional notification is the best option, it's hard to notice even a red icon I believe.

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

#69
post #64

Nice. Wifimask looks promising, esp with ad-blocking built-in. A few questions: Where do you purchase your servers from? How trustworthy are the underlying VPS providers across different countries that you've got presence in? It was recently pointed out that PIA was $30 million in debt... Looks like VPN is a brutal business, but your pricing is (low?) at $4 for unlimited devices and you're bootstrapped. How do you ma…

All servers are purchased from Digital Ocean only at the moment. I think it is very important to buy servers from a thrustworthy party especially in the VPN business, even if that means we pay a little bit extra. VPN is a brutal business. But because we are bootstrapped and thus no screaming investors/banks behind our backs and we are a small team, costs are low and there's no one who can pull the plug but ourselves.…

> All servers are purchased from Digital Ocean only at the moment.

Are there any legal or technical reasons to prefer DigitalOcean over OVH and Hetzner? They seem to be both, much more cost-efficient, and much more privacy-oriented.

> What would your feature request be?

WireGuard.

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

#70
post #17
post #9

First, it looks good like you declare who you are. Many VPN providers seem to want to hide their real identities which is a big red flag. I couldn't see from the website what your VPN is based on in terms of protocol? Or home brewed? OpenVPN? Have you had 3rd party audits? Have you considered alternative payment forms? Such as Bitcoin or other? From your Terms of Service 'What we do not allow on or from our network..…

> First, it looks good like you declare who you are. Many VPN providers seem to want to hide their real identities which is a big red flag. While I agree that, as a user, knowing who's behind a service, and in particular a VPN, can help build trust, there are several good reasons why you would want to remain anonymous when running a VPN or any privacy service like secure email and encryption tools. You will be target…

> Operator anonymity can mitigate some threats, from social engineering to physical threats, pressure, legal and otherwise, from a range of parties.

And yet, Mullvad (Sweden), which seems to be one of the most trusted VPN providers without affiliate marketing, has no issues with publicly listing the names of every single member of the team[1].

[1] https://mullvad.net/en/what-is-privacy/

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