Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes
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Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes
#2This is basically why you never want to use a proprietary client with any VPN service, you don't know what you're getting into at all. At least with PPtP/L2TP/OpenVPN based services you can use well known clients or OS vendor provided clients that are unlikely to have little goodies like this.
Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes
#3They explicitly state in their FAQ how this works and why their service is able to be free: http://hola.org/faq#in_how_is_free
They even have a non-free option that eliminates the VPN as a proxy feature.
"Hola built a peer to peer overlay network for HTTP, which securely routes the sites you choose through other Hola users' devices and not through expensive servers. Hola never takes up valuable resources from these users, since it only uses a user as a proxy if that users' device is completely idle (meaning device is connected to electric power (not on battery), no mouse or keyboard activity is detected, and device is connected to the local network or Wifi (not on cellular)). This makes Hola the first VPN service without underlying operational costs. Although Hola doesn�t need to pay for bandwidth, we still need to pay the engineers who create, maintain and keep improving the free Hola service. Hola generates revenue by selling a commercial version of the Hola VPN service to businesses (through our Luminati brand). This is what allows us to keep Hola free for our users. Users who want to enjoy the Hola network without contributing their idle resources can do so by joining the Hola premium service for $5 per month (or $45 per year)."
Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes
#4Anyone have VPN recommendations?
Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes
#5Anyone have VPN recommendations?
This company looks interesting - https://www.tunnlr.com/
I learned about them from http://devio.us/ (which is great when it works...)
I did the trial for 1 day and tried them out. Have no pressing reason to continue for now but have filed them in the mental rolodex.
Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes
#6Anyone have VPN recommendations?
i've been renting a cheap-as-dirt vps ($15/yr) and just using sshuttle[0] to proxy through it which works great for my circumstances (my school blocks nonstandard ports but is just dandy with 22)
Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes
#7I doubt that if they sell their users as bots they will do anything about the network being used as a botnet and there is nothing you can do about it, especially considering the users 'responsible' won't even know what they are taking part in.
Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes
#8Anyone have VPN recommendations?
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Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes
#9Anyone have VPN recommendations?
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ (PIA) works for me. Of course with any VPN you run the risk of providing all of your information through a (potentially) captured source.
Re: Hola VPN turns 10M users into exit nodes
#10I doubt that if they sell their users as bots they will do anything about the network being used as a botnet and there is nothing you can do about it, especially considering the users 'responsible' won't even know what they are taking part in.
It's not clear that part of the article is even true.
They appear to just sell VPN server by the GB. I see nothing about a botnet in there, there is no traffic amplification or ability to run programs on the clients.