Tailscale Peer Relays is now generally available

Post by nickburns » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 12:53 PM UTC

snailmailman wrote: post #181

nickburns wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much this. DNS, SNI, and otherwise plaintext traffic sniffing. That together with user/device 'fingerprinting' (a much more amorphous concept), and that's why such-and-such thing you were just talking about with so-and-so pops up on your screen/feed/whatever, sometimes only minutes later. I highly doubt any of this can actually be opted-out of. How else would they stay in business?

They specifically avoid sending traffic through tailscale servers whenever possible. That’s how the free tier stays free. Most connections are direct, P2P. The traffic that does go through their servers is encrypted, and bandwidth limited on the free plan. Any snooping on client behavior would have to be done client side, and the clients are all open source. To some extent the coordination server might be able to ded…

Post by ZoomZoomZoom » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 1:20 PM UTC

philipallstar wrote: post #218

pitched wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also have to eat and put a roof over my head. Tying that to a system that can change permanently at any time to something less helpful is dangerous. Preferring open source is a risk mitigation strategy. The closed alternative may have better features to make them worth that risk though.

One feature is: it's a business and won't be abandoned due to OSS but out if it has a sustainable way to continue.

Post by eddyg » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 2:12 PM UTC

nickburns wrote: post #49

drnick1 wrote: post #38

It's a bit disingenuous to present solutions like Tailscale as more secure than opening a VPN port on one's on machine. The latter solution should always be preferred when available just because you don't want your infrastructure to depend on a "free" service which might cease to be free tomorrow.

Things are much more unscrupulous than potentially ceasing to be free tomorrow. Nobody who values their privacy would ever route their network traffic through a 'free' service.

Post by poszlem » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 3:11 PM UTC

Forgeties79 wrote: post #189

pastel8739 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you clearly see value in the restaurant experience, even with the shortcoming of a line. Or else you wouldn’t go.

You’re missing the point. The restaurant experience would be better without a line. I tolerate lines if the restaurant experience is good enough. If it is not, I go somewhere else. “Going somewhere else” is not always an option when it comes to computers/software.

Post by allarm » Thu, Feb 19, 2026, 3:55 PM UTC

mlrtime wrote: post #212

omnifischer wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logic of putting roof over the head is a point that is too broadly used is not at all valid for things like tailscale as... eventually most businesses at that level (tailscale revenue in 2025 was $45.2M) are crushing the customers. Either entshittification or lock-in. There is a loss of trust. The trust on SV/software is as much as bankers (during Lehmann bros crisis). Some people in HN think oh, we are growing s…

So, the people building yachts also need to pay the bills. Or should the world not have yachts?