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NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

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Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#81

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

zpeti wrote: post #74
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #71

NordVPN are far too aggressive about youtube marketing to not be sketchy imo. Open source client doesn't really help because whatever sketchy shit they're up to is probably mostly on the server side anyway. I wonder what their total youtube sponsor spot expenditure has been. It must be a ridiculous amount of money.

I don't think its sketchy, it's just that the VPN business has extremely large revenues compared to costs of the service, which means A LOT of money remains for marketing. They can spend exorbitant amounts on youtube ads and affiliate review sites. It's a bit of a unique market in this way, people are willing to pay $5-$10 per month for something that costs $1.

Nothing shady about fleecing your customers ;)

The fact they're in Panama suggests some kind of money laundering scheme to me at the very least.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#82

Post by VonGuard »

acatton wrote: post #7

Reminder that it looks like NordVPN does shady stuff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29285988 Allegedly, they are using their customers as botnets to resell traffic from residential IPs, mostly for scraping, through their other business "Oxylabs".

They, and ALL VPN PROVIDERS, sell your DNS data, as well. That's the real business model.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#83

Post by 3np »

VonGuard wrote: post #82
acatton wrote: post #7

Reminder that it looks like NordVPN does shady stuff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29285988 Allegedly, they are using their customers as botnets to resell traffic from residential IPs, mostly for scraping, through their other business "Oxylabs".

They, and ALL VPN PROVIDERS, sell your DNS data, as well. That's the real business model.

If this is a concern, one can self-host a fully recursive DNS server and connect over DoT.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#84

Post by dkjaudyeqooe »

DeathArrow wrote: post #35
acatton wrote: post #7

Reminder that it looks like NordVPN does shady stuff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29285988 Allegedly, they are using their customers as botnets to resell traffic from residential IPs, mostly for scraping, through their other business "Oxylabs".

Is this legal? What is someone else is doing illegal things using your IP?

It might be against your provider's terms of service, but it's hardly illegal.

If someone else is doing illegal things on your IP address then you could blame the (users of the) service to avoid liability. Still you could find yourself targeted by a lawsuit. I wonder if Oxylabs' terms protect you in this case.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#85

Post by ashwagary »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #77
ashwagary wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from being sloppy, any worrying bits of code throwing up security red flags to you?

No that is why they are nitpicking about recently open sourced code that is "undocumented"

I don't see it as a nitpick. The review can be valuable to people working on the code and users wondering how competent the Nord team is.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#86

Post by Nadya »

mjdowney wrote: post #9

Since there is so much criticism here of NordVPN (in general, not for open-sourcing), what are the VPNs that people like?

None of them. No really read that again: None. Of. Them. https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29

Especially not after Kape Technology bought up review sites and VPNs and updated reviews to shill the ones they own.

Kape Technologies was formerly known as Crossrider before it was acquired by Teddy Sagi, an Israeli billionaire that has spent time in jail for insider trading. Crossrider itself never had that great a reputation itself, what with their primary product being a development platform through which they were frequently used by third parties to invade ad platforms to serve up malware. They are now the owners of ExpressVPN, PIA, CyberGhost, and Zenmate.

https://restoreprivacy.com/kape-technologies-owns-expressvpn...

And then j2 global owns a bunch of others.

https://www.techradar.com/news/pc-mag-owner-j2-global-buys-s...

I'm 99% sure every VPN on the market is a honeypot or data broker at this point.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#87

Post by mig39 »

VonGuard wrote: post #82
acatton wrote: post #7

Reminder that it looks like NordVPN does shady stuff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29285988 Allegedly, they are using their customers as botnets to resell traffic from residential IPs, mostly for scraping, through their other business "Oxylabs".

They, and ALL VPN PROVIDERS, sell your DNS data, as well. That's the real business model.

Do you know for sure that Mullvad sells DNS data? They claim to not log anything, including DNS.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#88

Post by neodymiumphish »

moffkalast wrote: post #62
throw0101b wrote: post #14

This reminds me of the 'original' 2019 video by Tom Scott called "This Video Is Sponsored By [redacted] VPN" where he explains most of the reasons listed to use VPN by ads is useless: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVDQEoe6ZWY And then a few years later with "My robot double sells out (so I don't have to)" he did a follow-up listing useful reasons (geo-based content, better prices on vacation sites, etc) which was…

Isn't he now doing a lot of NordVPN ads himself in recent videos too? Turns out everyone has their price.

Thats not selling out. If he keeps the old video up and doesn't make the claim that NordVPN does things it doesn't actually do, then he's just advertising.

There are legitimate uses for VPNs, they're just not the reasons these VPNs advertise (the the parent comment says).

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#89

Post by 4ggr0 »

edgyquant wrote: post #63
ehPReth wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear there's a dirty secret that more and more companies are doing this to make things like Netflix that block VPNs "just work" though their services. Not sure how true this is or how widespread, though.

This has been brought up before, Netflix does not work with a VPN on. It knows you’re using a VPN and blocks you (asks you to disable it.) Yes this is true even with NordVPN, which I bought specifically to be able to watch Netflix on when expressVPN didn’t work.

No? I've used Netflix with NordVPN like 2 years ago and since then switched to ProtonVPN, which works as well...

Using VPNs for Streaming is selling point #1 for tons of people.

Re: NordVPN library and client code open-sourced

#90

Post by simias »

VonGuard wrote: post #82
acatton wrote: post #7

Reminder that it looks like NordVPN does shady stuff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29285988 Allegedly, they are using their customers as botnets to resell traffic from residential IPs, mostly for scraping, through their other business "Oxylabs".

They, and ALL VPN PROVIDERS, sell your DNS data, as well. That's the real business model.

I'd hope that mullvad at least wouldn't do that given how strongly they seem to value privacy. Of course, you can never be entirely sure...
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