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TunnelBear Joins McAfee
- PuffinBlue 9y agoI'll save you the trouble of ctrl+f'ing: "We’d like to thank you for being part of the journey so far, and we look forward to sharing more about our plans in the coming weeks." https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/
- corobo 9y agoThis one was only a regular journey though. Must have been less money than the usual buyouts
- tenpies 9y agoPerhaps it was still incredible by previous years standards, but it did not keep up with the journey inflation?
- Daviey 9y agoOnly opened the article to find information on their journey.. looks like they haven't finished their trip yet.
- BadassFractal 9y agoCame here just for this, thanks for doing your part o7
- lathiat 9y agoRIP marketing department budget at Linus Tech Tips
- RosanaAnaDana 9y agoWAN show should be interesting.. Brought to you by Tunnel Bear!
- sebtoast 9y agoThat was my first thought too, I hope Linus will talk about it at some point. They seem transparent and upfront about their income.
- RosanaAnaDana 9y agoI don't see them keeping TB around as a sponsor after this. Pretty darn bad press.
- suckerburg 9y agoYeah I'm sure they'll mention this in the upcoming WAN show, they've been pretty upfront about income, the titles and thumbnails, etc
- dawnerd 9y agoI wonder how they'll deal with spots already being paid for.
- mrweasel 9y agoI don't get this kind of purchases. If McAfee intends to just let TunnelBear be TunnelBear, then what they're after must the business (as in the profit). In that case would there be more business sense in not selling, from the TunnelBear perspective? Edit: Also TunnelBear isn't joining McAfee, or I doubt that they are. McAfee BOUGHT them. Joining implies that you merged the two businesses with no money changing hands.
- pvg 9y agoJoining implies that you merged the two businesses with no money changing hands. Not in typical usage because that typically doesn't happen.
- ricardobeat 9y agoA sale like this can allow the owners to cash out immediately many years of would-be profit. It's always an asymmetrical transaction, one side here thinks they can come out ahead, or just has different priorities.
- Angostura 9y agoThe last time I joined a team or a company, I didn't merge with them.
- gk1 9y ago> Joining implies that you merged the two businesses with no money changing hands. Not at all. Saying you "joined" a company is often used as a less transactional (that is, warm and fuzzy, not cold and financial) way of saying you were acquired.
- vegardx 9y agoThere are lots of legal implications when one company buys another, even if they don't merge. But these implications go both ways, so it can get funny with things like GDPR.
- rasengan 9y agoThis is the opposite of privacy and you should be ashamed. You sold all of your customers’ info to Intel/McAfee at a price.
- tssva 9y agoThey have a very detailed and plainly written privacy policy which details what information is gathered and how it is used. If their customers put a premium on privacy they should have read the privacy policy prior to using the service and understood Tunnelbear's obligations under it. As long as Tunnelbear has met them they have nothing to be ashamed of. It even addresses the possibility of being acquired and the impact that may have regarding the data they have collected. "If our organization structure changes (i.e we undergo a restructuring or are acquired), we may need to migrate your Personal Information to a third party related to a business transaction, but, we will ensure that such a third party has entered into an agreement under which the use of your Personal Information is only related to purposes necessary for the transaction."
- rasengan 9y agoOK, so you’re blaming the customers for not carefully reading the privacy policy? I understand that people should read things, but they don’t. They read the marketing text where Tunnelbear claimed to “really really” care about privacy. Further, they gave all of the personal information since it was all necessary for the transaction. Unsustainable VPN companies that operate at low margins to sell to the highest bidder like this are the exact opposite of privacy conscious. :(
- sigmar 9y agoI wish I had your optimism. Rule of thumb is that all informal agreements go out the window after an acquisition. Why would the board of McAfee care about a policy they didn't approve and aren't legally bound to?
- username223 9y ago> ... we will ensure that such a third party has entered into an agreement under which the use of your Personal Information is only related to purposes necessary for the transaction. Wow, that is the opposite of reassuring. The "purposes" could easily be "better profiling you to price insurance policies." Most T&Cs aren't worth reading. They can be summed up as "by having seen this document, you have agreed to let us do whatever we want forever," and what really matters is whether such contracts are legally enforceable where you live.
- vectorEQ 9y ago</tinfoilhat> from somewhere else on the internet: ....... On the hitlist of “Project CAMBERDADA”, an NSA-led initiative, were Russian giant Kaspersky, Finnish firm F-Secure, Romania’s BitDefender, Germany’s Avira, Slovakia’s ESET, South Korean giant AhnLab, as well as Czech vendors AVG and Avast. Some firm’s may have been on the list purely because of their association with Kaspersky. Israel’s Check Point, which licenses the Kaspersky anti-virus engine for its consumer product, ZoneAlarm, was also a target. Older versions of F-Secure also used the Kaspersky signature database, which contained lists of blacklisted malware. GCHQ appears to have targeted Russian anti-virus provider Kaspersky, whilst the NSA has led an initiative to expose the tech of various partners and competitors. But American anti-virus leaders McAfee and Symantec were not on the list. Neither was Sophos, the UK’s best-known anti-virus provider. ............. not on the list because they don't need to be on the list? ;D .. makes u wonder why they want a vpn provider... maybe it was too secure :P </tinfoilhat>
- kennydude 9y agoWell, goodbye nice looking VPN.
- nugi 9y agoWhelp, that singlehandedly kills any credibility tunnerlbear had in my mind. I hope the buyout was worth it guys. The exact market for services like tunnelbear are the same ones that avoid the likes of mcafee (the company) like the plauge. I can see them jumping like rats from a burning ship. They should just find a new name at this point, ala comcast, blackwater, etc. Even their literal namesake disses them publicly.
- technion 9y agoWhilst they probably lost a certain market, they certainly gained another one, and I'm not convinced it's a net loss as a business. Once this reaches Mcafee.com (as opposed to tunnelbear.com) I am entirely confident executives will inform me the product is an important part of our security strategy. At some future point, there will probably be a Gartner Quadrant rating them highly. McAfee has a poor name on HN, but this isn't generally reflected in business. This should be self evident- they'd be broke if it was.
- Arubis 9y agoNice while it lasted. Any alternative recommendations for less tech-oriented folks? TunnelBear has been what I pointed friends and relations towards historically.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 9y agoPrivate Internet Access is my suggestion given their support of EFF, FFTF, Creative Commons, as well as the greater FOSS community. Full disclosure: I work at Private Internet Access.
- matlock 9y agoCan second PIA. Used it for years now and its solid. And I'm not affiliated in any way with it, just a happy customer
- typicalbender 9y agoThirded, used for years and have never had a problem with their service.
- danpalmer 9y agoCan second this. I switched to NordVPN because of their design (PIA needs a branding and design overhaul), but really regret it as PIA was fast, stable, generally great.
- dawnerd 9y agoAlso use it, no real complaints. Can't speak for the software since I'm manually connecting. Speeds are decent, but can be slow.
- jasondemeuse 9y agoI've been a PIA customer for a year and a half with no complaints. I'm not a VPN power user by any means but it's been solid for me the whole time and haven't had any reason to look elsewhere.
- 9y ago
- shomyo 9y agoRIP :/
- badprose 9y agoI don't see how this purchase changes anything. How was "TunnelBear: an independent VPN provider" ever any more trustworthy than "TunnelBear: A service from McAffee"? In both cases, I have no idea what they're actually doing with my info.
- ohf 9y agoFWIW, I'm pretty sure the market segment of tunnelbear users were people dodging network restrictions, not people who valued privacy much. That aside, there are exceptions and someone is getting fucked over.
- ksec 9y agoWhy does Intel wants TunnelBear? I dont see the logic behind this, any one could explain? P.S Is anyone still using McAfee ? It seems Symantec has taken up most of the enterprise sales, while consumer are happy with Windows default protection.
- mrkidd 9y agoIntel no longer owns McAfee, they were spun out a year and a half ago. https://venturebeat.com/2016/09/07/intel-teams-with-tpg-to-spin-out-mcafee-security-unit-in-deal-valued-at-4-2-billion/ https://venturebeat.com/2016/09/07/intel-teams-with-tpg-to-s... Lots and lots of people still use McAfee. Symantec's management products are still light years behind McAfee. Symantec really wasted a big opportunity with what they did to Altiris.
- baud147258 9y agoWe're using McAfee where I work, which should cover 2100 emplyees, perhaps more if the parent company (Assa Abloy) is using it too. It is also used to scan the files during the build process of our deliverables, which easily add hours to a full rebuild.
- GordonS 9y agoWe use Mcafee where I work, and have done for over 10 years. It's still a massive resource hog that has my high-end laptops permanently sounding like they're going to take off. In all seriousness, it probably contributes to power bills and global warming! Given the choice, wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.
- crisopolis 9y agoThe company I work for still uses McAfee. This company has 50,000 employees.
- jlgaddis 9y agoCoincidentally, the U.S. Government is a pretty big McAfee customer.
- taddeimania 9y agoI'll save some of you the task of searching through their FAQ if you want to cancel your account. https://www.tunnelbear.com/account#/remove https://www.tunnelbear.com/account#/remove
- TomV1971 9y ago“We’re sorry but we can’t cancel your account automatically. Please contact support.” Yeah...
- taddeimania 9y agoI had the same issue, was hoping it was isolated to my account. What unfortunate timing.
- tokanizar 9y agoSeemed so. I was just able to delete my account.
- astrojams 9y agoI also had no problem cancelling my account.
- TomV1971 9y agoI retried. Still doesn’t work. Looks like I’ll be forced into human to human interaction.
- dawnerd 9y agoLast time that happened to me I just called the bank and told them to block payments. I think it was either stamps.com or siriusxm. Really no reason to prevent someone from cancelling right away... just a shady tactic to retain people.
- crysin 9y agoSomeone should let Linus (the Tech Tips one) know. Not sure if he'd want to be endorsing tunnel bear now that its owned by McAfee.
- burner5692 9y agoTunnelBear never had good security. It's Canadian HideMyAss. Well, it was.
- moistoreos 9y agoTried them until they implemented the policy to block the torrent protocol. WHY. WOULD. YOU. DO. THAT. TUNNELBEAR. That's a legit protocol where legit downloads happen barring the overwhelming illegal activity that happens there.
- dogma1138 9y agoI don’t understand why people used them they didn’t had an explicit no logging no retention policy and they are located well within the reach of the US legal system as they were a Canadian company.
- jabberwik 9y agoBecause my threat model is a Wifi pineapple. I don't need protection from the entire Internet and all the governments of the world. I want to make sure an overzealous college kid isn't stealing my cookies.
- dogma1138 9y agoAnd there were much better and cheaper companies for that like NordVPN and VyprVPN. Neither of them would protect you against governments that much, but they do protect your privacy. Do you want another place where all your data has been logged? I bet McAfee will have a field day with all the data tunnelbear has accumulated over the years.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- 11eleven 9y agoAlso important: "TunnelBear is now part of McAfee, a US based company" = customer information can be subject to US court orders.
- sleepychu 9y agoF*, just renewed at $49.99 for a year. Cancelling automatically downgrades, how unreasonable.
- kylehotchkiss 9y agoI can't wait for the mcafee themed bear photos! Bears on drugs , bears hiding in Mexico, and bears trying to sell you cryptocurrencies in back alleys.
- jlgaddis 9y agoYou do realize he hasn't been involved with the company since the 90s?
- tptacek 9y agoI don't know what all you Tunnelbear users were thinking. Do you believe other commercial VPN services are doing a better job of protecting your privacy? Spoiler: they are not. Commercial VPN services offer the safety of coffee shop open wi-fi, in The Cloud, from the convenience of your own couch. Stop using commercial VPN providers. Honestly, at least now they have the McAfee security team working for them. There are better teams, but anything is better than getting a single point-in-time audit and slapped "independently audited" on your front page.
- dorian-graph 9y ago> Stop using commercial VPN providers. What would you recommend, BYO?
- davepeck 9y agoFor BYO, you might consider Algo VPN https://github.com/trailofbits/algo https://github.com/trailofbits/algo -- it gets IPSec right -- or, if you're feeling more bleeding-edge, WireGuard.
- zacmps 9y agoAlso looks really good, thanks.
- volker48 9y agoI just set this up this week its so easy and works really well. It took less than 10 minutes.
- dmix 9y ago+1 Wireguard, much simpler than OpenVPN is my experience. https://www.wireguard.com/ https://www.wireguard.com/
- czers 9y agoI've been using similar project called Streisand: https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand It's easy to set up on Azure and has Wireguard built-in.
- aarpmcgee 9y agoCanceled my subscription.
- sireat 9y agoIf you can't trust a goofy bear who can you really trust then? If you think about it all the goodwill Tunnelbear had was built on quirky/irreverent front end client.
- wemdyjreichert 9y agoSomeone tell Linus Tech Tips
- BlackPlot 9y agoIMHO all users should consider switching to some reputable VPN with no logs policy https://vpnspecial.com/tunnelbear-has-just-been-purchased-best-alternative-vpns/ https://vpnspecial.com/tunnelbear-has-just-been-purchased-be...