19 ms·
PIA: Our Merger with Kape Technologies – Addressing Your Concerns
- mehhh 7y agoWe had an issue with PIA's Android VPN breaking our app, they never responded to our PGP'ed ticket and the email address embedded in their PGP keyblock bounces. I wonder what will happen to Freenode now: https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn
- prawnsalad 7y agoFreenode and PIA have different parent companies, freenode hasn’t changed owners so nothing will happen to it.
- mprev 7y agoYou’ve written this twice in this thread but how do you square it with this: https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn
- prawnsalad 7y agoSure, that was back in 2017 as per the date in the blog post itself. Then this month from Kape themselves I've described here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21614447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21614447
- mynameisvlad 7y agoYou are just plain wrong. They’re both owned by the newly formed “Imperial Family Companies” and they both show up under the portfolio, along with the rest of the brands that used to be part of LTM. https://imperialfamily.com/ https://imperialfamily.com/ To be clear, this is a brand new site that was created in the last few days, they bought up the domain for 15k a few days ago (https://domainnamewire.com/2019/11/12/21-end-user-domain-name-sales-at-uniregistry/ https://domainnamewire.com/2019/11/12/21-end-user-domain-nam...)
- JmpMovCmp 7y agoFYI, OP is associated with them. https://irc.com/ https://irc.com/ https://kiwiirc.com/blog/Kiwi_IRC_gets_sponsored_by_PrivateInternetAccess https://kiwiirc.com/blog/Kiwi_IRC_gets_sponsored_by_PrivateI... https://web.archive.org/web/20191022202131/https://gist.github.com/prawnsalad/7b3f5929dadc81c39228e373fa0ca569 https://web.archive.org/web/20191022202131/https://gist.gith... https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2016/12/private-internet-access-partners-reddit-irc-hub-snoonet/ https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2016/12/private-i... https://snoonet.org/posts/2016/12/15/introducing-our-newest-partner-private-internet-access/ https://snoonet.org/posts/2016/12/15/introducing-our-newest-... https://web.archive.org/web/20181109070719/https://snoonet.org/updates/56-snoonet-joins-the-privateinternetaccess-com-family https://web.archive.org/web/20181109070719/https://snoonet.o...
- ryanlol 7y ago>I wonder what will happen to Freenode now Well, they're already pushing this cryptocurrency scheme https://freenode.net/news/spam-shake https://freenode.net/news/spam-shake
- rasengan 7y agoThank you for bringing this to our attention mehhh. I will get into this PGP bouncing issue immediately. In the meantime, please feel free to contact me with PGP - my public key is pasted below and you can mail me at a at londontrustmedia.com: -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- mQINBE28x2gBEACdADSTytv3SNIpOfwQqnWauesXCPgCrOar+Qjt9JITwxZLj/eiYtynG3HNwSo+ VZRQIQqTVO3mtov++Bx7/ZiQC7aylEr4l4g8cL1Y0KtVGWG5GtIBmbP7r4xHZaSlWf0mbNRrjEoT Bn4rQaLuGE8jvPDR9ZszXzgQmDjIXwx1/NJP2+XJ8MghJX3eH7nPyAjDMKM9TsF6KbYrKUPPsH4F jqINMW9Yo24RLdhHnJpLEJLDQNsvakUz8r+YqFTuKsiZcS7BrWWQODTCmWq//HoUUW7UfE76E8Qi mAh8CoRvJktY8cJoHK6fm9oVpKVMp2bhbnha7HbggOdcEnawUqsdjPMY6iA6gx9aqIZ32bjfBx6+ N/XLDh1cLjVLQonRov4DQAve0o4nxKBp6drozhUD8Yw4ROv+vJPxp1wxqq4L0+FEXpORB1rvNewn zyEXNGd8JX3YuStj87isGCytnzcYOc8wa1zhbmF+iM0YIi2DWu9EeWv80oNCA0i+aVcpr3jkARhf ii8w7vSHt3SzaT1TAqtgkH0i9LCXng8jieGgEGWMTXnjcMWeg0tNfAwsUd3ikLw77dN/o/6d0X5S JkDy8003XesclKoJgsVK3l/9yfFVTChHjWJNqx8By2OwRA8ITAaJHb1e/sbqiF+nf1B4A031SxLE xbESOszXuVtJjwARAQABtChBbmRyZXcgTGVlIChyYXNlbmdhbikgPGFuZHlzbEBnbWFpbC5jb20+ iQI4BBMBAgAiBQJNvMdoAhsDBgsJCAcDAgYVCAIJCgsEFgIDAQIeAQIXgAAKCRABYTG6kOhpIQAB D/9HMeFMIWMkYk6dY+039vxlQq2sGl93+/VyCrlgoGm0BFw3oV7xm/uAI1jxJHG2Slt34p7Vzi4w nGi+k65Tj5CwbuPy91zeSpIgh7FPszvZACxg4jR+Rza37sj9FV6CLYQsQ2JWyaiqPOVM4Ejr384a lFkJfItCXxpeGHo42BefIci4NNdCiIWB0xvg38i2y8m9w1/3IaMezjix5QZKfOrD50lQCW5i6M1H FjFwXrE/yL4esUnJamRCSwCfZmCa3PZi+5RWr4vNBXktiUc0Aum/zHsKLHLEKuGoB3bqn9TMEpVE 6akCZnKh4T7oCn3Ou+u5tyi6DFfHbM8qnORl2qf9siJ794+FOdmbrcmxis0MoMRtdCKHLZdYQAol 8X266nKWWm/JFLqM2CcmBuQKWLb4LfAUBhXklnc+606Si4rI02eBcsMEvc/pLB+gZ4eF9dM7n47O PuLTeS0W0khsXvspneDmWN5fYr5hkxsg7FKBjQX6nx4ImnwpBc/ZDCbCEDLvIIXPEDf0pUkNUmh8 6Zh7cx6JKdKgn3GPxHP3sLzOzP7UXsaMdet3/Vcm476nTnHwjDXF5pQJG3hPhcqG1vIjDS/k53xD TDXiK+Ll4oyyNnNhUkFOBhnV3TDUC8+AImoBMhkTRLRlBvmVI5Z45cpPQFx8TLXV52zpT10Q/swC TbkCDQRNvMdoARAAtp38Gnxna31fkzbdXPBlsw9khwHO2AUajJZoDh16HaovFMX4O+T5ILXJxz26 Cd3OD76yhl3mo7gLNiYB8hHjPkftXopGsEWMpsSuID58z7/vz90qvDPCSEGM0EEaI2YZcjgLPNIm KDAe3DDYy7bVkkQR47rzLmFC2HF5IwhwTnpBpYpW2ZjQkAx/H0zwPph1AdxozLHu/yzo+hUhmr8n z2G5B92u04CPhcm4VwCoaP6FSYvpO/12Fc0gN8jvjZgOfYvbhcsA76Snt3u5UtxW2cYx5xlJsRcE bRsowiajc15pZaPxEV/Od5yUFTun6NztGinRmWN0zIhoBaM3dwTDOV0cOuFP6TroYSTyvRAznvpe vqHnxJy42luAHyfc8SeBtVYtCV6dDMOi8ervfa8YWFIjiVpcYAXCkFga1gzNJu14yJkVDFHHEttv VqFids5AoscxyfvT2m46KCH85rHqm6jvkH1cQQkkB6/WiIj5aQhBv3cOJ3R3dsmdTk+/OdIPbVDr oHdrTbxQsmm3AnE4pex5WiGxDt7vh8hvdT272eV6vZaGNZcM9pfFDwQVab1wWamSJ/VGxKEOXckV 2hVzEfmXhe7nmHGQ1hUI0JAZiTREAoDqxYvTOLkKqhb8piVenThwqPoLZyvTLYuVd9daOVPrDDBb M49L0+HctG6Ite0AEQEAAYkCHwQYAQIACQUCTbzHaAIbDAAKCRABYTG6kOhpIQABD/0bH/nYM72c BnSZH/6nYVaT9/xVkFC4er7xhiDQosQlUwv+nwEt9jt6zt7R++jCAefsV2DwybtXo8l0ZXLTOCND Hvq5GEzt+C9lVJffcp8EFl4HGUyc42X3/XtGSiArp1LN7vH9T+BjW7BLhEgtpWYYozaaf5SslqeO EWHdU0hdjSabvD9i1H1JV78TL27WvNXBO5MyDnFiHAB3W8ANI6mtV6o0YrvJRyiuU+P27ML4EoDo ew0BR1kYnCq6zJk6cyGa+i47NrjiSewomAQVGvB8Wk986KiSASzYCkStlIA9Tau/yeLdUkhXk9XD f7ueOggPC4jhIknzGXEMgJgufIfHfXDqxHvKwibU3F9wM6pjB/NrH1Fx6SGruELZvNy4kvKd+L6B Ba5ZAiYtkx7ZcLx/bcfxMcu2dg+sRWW698Vb9KN05kwblXwUPkEw4+00G+OFHJZx9KpezrgnJ0pR Sbv5VscBHyFWsGtzsxRs5dh1OHgnSnqoLsXhP4cT5vYSyvUXKP8jFMqUItVljAt/E3ePXIffIRq7 sreHnGsdDp0DyGZXLW78HnJp6/1QXRzq/URlWarVc98YjPgEkXJviV1o5GAVLsuvN+xRC6Llz2rD bKOq/Tzb1SaHtJOPJomcRP6691h0CHMI4ind71KhyJD2vmHwBA/enYuh0ank5J4LTw== =P6L+ -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Freenode is a non profit organization that benefits from support from Private Internet. It is not owned by Private Internet. We are serious fans of IRC and the open source community, so it makes sense for us to divert profits to orgs like freenode among others. To be clear, we also donate to other orgs: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/companies-we-sponsor https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/companies-we-spo... Our new merged company will continue to do the same as we are in fact the same company going forward - just much better resourced.
- throwawaypiawhy 7y agoAny recommendations? This looks bad really bad. Cybergoast a previous VPN bought by Kape went to shit. For the Pia engineer who ends up reading this. I have bin a Pia user for 5+ years. I have recommended it to friends and family. Now I have to tell them all to cancel.
- jsilence 7y agoMulvad seems to be a good option.
- mirimir 7y agoAgreed, this looks really bad. And Mullvad is a good option. So are AirVPN, Insorg and IVPN. Edit: For background, see https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252466203/Top-VPNs-secretly-owned-by-Chinese-firms https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252466203/Top-VPNs-secre...
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y agoTunnelbear as well. I'm not a customer of either, just been researching alternatives since tis news hit earlier this week.
- nickflood 7y agoTunnelbear is owned by McAfee https://www.tunnelbear.com/blog/tunnelbear_joins_mcafee/ https://www.tunnelbear.com/blog/tunnelbear_joins_mcafee/
- aasasd 7y agoIIRC Tunnelbear is known to sell info on the clients. It's not a fringe story to my knowledge, but alas I don't have links on me currently.
- rndgermandude 7y agoSeconded. It's Mullvad, tho, not Mulvad ;) I have been a customer since a while and cannot complain. They support wireguard, which is nice, and of course plain OpenVPN connections, but offer apps for various platforms too. They do not pay for reviews, which is nice (and quite telling that other do), they are own by to Swedish guys. Their price is a €5/month (for simultaneous 5 VPN connections, no data caps) and you can pay in cash* or bitcoin if you want. And no, I am not paid or otherwise compensated to write this, or affiliated with them other then being a customer. [*] They even say: "Please avoid writing your name or address on the envelope."
- nullc 7y agoPIA also very strangely bought freenode and has since engaged in a number of suspect activities.
- NetOpWibby 7y agoHoo boy...like what?
- prawnsalad 7y agoPIA and freenode have different parent companies, but what are these suspect activities? The network would be in an uproar if they existed.
- pushcx 7y agoPIA is a trade name of London Trust Media, not a separate entity. The copyright on the bottom of PIA's homepage names LTM, and you can see the registration if you search for 20181014437 at https://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/BusinessEntityCriteriaExt.do https://www.sos.state.co.us/biz/BusinessEntityCriteriaExt.do Freenode's registration doesn't show any change in ownership since their acquisition: https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn https://freenode.net/news/pia-fn https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10308021/filing-history https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10308021/filing-h... If you believe there are different parent companies involved, please link sources.
- prawnsalad 7y agoFrom a quick search: http://investors.kape.com/~/media/Files/K/Kape-IR/reports-and-presentations/2019/project-pop-nov-2019.pdf http://investors.kape.com/~/media/Files/K/Kape-IR/reports-an... announces the proposed acquisition of LTMI Holdings Freenode was bought under LTMH. Confusingly similar names, but different companies. o Plus Ultra – a software that speeds up internet connections o LibreBrowser – a completely private browser o Private.sh – a private and encrypted search engine based on proprietary cryptography technology And then includes a list of what else the acquisition actually includes. No freenode listed there.
- pkaye 7y agoI've never used these VPN services before. Is it possible for them to MITM a connection?
- mirimir 7y agoYes, they can install certificates that enable MitM. That's one reason why I never use custom clients for VPN services. That is, no binaries. I just get the OpenVPN PKI stuff, and use stock OpenVPN.
- SahAssar 7y ago> Yes, they can install certificates that enable MitM. Well, only if you give them permission to. Just use a non-provider specific client and you're okay.
- mirimir 7y agoI don't use them, so I don't know whether they'd ask specifically about the TLS cert. It might just be something about "web security" or whatever. And about using stock clients, that's what I said :) From openvpn.net or in Linus distros or in pfSense, for example.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ComputerGuru 7y agoNot if it is an encrypted connection and you are using a third party client, no. PIA supports OpenVPN and IPsec (IKEv2, iirc), for which most operating systems already have r either native or popular trusted and secure clients for.
- slig 7y agoSorry, I must be missing something obvious so please let me know, but VPNs are literally MITM: they terminate your encrypted connection with the client and stablish a new connection with the outside world from their end. So doesn't matter if the client is trusted, they can do whatever with the data before relaying it to the outside and before encrypting and sending back to the client.
- MatthiasP 7y agoCan anyone give some substantiated information about Kape? Why is so bad? All I found was FUD.
- tmikaeld 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21584958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21584958 With sources
- vincengomes 7y agoUsually, Subreddits are created by fans of the service. This is the first time I'm noticing a complete corporate subreddit. All the moderators are the staff of PIA. [1] It will be interesting to see how much they accept criticisms on the subreddit about PIA. 1. https://old.reddit.com/r/PrivateInternetAccess/about/moderators https://old.reddit.com/r/PrivateInternetAccess/about/moderat...
- bla3 7y agoIt's not that uncommon. The stadia subreddit mods are all Google employees as well, for example. I agree it's not an ideal setup.
- IntelMiner 7y agoI seem to recall the "League of Legends" subreddit having a meltdown when its mods were found to be simply compromised by the company, rather than employed by it
- jrockway 7y agoReddit was not happy with the r/Blizzard mods during the blitzchung thing. Redditors are basically never happy with anything. Their ideal world is some place with no rules except that everyone else is forced to read their comments. Unfortunately, such a place does not exist.
- inapis 7y agoMost forums on the internet are like that and it’s not exactly unexpected because people who care about writing something in an Internet forum will also be pedantic about what they want. This forum is no exception (you can pretty much see this in action whenever electron is mentioned) Many people try to reduce complex multi-variate situations into simple variable situations and then lambast people on other forums if their chosen variable turns out to be different. I just saw an example of this last week in mobilereads forum. Unhappy with iBooks and the kindle apps I’ve been reliant on Marvin for quite a time. But the dev has vanished from the scene for last 2 years. I just investigated if creating a commercial replacement would be a good idea but good god, the one forum where people have been talking about Marvin can have extremely ultra specific needs for a very unreasonable price expectation. After reading that forum I’m not exactly surprised that the dev chose to abandon the goal post.
- commoner 7y agoThis is an interesting turn after PIA committed to "open sourcing our software" in March 2018: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2018/03/private-internet-access-goes-open-source/ https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2018/03/private-i... 20 months later, PIA open sourced its iOS app, older versions of its browser extensions, and 2 Swift libraries. Everything else is still closed source. https://pia-foss.github.io/ https://pia-foss.github.io/
- rasengan 7y agoThanks for bringing this up commoner and really appreciate your patience. You are absolutely right that we are open sourcing our software - there were some delays as we completely rewrote our desktop application from scratch. This was a major concern from our new partners as well, as they have been asking us to release the code as well - we are all on the same page here. While I can’t give an exact date, I’m confident that the rest of the code will be released in 2 weeks or less. Along with our QT/CPP cross platform application, we will also be open sourcing our search engine, private.sh! Hope this helps and sorry again for the delay, Andrew
- Zombieball 7y agoTwo years of patience? You can still open source in-progress software.
- darlingparade 7y agoI believe that the title should be changed because: "In late 2012 Sagi acquired the start-up company Crossrider for $US 37M." [1] That alone tells you that Kape's (or rather, Crossrider's current owner) had nothing to do with their past actions, and could be therefore considered libel. Moreover, post that someone linked with all the proof is pretty much a lot of FUD, and while I'm not happy with the sale, I fail to see any actual proof being brought up. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Sagi#Kape_Technologies_plc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Sagi#Kape_Technologies_p...
- jfk13 7y ago> current owner had nothing to do with their past actions, and could be therefore considered libel. I'm not sure that follows. When you buy a company, one of the things you're acquiring is that company's reputation -- for better or worse.
- darlingparade 7y agoBut the title of the thread insinuates that Kape is known for distributing malware, not the company it had acquired. I personally believe that there's a big difference between saying: "PIA bought by company that also acquired a company known for distributing malware" and straight out claiming that PIA's acquirer distributes or has distributed malware at some point in time.
- brentonator 7y agoKape _is_ Crossrider. Crossrider was renamed Kape and a new CEO was put in place to "exit the advertising market" transitioning to cyber security.
- brentonator 7y agoWhoa, whoa. You're the one misleading people here. Sagi (a person) purchased Crossrider outright for $37M then RENAMED Crossrider to Kape. It's even more clear that the Crossrider "Adtech" (read Adware) was produced by the very same company Crossrider which is now called Kape. They are one in the same.
- ohthehugemanate 7y agoFriendly reminder: Azure and AWS both offer a free tier of VM which are perfectly sufficient for a personal openVPN server. Azure even has a preconfigured option in their marketplace that's easy to set up in a legal jurisdiction of your choice. Probably so does AWS and even DigitalOcean, but I'm most familiar with Azure because of my own preference for open source (Azure's orchestrator is https://github.com/microsoft/service-fabric/ https://github.com/microsoft/service-fabric/). After the free year, a minimal always-on VM costs about $13/mo.
- homero 7y agoAWS bandwidth is a killer though
- Sohcahtoa82 7y agoUse a LightSail instance and get 2 TB of data transfer included for $5/month.
- dbeley 7y agoIsn't $13/mo quite expensive compared to the cheapest VPS on any cloud providers ? The bandwidth on Azure might be better, but the first tier on OVH, DigitalOcean and Scaleway begins at 3$/mo and you still have 100mbps.
- calcifer 7y agoIf the reason you are using a VPN is to avoid potentially untrustworthy middlemen, sure. But if you are after the privacy benefits of sharing an IP address with thousands, then a self hosted VPN won't help you.
- manquer 7y agoWhy not ? Unless your instance has a reservation of public IP you are sharing the outbound IP with thousands of other traffic. The actual problem with such setups and VPNs is the constant captcha because you are not using a residential IP range
- eng_monkey 7y agoI lost faith in PIA caring about privacy of its customers when I noticed how they use unique tracking codes in their newsletter emails. I never received a response when I asked about it.
- jammygit 7y agoDid not know this
- system2 7y agoCare to explain in detail, please?
- tjbiddle 7y agoJust about every single one of the email newsletters you receive from anyone does this. It's for tracking clicks to links in an email, opens of an email, etc. Not apologizing for PIA - They definitely shouldn't be doing it if they're trying to advocate for privacy. But just stating it's extremely common practice and the default for most email services. I use it on my e-commerce websites so that I can send specific emails to people who have viewed a certain page, abandoned checkouts, opened a certain email but didn't convert, etc.
- imafish 7y ago> Subscribed since: November 23, 2014 12:10 (Yearly payment) I could simply not have asked for a better day for this to surface on HN :D
- anonymousse1234 7y agoWhat will happen with Freenode now?
- billfruit 7y agoWhat PIA is this about? Pakistan International Airlines? Who also own the Roosevelt Hotel in New York? Famous for the livery with the green tail marked PIA.
- dewey 7y agoHow about clicking on the link? It's in the path, the subreddit name and the post.
- billfruit 7y agoOn a second look the sub Reddit is named privateinternetaccess, but nowhere on the page can I see PIA expanded as such.
- selimthegrim 7y agoI’m sure the government would love to get rid of them but the unions wouldn’t know who to DDoS
- throwawaymanbot 7y agoThere's no way this can end well.
- dmclamb 7y agoI've been on the fence about cancelling my subscription to PIA after being a user more than five years. This prompted me to finally do it. I'm not sure there are any companies left to trust.
- rasengan 7y agoThis is the problem with several privacy companies and one that we don’t take lightly. At Private Internet, we are heavily focused on research and, specifically, have been focused on creating service architectures that limit or remove the need for trust altogether. That is what Zero Trust and Zero Access are about, and it’s the only direction we are heading. That’s why, for example, we launched private.sh, a search engine that you don’t need to trust. That being said I do want to mention, most VPN companies won’t sign a binding agreement not to log - whereas our partners at KAPE signed an entire binding mission statement which you can find here: http://investors.kape.com/about-us http://investors.kape.com/about-us
- dx87 7y agoIt doesn't seem very trustworthy when the whole page talks about how much they value privacy, then the video at the bottom of the page requires you to enter an email address to watch it.
- entropea 7y agoAlso no https:// https://
- ecf 7y agoThis is the kicker here. Nothing else matters. A business dedicated to privacy is completely incompetent if they can’t even use HTTPS. I cancelled my sub minutes after learning about the news. I would hope the PIA engineer can see through what buyout propaganda they are being fed and see the writing on the wall.
- 7y ago
- danShumway 7y agoIt might be that PIA is not going to start doing anything shady, and they'll still be a (relatively) well-respected VPN company after the merger. But if you're currently a PIA user, it would be foolish to keep using them while you're waiting for them to prove that. Cancel PIA for now, and if a year from now they're still on the level, you can make a more informed decision about whether or not to go back. There's no reason for you personally to be the canary in the coal mine, just use someone else while you're waiting to see what happens. I advocate somewhat strongly for paid 3rd-party VPNs, not because I think they're great, but because I think they are sometimes the least-bad option -- 3rd party VPNs address privacy problems that self-hosted VPNs can't, and unlike Tor, VPNs actually scale well for regular Internet browsing. I do however fully acknowledge that shifting trust can be dangerous, so I recommend people be willing to quickly jump ship between VPNs, and possibly use different VPNs for different services. You should be a little nervous around your VPN provider, and you should hold them to really high standards. In PIA's case, I notice looking at their pricing page that they offer 1-2 year plans in addition to monthly plans. Not everyone has the money to ignore deals, but if you do have the money, paying an extra $35-40 a year so just so you can easily switch VPNs on a whim is probably worth it. In general, for services that can pivot in quality quickly (like a VPN) it is usually worth paying monthly rather than yearly (again, assuming you have the extra money to do so).
- AndrewKemendo 7y agoI don't follow here. PIA is a paid third party VPN. So you're advocating to use one just like this, but not PIA?
- arkades 7y agoYes. He advocates for third party VPNs, but PIA was acquired by a shady company, so not them anymore, because there’s now a reason to distrust them specifically. It seemed pretty clear to me.
- AndrewKemendo 7y agoPIA meets 100% of the criteria outlined in that post however with no discussion of how to determine or measure additional criteria like future possible bad behavior based on corporate ownership, which was the genesis of the whole thread. Ostensibly the "paid" portion of the criteria is a proxy for incentive to not do shady things like show ads or distribute malware.
- eyeball 7y agoTime to go. Any suggested alternatives?
- bdibs 7y agoI went to Mullvad personally.
- Phylter 7y agoThis is the same PR blabbering that occurs with any acquisition. It means nothing just like any other. I’m cancelling and changing providers. Does anybody have recommendations?
- Fnoord 7y agoI'll be going from ProtonVPN to Mullvad because Mullvad does not offer any deals (which, in a way, I like as besides it being honest for a low price it allows me to unsub for a month). ProtonVPN with Secure Core is just too expensive IMO but the primary reason is Mullvad offer WireGuard, and when I looked them up I saw no red flags whatsoever. You could argue "Sweden" but not all ProtonVPN employees are residing in Switzerland either, so they could be coerced.
- Phylter 7y agoThankfully, I don't have to worry that much about it. My only concern is that they don't keep logs and that they're not automatically updating and loading my PC with malware. Though, if PIA ever put malware in their installer it would be like hitting the self-destruct button.
- Fnoord 7y agoNeither do I. I don't tunnel 0/0 through VPN; only some BitTorrent traffic. This is civil court work; not criminal court. That the NSA (and EU counterparts) can figure out what I use BitTorrent for, that I take for granted. They're [in this use-case] not my adversary.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- sizzle 7y agoCan anyone vouch for mullvad VPN? https://mullvad.net/ https://mullvad.net/
- dublinben 7y agoThey're recommended by PrivacyTools.io¹ You can read more about their methodology² and what's wrong with most other "VPN review" sites.³ They're also a top pick from wirecutter.⁴ ¹https://www.privacytools.io/providers/vpn/ https://www.privacytools.io/providers/vpn/ ²https://blog.privacytools.io/choosing-a-vpn/ https://blog.privacytools.io/choosing-a-vpn/ ³https://blog.privacytools.io/the-trouble-with-vpn-and-privacy-reviews/ https://blog.privacytools.io/the-trouble-with-vpn-and-privac... ⁴https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-vpn-service/ https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-vpn-service/
- Kurd 7y agoYour plan will expire on October XX, 2020. Well... shit!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dang 7y agoThe submitted title was "PIA bought by company known for distributing malware". We changed it to the article title in accordance with the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, which ask "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." One reason we have that rule is that we're not in any position to decide the truth or falsehood of contentious claims.