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I don’t really mind paying few bucks for privacy. But I think Apple in the process is gonna kill a lot VPN providers. While I don’t care right now I hope it doe

I don’t really mind paying few bucks for privacy. But I think Apple in the process is gonna kill a lot VPN providers. While I don’t care right now I hope it doesn’t make Apple a monopoly.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
It won’t harm VPN providers, I don’t think, for a few reasons. - VPNs are actually less private than iCloud+ double hop design, but could be much faster due to only having a single hop. - Unlike a VPN, you can’t choose the location of the server you exit at, and the exit server cannot be in a different nation. If you are in the US, iCloud+‘s relays are in the US. No circumventing georestrictions here. - Apple does not market their service as a VPN and never said it is one. For most customers, they don’t know this is a VPN substitute because it doesn’t call itself one. So if you have “VPN” in your mind, this isn’t something you think of as an option.
- CubsFan1060 5y ago
  Additionally, this only works for port 80 traffic from apps. Other traffic is not run through this, so a VPN would still be useful in those scenarios.
  - mariojv 5y ago
    To clarify: port 80 and 443 (TLS connections), right? Or is TLS traffic only routed through the private relay in Safari, not other apps?
    - gjsman-1000 5y ago
      All traffic in Safari goes through relay. However, in 3rd party apps, all traffic over 80 goes through relay and traffic over 443 is exempt. There is going to be an API though for if you want your 3rd party app’s 443 to go over the relay if you desire.
      - 0xf00fc7c8 5y ago
        Not in beta1. I tcpdump'ed traffic from Firefox. HTTP/80 traffic is perfectly visible and not pushed to mask.icloud.com
  - gcbirzan 5y ago
    Wait, so no HTTPS?
kalleboo 5y ago
Everyone I know who uses a VPN doesn't really care about Privacy with a big P (i.e. state actors etc), they either use it to get around geo-blocks or to conceal their use of BitTorrent and maybe porn sites and this only seems to cover the last of those.

I don’t really mind paying few bucks for privacy. But I think Apple in the process is gonna kill a lot VPN providers. While I don’t care right now I hope it doesn’t make Apple a monopoly.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

It won’t harm VPN providers, I don’t think, for a few reasons. - VPNs are actually less private than iCloud+ double hop design, but could be much faster due to only having a single hop. - Unlike a VPN, you can’t choose the location of the server you exit at, and the exit server cannot be in a different nation. If you are in the US, iCloud+‘s relays are in the US. No circumventing georestrictions here. - Apple does not market their service as a VPN and never said it is one. For most customers, they don’t know this is a VPN substitute because it doesn’t call itself one. So if you have “VPN” in your mind, this isn’t something you think of as an option.

CubsFan1060 5y ago
Additionally, this only works for port 80 traffic from apps. Other traffic is not run through this, so a VPN would still be useful in those scenarios.
- mariojv 5y ago
  To clarify: port 80 and 443 (TLS connections), right? Or is TLS traffic only routed through the private relay in Safari, not other apps?
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    All traffic in Safari goes through relay. However, in 3rd party apps, all traffic over 80 goes through relay and traffic over 443 is exempt. There is going to be an API though for if you want your 3rd party app’s 443 to go over the relay if you desire.
    - 0xf00fc7c8 5y ago
      Not in beta1. I tcpdump'ed traffic from Firefox. HTTP/80 traffic is perfectly visible and not pushed to mask.icloud.com
- gcbirzan 5y ago
  Wait, so no HTTPS?

kalleboo 5y ago

Everyone I know who uses a VPN doesn't really care about Privacy with a big P (i.e. state actors etc), they either use it to get around geo-blocks or to conceal their use of BitTorrent and maybe porn sites and this only seems to cover the last of those.