12 ms·

Farewell to Meshnet

74 points by eustoria 1y ago

ToucanLoucan 1y ago
I have to hard agree with a commenter from that article: I had no fucking idea NordVPN even had this feature, and as a fully self-admitted addict of video essays, I have seen a LOT of fucking NordVPN ads. It wouldn't make me buy it, I'm just not in the market, but that's an insane feature to just not advertise. And its not surprising it never got much attention.
- gear54rus 1y ago
  To block NordVpn ads on youtube, use SponsorBlock extension - a crowdsourced database of malicious video segments.
  - ToucanLoucan 1y ago
    I'm aware of it, but two things: - My primary avenue for YouTube vids is Apple TV, which is the ONLY reason I pay for premium - Honestly most of the creators I follow there make their ad reads entertaining enough that I'm not really bothered. I'm just emphasizing here I have heard a shit ton and a half of Nord ads, by a bunch of different creators, and I have NEVER heard of this feature. It's wild to me.
joecool1029 1y ago
Not a subscriber but I read the comments and apparently they offered this service to non-subscribers as well? My guess was it was a nice loss-leader to attract new customers and they've decided they no longer need it (since signups presumably skyrocketing with all the recent law changes). Don't know why they didn't just restrict it to paying subs or charge extra for it instead of getting rid of it, seems a stupid business decision that's going to cause lots of cancellations from subscribers that did use it and saw it as a differentiating feature from the competition. At least when mullvad nuked port forwarding they conveyed their reasoning quite clearly (they kept getting legal claims for people hosting illegal content or torrenting).
- righthand 1y ago
  Usually this means the product owner is disinterested or leaving the company.
slipheen 1y ago
I did not realize they had ever offered this. I suppose that may be related to why it's shutting down. One potential alternative might be to investigate https://tailscale.com/mullvad https://tailscale.com/mullvad You can use tailscale for normal device->device routing, and add mullvad VPN as an optional outgoing ip gateway.
- LeoPanthera 1y ago
  I wish Tailscale let you pay for one Mullvad exit node but then switch which device is using it. Right now it's tied to a single device.
  - PufPufPuf 1y ago
    They say it's $5 for 5 devices on their page, and that it works as a Tailscale exit node... is that not true?
    - LeoPanthera 1y ago
      Looks like you're right, you can add up to five devices for the same price. You still have to choose those devices in advance though.
      - placatedmayhem 1y ago
        In advance, sort of. The devices can be swapped around at basically any time. There's a little lag for a device to get the config update enabling Mullvad on it IME, usually 30 seconds or so.
- Lammy 1y ago
  Tailscale spy on all of your traffic/behavior by default, so this isn't a great recommendation to people who used NordVPN for privacy reasons without the disclaimer that they will need to opt out of Tailscale's spying by setting a special environment variable on every single machine in their Tailnet: https://tailscale.com/kb/1011/log-mesh-traffic https://tailscale.com/kb/1011/log-mesh-traffic “Each Tailscale agent in your distributed network streams its logs to a central log server (at `log.tailscale.io`). This includes real-time events for open and close events for every inter-machine connection (TCP or UDP) on your network.”
jesprenj 1y ago
2025: A major VPN company stops offering Virtual Private Networks.
- jeffrallen 1y ago
  ... so they can pivot to AI.
- Arnavion 1y ago
  They used to correctly call themselves proxies back in the day. They only started calling themselves "VPNs" because "Private Network" makes for good marketing with the "hide your traffic from snoopers" angle, even though it's not the kind of private network a VPN is.
jrm4 1y ago
Once again, I'll both big-up and ask what's up with Tinc. As in, I've been using it for years and still do, it's sort of an integral part of my whole deal, but it also seems kind of unmaintained, I haven't checked on that. And it's not the easiest to set up, but it feels miles ahead of whatever the Wireguard equivalent is or isn't these days.
- alyandon 1y ago
  I'd really like to see some combination of Tinc that manages the layer 2 mesh routing with wireguard underneath for the point to point tunnels.
- arjvik 1y ago
  Can I ask, is Tinc supposed to be open-source-barebones-Tailscale? What are the benefits/drawbacks to a more hosted solution like Tailscale or even running one's own Headscale server?
  - jrm4 1y ago
    Not sure; Tinc existed first. The point of Tinc is basically OpenVPN but automatically meshes and there is no such thing as a "main server?" Just get them all to find any of the others, and everyone's connected.
- gsliepen 1y ago
  Tinc unfortunately has a complete lack of maintainers with enough time to dedicate to it. Tinc 1.1 should make setting up easier; it has a CLI to set up and add nodes without having to manually edit config files. And you can generate invitation URLs which can make it even easier.
- usr1106 1y ago
  I had the impression tinc development had stalled. Would be glad to be corrected.
  - jrm4 1y ago
Gormo 1y ago
There's definitely a lot of muddled up terminology here. What they're calling "mesh networking" here is really just VPN in the conventional sense, and what they're calling "VPN" is only a single feature of VPN, namely securely forwarding traffic through an intermediary server. Mesh networking is something else entirely; the "mesh networking" provider they link to as an alternative option doesn't even have the word "mesh" on their site.
- 0x6c6f6c 1y ago
  I'm not following what you're saying here at all. Meshnet is their peer-to-peer secure networking solution, not their conventional VPN solution. It allowed you to have multiple devices in your account directly communicate with one another, set a device as gateways for routing network traffic of devices connected to Meshnet (basically making your own VPN server), sending files directly between devices, and likely more I'm not aware of. It was essentially their Tailscale / ZeroTier offering, but in the opposite manner to Tailscale which added Mullvad integration to provide a more conventional VPN atop their mesh network. They are removing Meshnet, and the primary capabilities of NordVPN will be their global set of traditional VPN servers. Some of the features like P2P file transmission can be replaced by e.g. NordLocker albeit without P2P if I understand it correctly. But mesh networking is gone in December.
  - Gormo 1y ago
    > Meshnet is their peer-to-peer secure networking solution, not their conventional VPN solution. What you're describing as a "peer-to-peer secure networking solution" -- i.e. tunneling through the public internet securely to join your device to a LAN -- is what "VPN" actually refers to. The "conventional VPN" solution you're referring to is just a secure forwarding proxy, which is only a subset of VPN functionality. > It was essentially their Tailscale / ZeroTier offering, but in the opposite manner to Tailscale which added Mullvad integration to provide a more conventional VPN What Tailscale and Zerotier offer is close to full VPN functionality, whereas Mullvad offers the same limited traffic forwarding service as Nord and also conflates that with VPN generally. A better way of describing this is that Mullvad adds a secure tunneling layer to the conventional VPN managed by TailScale. > atop their mesh network. There are no mesh networks involved in any of this. Mesh networking is a technique where low-level network topology is established via ad hoc handshaking between individual nodes, without central routers. None of these services are even operating at that layer. As I said, all of the terminology in this space is muddled up pretty severely.
mantra2 1y ago
I always thought the feature sounded interesting - but - Nord just isn’t a company that screams trustworthy to me, so I never bothered to try it. I’d definitely never store my passwords with them. I’m surprised that’s not their least used feature.
- bigiain 1y ago
  > Nord just isn’t a company that screams trustworthy to me Same. Blanket advertising on half the YouTube channels I watch tips their reputation very mush towards "meh". I have no clue if they're ny better or worse than the average vpn company, but "the average vpn company" these days seems to be a super low bar - from things I read it seems they're mostly monetising by selling your privacy to data brokers or your internet bandwidth as "residential proxies" to ai copyright thieves.
  - mantra2 1y ago
    Yeah - honestly - if it's not Mullvad or iVPN I'm out.
- throwawaynovpn 1y ago
  [dead]

74 points by eustoria 1y ago

I have to hard agree with a commenter from that article: I had no fucking idea NordVPN even had this feature, and as a fully self-admitted addict of video essays, I have seen a LOT of fucking NordVPN ads. It wouldn't make me buy it, I'm just not in the market, but that's an insane feature to just not advertise. And its not surprising it never got much attention.

gear54rus 1y ago
To block NordVpn ads on youtube, use SponsorBlock extension - a crowdsourced database of malicious video segments.
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago
  I'm aware of it, but two things: - My primary avenue for YouTube vids is Apple TV, which is the ONLY reason I pay for premium - Honestly most of the creators I follow there make their ad reads entertaining enough that I'm not really bothered. I'm just emphasizing here I have heard a shit ton and a half of Nord ads, by a bunch of different creators, and I have NEVER heard of this feature. It's wild to me.

joecool1029 1y ago

Not a subscriber but I read the comments and apparently they offered this service to non-subscribers as well? My guess was it was a nice loss-leader to attract new customers and they've decided they no longer need it (since signups presumably skyrocketing with all the recent law changes). Don't know why they didn't just restrict it to paying subs or charge extra for it instead of getting rid of it, seems a stupid business decision that's going to cause lots of cancellations from subscribers that did use it and saw it as a differentiating feature from the competition. At least when mullvad nuked port forwarding they conveyed their reasoning quite clearly (they kept getting legal claims for people hosting illegal content or torrenting).

righthand 1y ago
Usually this means the product owner is disinterested or leaving the company.

slipheen 1y ago

I did not realize they had ever offered this. I suppose that may be related to why it's shutting down. One potential alternative might be to investigate https://tailscale.com/mullvad https://tailscale.com/mullvad You can use tailscale for normal device->device routing, and add mullvad VPN as an optional outgoing ip gateway.

LeoPanthera 1y ago
I wish Tailscale let you pay for one Mullvad exit node but then switch which device is using it. Right now it's tied to a single device.
- PufPufPuf 1y ago
  They say it's $5 for 5 devices on their page, and that it works as a Tailscale exit node... is that not true?
  - LeoPanthera 1y ago
    Looks like you're right, you can add up to five devices for the same price. You still have to choose those devices in advance though.
    - placatedmayhem 1y ago
      In advance, sort of. The devices can be swapped around at basically any time. There's a little lag for a device to get the config update enabling Mullvad on it IME, usually 30 seconds or so.
Lammy 1y ago
Tailscale spy on all of your traffic/behavior by default, so this isn't a great recommendation to people who used NordVPN for privacy reasons without the disclaimer that they will need to opt out of Tailscale's spying by setting a special environment variable on every single machine in their Tailnet: https://tailscale.com/kb/1011/log-mesh-traffic https://tailscale.com/kb/1011/log-mesh-traffic “Each Tailscale agent in your distributed network streams its logs to a central log server (at `log.tailscale.io`). This includes real-time events for open and close events for every inter-machine connection (TCP or UDP) on your network.”

jesprenj 1y ago

2025: A major VPN company stops offering Virtual Private Networks.

jeffrallen 1y ago
... so they can pivot to AI.
Arnavion 1y ago
They used to correctly call themselves proxies back in the day. They only started calling themselves "VPNs" because "Private Network" makes for good marketing with the "hide your traffic from snoopers" angle, even though it's not the kind of private network a VPN is.

jrm4 1y ago

Once again, I'll both big-up and ask what's up with Tinc. As in, I've been using it for years and still do, it's sort of an integral part of my whole deal, but it also seems kind of unmaintained, I haven't checked on that. And it's not the easiest to set up, but it feels miles ahead of whatever the Wireguard equivalent is or isn't these days.

alyandon 1y ago
I'd really like to see some combination of Tinc that manages the layer 2 mesh routing with wireguard underneath for the point to point tunnels.
arjvik 1y ago
Can I ask, is Tinc supposed to be open-source-barebones-Tailscale? What are the benefits/drawbacks to a more hosted solution like Tailscale or even running one's own Headscale server?
- jrm4 1y ago
  Not sure; Tinc existed first. The point of Tinc is basically OpenVPN but automatically meshes and there is no such thing as a "main server?" Just get them all to find any of the others, and everyone's connected.
gsliepen 1y ago
Tinc unfortunately has a complete lack of maintainers with enough time to dedicate to it. Tinc 1.1 should make setting up easier; it has a CLI to set up and add nodes without having to manually edit config files. And you can generate invitation URLs which can make it even easier.
usr1106 1y ago
I had the impression tinc development had stalled. Would be glad to be corrected.
- jrm4 1y ago

Gormo 1y ago

There's definitely a lot of muddled up terminology here. What they're calling "mesh networking" here is really just VPN in the conventional sense, and what they're calling "VPN" is only a single feature of VPN, namely securely forwarding traffic through an intermediary server. Mesh networking is something else entirely; the "mesh networking" provider they link to as an alternative option doesn't even have the word "mesh" on their site.

0x6c6f6c 1y ago
I'm not following what you're saying here at all. Meshnet is their peer-to-peer secure networking solution, not their conventional VPN solution. It allowed you to have multiple devices in your account directly communicate with one another, set a device as gateways for routing network traffic of devices connected to Meshnet (basically making your own VPN server), sending files directly between devices, and likely more I'm not aware of. It was essentially their Tailscale / ZeroTier offering, but in the opposite manner to Tailscale which added Mullvad integration to provide a more conventional VPN atop their mesh network. They are removing Meshnet, and the primary capabilities of NordVPN will be their global set of traditional VPN servers. Some of the features like P2P file transmission can be replaced by e.g. NordLocker albeit without P2P if I understand it correctly. But mesh networking is gone in December.
- Gormo 1y ago
  > Meshnet is their peer-to-peer secure networking solution, not their conventional VPN solution. What you're describing as a "peer-to-peer secure networking solution" -- i.e. tunneling through the public internet securely to join your device to a LAN -- is what "VPN" actually refers to. The "conventional VPN" solution you're referring to is just a secure forwarding proxy, which is only a subset of VPN functionality. > It was essentially their Tailscale / ZeroTier offering, but in the opposite manner to Tailscale which added Mullvad integration to provide a more conventional VPN What Tailscale and Zerotier offer is close to full VPN functionality, whereas Mullvad offers the same limited traffic forwarding service as Nord and also conflates that with VPN generally. A better way of describing this is that Mullvad adds a secure tunneling layer to the conventional VPN managed by TailScale. > atop their mesh network. There are no mesh networks involved in any of this. Mesh networking is a technique where low-level network topology is established via ad hoc handshaking between individual nodes, without central routers. None of these services are even operating at that layer. As I said, all of the terminology in this space is muddled up pretty severely.

mantra2 1y ago

I always thought the feature sounded interesting - but - Nord just isn’t a company that screams trustworthy to me, so I never bothered to try it. I’d definitely never store my passwords with them. I’m surprised that’s not their least used feature.

bigiain 1y ago
> Nord just isn’t a company that screams trustworthy to me Same. Blanket advertising on half the YouTube channels I watch tips their reputation very mush towards "meh". I have no clue if they're ny better or worse than the average vpn company, but "the average vpn company" these days seems to be a super low bar - from things I read it seems they're mostly monetising by selling your privacy to data brokers or your internet bandwidth as "residential proxies" to ai copyright thieves.
- mantra2 1y ago
  Yeah - honestly - if it's not Mullvad or iVPN I'm out.
throwawaynovpn 1y ago
[dead]