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Not do downplay this issue, but wouldn't one simply assume it works this way. I mean, how else would it work, Hola operating their own proxies and giving all o

Not do downplay this issue, but wouldn't one simply assume it works this way. I mean, how else would it work, Hola operating their own proxies and giving all of that infrastructure and bandwidth away for free? Of course it would be P2P and would turn the user into a supplier of data and bandwidth to others. This basic model has been in use for "illegal" content for well over a decade now. Now how they exploit that bandwidth is a different matter. Conflating those two is what will give you the "meh" reaction. Also, "accusing" Hola of being unethical because it has no recognizable signature is another red herring. Of course it hasn't, otherwise it would get blocked by the geotarded services it is supposed to unblock. It's not an evil feature in itself. The Luminati exploitation angle is the issue. Everything else about Hola is either transparant or at least pretty damn obvious.

logn 11y ago
I agree with most of what you said. When you're downloading proxy/vpn software like this, it's either P2P (and you're sharing your own resources) or it's centralized. They could make this clearer in the blurb to download the software, but they don't hide this fact and in fact make it clear from their FAQs and pricing pages. But the Luminati angle is nothing different. It would make abusing the proxy network easier (from a technical perspective) but it's nothing you couldn't do with Hola alone. Luminati is just API access to Hola along with expensive pricing and a screening interview with sales staff. You could hack your own API out of only Hola if you really wanted. The real story is that last time I checked, all their US exit nodes come from Digital Ocean, which is hardly worth $20/GB (should be more like $5/TB). I guess they don't have a lot of US users.
__Joker 11y ago
Agree that free proxies aren't free. But how many people would know about proxies. For most of the people if a content is country blocked, a google search and first or second link click solution will end up with hola installed, no more question asked. I think we should do better than "Don't use if you don't know" argument.

logn 11y ago

I agree with most of what you said. When you're downloading proxy/vpn software like this, it's either P2P (and you're sharing your own resources) or it's centralized. They could make this clearer in the blurb to download the software, but they don't hide this fact and in fact make it clear from their FAQs and pricing pages. But the Luminati angle is nothing different. It would make abusing the proxy network easier (from a technical perspective) but it's nothing you couldn't do with Hola alone. Luminati is just API access to Hola along with expensive pricing and a screening interview with sales staff. You could hack your own API out of only Hola if you really wanted. The real story is that last time I checked, all their US exit nodes come from Digital Ocean, which is hardly worth $20/GB (should be more like $5/TB). I guess they don't have a lot of US users.

__Joker 11y ago

Agree that free proxies aren't free. But how many people would know about proxies. For most of the people if a content is country blocked, a google search and first or second link click solution will end up with hola installed, no more question asked. I think we should do better than "Don't use if you don't know" argument.