[HN Gopher] Show HN: We built a Rotten Tomatoes-style website fo...
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Show HN: We built a Rotten Tomatoes-style website for VPNs
Author : hubraumhugo
Score : 52 points
Date : 2021-11-24 15:12 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (seekvpn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (seekvpn.com)
| antihero wrote:
| Why should I trust this in any way?
| Thorentis wrote:
| I'll save you, and everybody else, the time, and just say that
| Mullvad is the best VPN currently available, and the day they get
| inevitably bought out will be a sad day. But until then, they
| beat all the competition hands down easily.
| jph wrote:
| Avoid ExpressVPN & NordVPN because of problems with support and
| shady practices. I suggest you delete these two from your list
| and/or show prominent warnings.
|
| I currently use SurfShark which works well for me.
| madjam002 wrote:
| What shady practices do NordVPN engage in?
| addingnumbers wrote:
| March 5, 2018: Hacker gets root access and key material on a
| NordVPN server.
|
| 404 days after hack, NordVPN finally discovers server is
| compromised
|
| 594 days after hack, a twitter user boasts of experiments
| with NordVPN private key material that had "been floating
| around mostly unnoticed"
|
| 595 days after hack: NordVPN finally acknowledges they were
| breached. Apology hammers on two themes, "it's not our fault
| we had no way to restrict access to that server" and "you
| should still trust us because we confirmed this guy didn't do
| many of the awful things we allowed him the capability to do"
|
| That's a whole year of running a compromised server, and 27
| whole weeks of cover-up between discovering the breach and
| getting called out on twitter.
| danlugo92 wrote:
| Reminder that if you only need 1 specific location you need to
| appear in, you can get a VPS for less than a monthly VPN
| subscription.
|
| These VPS, while still distinguishable from normal residential
| connnections, are more likely to pass filters etc, it won't also
| trip up IP-change-detection mechanisms as you'll get an stable IP
| address.
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| VPNs are a mess. It's becoming a very commercial market, and
| companies are bought up by less reputable and bigger ones, making
| it hard to know what to trust.
|
| The biggest pain points when researching a good VPN are:
|
| - Sponsored content / Ads
|
| - Fake reviews
|
| - It takes time
|
| - Inconsistent metrics and info across sites
|
| To make finding a good VPN even easier, we've aggregated over 500
| online reviews, 3k Reddit posts, 4k HackerNews posts, and 400
| Youtube videos.
|
| ## How it works
|
| Using GPT-3 and BERT, we've built a service that collects VPN
| reviews from all over the web, filters and aggregates them, and
| presents the summarized results in a short and understandable
| form.
|
| ## What's next?
|
| We're constantly improving SeekVPN and will soon add new features
| like:
|
| - Building a community for VPN enthusiasts that helps each other
|
| - Running statistical analysis to spot discrepancies and
| contradictions among reviews and filter out fake reviews
|
| - Increase catalog and add more filters
|
| - Improve summaries (pros and cons style)
|
| We eventually plan to do our analysis for other categories of
| SaaS products. It should become the Rotten-Tomatoes for software
| products.
|
| Let us know what you think! What should we add or improve?
| new_guy wrote:
| > Using the newest NLP (GPT-3, BERT) technologies
|
| Maybe remember your audience here and drop marketing bullshit
| like that. If you're using specific techniques, great, tell us.
| But don't use hand wavy marketing buzzwords.
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| Good input, fixed it.
| VHRanger wrote:
| Why would you use NLP to collect reviews that are astroturfed?
| Garbage in, garbage out
|
| Just go wirecutter style and actually research the products a
| minimal amount to give an opinion
| jpdaigle wrote:
| How do you propose someone actually review VPN services? All
| of them work, have many countries available as egress points,
| and are fast enough.
|
| The only actual differentiation is in attributes that are
| impossible to measure from the outside: Do they log accesses?
| Make logs available to governments? Sell it to data brokers
| for advertising purposes?
|
| That's pretty much the only difference between good and bad
| providers, and there's no way to tell, so in-depth reviews
| are an impossible task.
| SahAssar wrote:
| One could include honesty in marketing, that seems like a
| pretty clear thing that this industry would need and that
| few providers actually do.
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| Wirecutter is a great resource, and we'll soon include their
| lists for our analysis. But most people visit 5 different
| websites and spend many hours doing research before they buy
| a product. Our goal is to build a service that gives you a
| holistic view about what the internet thinks of products.
| dymk wrote:
| Again, garbage in, garbage out - how is rampant
| astroturfing and review fraud taken into account?
|
| Edit: the site highly ranks the ones I see pushed on
| YouTube, so I'm guessing this is just "how often is this
| vendor referenced" and not "how quality is the vendor".
| Guest19023892 wrote:
| Agreed, aggregated reviews are not helpful when you can't
| trust the source. For example, I just looked at the
| NordVPN page and all three of the highlighted YouTube
| reviews are pushing the NordVPN affiliate link in their
| description. Can I really trust these YouTube reviews
| when the creators are getting paid for each referral?
|
| The way I see this going is that a bunch of people are
| writing VPN reviews because these companies pay high
| commissions. This site is going to aggregate these
| untrustworthy reviews, and also try to earn a commission
| in the future. As the end user, I don't see the value
| here, because I don't trust anyone in the process.
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| Fake reviews are certainly a big challenge, even for
| companies like fakespot that try to detect them.
|
| What we plan to do:
|
| - Running statistical analysis to spot discrepancies and
| contradictions
|
| - Weight reviews based on the trustworthiness of their
| sources. E.g. Reddit, HN or Wirecutter are known to be
| very trustworthy sources.
| lifeisgood99 wrote:
| Disagree that specific forums are more trustworthy than
| others. To me, a trustworthy source is a known entity
| that tests themselves and keep a track record of accurate
| reviews. For specific forums, keeping track of users that
| post honest reviews would be a good way to start.
| dymk wrote:
| How do you figure either HN or Reddit (anonymous,
| unverified accounts) are trustworthy when there's money
| to be made by astroturfing? The incentives are stacked
| against you.
| krageon wrote:
| > Fake reviews are certainly a big challenge, even for
| companies like fakespot that try to detect them.
|
| Not that big: If you cut away all 5 and 1 star reviews
| you'll have stripped roughly 99% of astroturfing (for and
| against a company).
| LarryDarrell wrote:
| I thought the general consensus was that the only VPN worth a
| damn was Mullvad?
|
| I'm not interested in a review aggregator. Individual reviews are
| the problem in the first place. What I want is someone to have a
| set of criteria and then rate the services individually based on
| that criteria.
|
| Also, your family of review sites are for VPNs, backpacks and
| knives. This sounds like a writing prompt.
| jamescun wrote:
| What you'll find difficult is establishing trust.
|
| I have no reason to believe your review site is a shill for
| another company, but I have no reason not to believe that either.
| It was recently revealed that Kape Technologies, a former malware
| distributor and now owner of PrivateInternetAccess and
| ExpressVPN, are doing this.
|
| The first step would be clearly identifying ownership and
| benefactors.
| junon wrote:
| Youtubers are still promoting ExpressVPN, unfortunately.
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| I fully agree; we need to be more transparent about our
| process, intentions, and ownership. We'll work on that.
|
| Here is a good Reddit post about the fake reviews from Kape
| Technologies:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/VPNTorrents/comments/r160ll/spottin...
| LarryDarrell wrote:
| And yet ExpressVPN is rated 5th on your site. A reputable
| review site would have ExpressVPN and NordVPN rated 0.0, or
| even not rated at all and shoved into a separate section,
| "VPNs to Avoid."
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| We're working on improving the site and the data quality.
| Keep in mind that it's still an MVP.
| LarryDarrell wrote:
| ...but you are a review site... The data quality is your
| MVP.
| pydry wrote:
| It's curious that your #1 listed VPN NordVPN has a pretty
| tasty affiliate program but I can't see Mullvad (no affiliate
| program) on your front page at _all_ in spite of it being
| most peoples ' favorite ;-)
|
| I tried to start a site similar to this one in the past. I
| gave up in the end because honesty and $$$ just wouldn't mix.
| No matter how hard I tried I couldn't square this circle.
| Economically I think it doesn't even work on a theoretical
| basis. The mullvad of most industries just wouldn't _have_
| affiliate programs whereas the scummy companies would have
| the _best_ affiliate programs.
| jxcole wrote:
| Maybe it's a recent change, but I typed in mullvad and got
| this:
|
| https://seekvpn.com/review/mullvad-vpn?keyword=mullvad
|
| It has a fairly high rating overall.
| butz wrote:
| Needs DIY VPN option, being on HN and all.
| metaloha wrote:
| I notice that page 3 of 4 doesn't have a Next button to go to the
| next page - that seems wrong. In fact, the second-last page (even
| in a search result) doesn't have a Back button, but the last page
| does have a Previous button. Classic off-by-one error it looks
| like :)
| jrockway wrote:
| I get the impression that VPNs massively overcharge for what they
| are; every YouTube video that is even moderately mainstream is
| sponsored by some sort of VPN provider. Is the idea behind
| choosing this industry in particular to charge a referral and
| suck away some of their sweet, sweet profit for yourself? Seems
| like a good idea.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Just one data point, but the "No, I'm not interested in joining a
| fun community or a chance to win an awesome VPN" text on the
| solicitation for my email after ~20 seconds on the site was
| enough to get me to leave. I am currently unhappy with my VPN and
| shopping for a new one when my annual subscription ends early
| next month.
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| You're right, the popup feels quite annoying when first
| visiting the page. We removed it.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Awesome, thanks!
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I cannot recommend Mullvad enough. From past posts on this
| website, I think many here will agree.
| mdni007 wrote:
| Thanks all. I have cancelled my NordVPN subscription. I was not
| aware of all the shady stuff they were doing behind the scenes.
| tptacek wrote:
| Rotten Tomatoes works because (1) its audience generally trusts
| some (maybe even most) of the reviewers, and (2) some movies are
| good. I don't see how Rotten Tomatoes for VPNs can work.
| Lifelarper wrote:
| What rotten tomatoes considers the "best films of all time" is
| laughable across the spectrum.
|
| Some gems from the top 10:
|
| 4. Black Panther
|
| 6. Parasite
|
| 7. Avengers: Endgame
|
| 9. Knives Out
|
| 10. Us
|
| Its surely just coincidence that the half of the best films
| ever made in human history were produced in the last 5 years.
|
| https://www.rottentomatoes.com/top/bestofrt/
| addingnumbers wrote:
| They're doing something fishy with that "sorted by adjusted
| score."
|
| If it sorted by tomato-meter value instead, the esteemed
| classics would rise to the top, and the entries you took
| issue with wouldn't even crack the top 50.
|
| Whatever "adjustment" they are doing seems to strongly favor
| recency.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Wow... the immediate email nag is pretty catastrophically bad
| already, but then your "top" VPNs are... Nord? ProtonVPN? I'm not
| here to point fingers or assign blame, but I've gone through a
| fair handful of VPNs and I can tell you firsthand that those are
| _faaaaaar_ from the best options, especially if you 're trying to
| get the most out of your service. Mullvad and Azire are head-and-
| shoulders above anything I see on the top. Kinda disappointed.
|
| Edit: Also, your "about" page is surprisingly non-informative.
| noxer wrote:
| Obligatory vpn.md
| https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29
| bitwize wrote:
| Are you going to disable or reweight user scores when they dunk
| on a VPN you're in a strategic partnership with, in the name of
| "preventing review bombing by white supremacist alt-right
| trolls"? Because that'd be necessary in order to achieve feature
| parity with RT...
| devmor wrote:
| The fact that NordVPN is somehow #1 immediately discounts
| whatever algorithm you've designed for this.
|
| Under no circumstances would I ever consider a VPN that's been
| breached even once as a #1 choice.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| No you built an affiliate links site where you say they are all
| "great".
| soared wrote:
| Is there any info on parent companies? I don't know much about
| VPNs but I thought ownership was conentrated into just a few
| firms, and that some of them are owned by chinese companies -
| both of which could be useful information when making a decision.
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| You can find information about the ownership in the
| "Transparency: Ownership" section when expanding the specs on a
| specific provider.
| latexr wrote:
| Haven't been on the website for one minute and you already shoved
| a popup in my face asking for my email. The options are "submit"
| or "No, I'm not interested in joining a fun community or a chance
| to win an awesome VPN".
|
| If you're going to be as annoying and manipulative as every other
| scammy website out there, why should we trust you? My reaction
| was to close the page. Considering you're posting this to HN, I
| doubt I'm in the minority.
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| We removed the popup and we'll add some more information to the
| about section to make us more transparent and trustworthy.
| criddell wrote:
| Do you earn affiliate fees if I sign up for something after being
| referred by your site? If so, I won't trust it.
| lifeisgood99 wrote:
| How do I pick a VPN from this website? Let's say I go with the #1
| Trending VPN, it scores very well, but the Reddit threads are
| negative. The "Reviews by Topic" are then suspiciously almost all
| positive. Do you audit the reviews?
| hubraumhugo wrote:
| To make it easier for people to pick a VPN, we plan to add
| lists for Top X vpns for absolute security, top ones for
| privacy, top ones for reliability.
|
| About the reviews:
|
| We collect the reviews per topic by doing a web search.
| Unfortunately, many VPN reviews are bought and paid for, so we
| need to improve the collection, filtering, and ranking of the
| reviews. We did this for other products, but VPNs seem to be a
| very tricky category.
| 0xy wrote:
| The #1 result NordVPN had servers hacked to root and then
| attempted to covered up the huge security breach rather than
| disclose it. [1] Not to mention their concealed relationship with
| Tesonet, a shadowy data mining company. On top of that, key
| personnel of Tesonet (including the CEO) are stationed in
| Lithuania, which has a "cozy" relationship with the CIA, which
| extends as far as knowingly hosting rendition sites there.
|
| Isn't this an immediate disqualification of the site's
| methodology?
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NordVPN#Criticism
| sam_goody wrote:
| Well, the site has caused some really insightful comments from
| knowledgeable people, which will definitely helpme choose a
| VPN.
|
| So in that sense, the site has already succeeded.
|
| All they need to do now is prettify this HN thread and replace
| the current garbage with it. ;)
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