[HN Gopher] Show HN: Serverless VPN, pay as you go, unlimited de...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: Serverless VPN, pay as you go, unlimited devices, no
subscriptions
Author : gigapotential
Score : 94 points
Date : 2023-06-28 18:43 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (upvpn.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (upvpn.app)
| lost_tourist wrote:
| How can I pay with this with cash via snail mail?
| lxgr wrote:
| > Serverless! How? [...] We provision a VPN server on-demand when
| you connect.
|
| You keep using that word...
| gigapotential wrote:
| I agree its a misnomer, however appropriate to technically
| describe whats happening in one word.
|
| Its a computing model people recognize ..
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serverless_computing
| GordonS wrote:
| But wouldn't this be more appropriately termed IaaS
| (infrastructure as a service) than serverless?
| koito17 wrote:
| ...or "on-demand VPN server" in the case of UpVPN. But none
| of these alternative names market as well as "Severless",
| so we're stuck with "Serverless" whether we like it or not.
| lxgr wrote:
| It's just a consumer VPN service... as a service!
|
| Nobody calls Netflix a "serverless VOD platform" either, or
| Verizon a "serverless wireless carrier".
| slim wrote:
| why is it important to me as a user, that you provision
| servers on demand ?
| lxgr wrote:
| But is it even appropriate in this context?
|
| To me, "serverless" means "you'd normally be setting up a
| server yourself in some way (whether low-level and manually,
| or via a standardized VM or container image orchestration
| solution), but here you don't have to".
|
| As a VPN user (of this type of VPN in any case; corporate
| VPNs are a different beast), I've never had to set up a
| server myself - I'm paying to use somebody else's server!
|
| In other words, we also don't call Gmail "serverless".
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Is it worth dying on the "machine isn't the server, it is the
| application that serves" hill or has that shipped sailed in the
| 90s?
|
| More seriously, serverless has come to really mean "almost
| fully outsourced ops". If all you need to do is check logs and
| your bill, but you can still run arbitrary code, then it is
| serverless.
| hackan wrote:
| Pretty neat idea, but it leaks DNS requests unfortunately: see
| point 5 "When We Share Information" in [privacy
| policy](https://upvpn.app/privacy-policy/).
|
| If they used some sort of disposable or "trustable" DNS server,
| it would be awesome!
| gigapotential wrote:
| If you use the UpVPN app it configures DNS=1.1.1.1 and not
| configurable yet.
|
| However, when you use Web Devices, a configuration file or QR
| code is generated with DNS=1.1.1.1 but you can change it before
| using.
| crisopolis wrote:
| Interesting, if they were going to provision a disposable vpn,
| couldn't they have done the same with the DNS.
| danpalmer wrote:
| I feel like this needs a pricing calculator. 3 different pricing
| axes makes it really hard to know how much you'll use.
|
| Perhaps you could present some common use-cases with example
| prices?
|
| If you're avoiding doing that because it should show the pricing
| to be too high, then perhaps that's something that needs to be
| worked on. In general pay-as-you-go pricing should be lower for
| the same outcome than the all-you-can-eat version of the same
| thing, because you should be able to not pay for the downtime.
| gigapotential wrote:
| Thank you for constructive feedback, pricing calculator is a
| good idea.
|
| As of now, The pricing section on FAQ page provides examples of
| pricing https://upvpn.app/faq/#pricing
|
| Moreover, If you like to see it visually the first picture of
| dashboard on landing page https://upvpn.app showcase real usage
| and real charges.
|
| I provided addition info on pricing model here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36512794
| convalescindrey wrote:
| > In general pay-as-you-go pricing should be lower for the same
| outcome than the all-you-can-eat version of the same thing,
| because you should be able to not pay for the downtime.
|
| Could you clarify why this should be true? In the long run,
| given the costs are the same, then the income of the company
| also needs to be the same. This means that on average you'd pay
| the same. Some power-users would pay more with pay-as-you-go,
| some rarely-users would pay less, since they are cross-
| subsidizing the power-users in subscription models.
|
| I can imagine some dynamics caused by power-users avoiding pay-
| as-you-go plans, so subscription plans see different usage
| patterns. But it's not at all obvious to me why this should be
| cheaper. On the contrary, all those on-demand resources need to
| exist and there needs to be infra for spin up/down etc, so I'd
| actually expect higher pricing.
| danpalmer wrote:
| From the customer perspective there needs to be an advantage
| to paying by usage. The reason PAYG phone plans exist is to
| appeal to those who don't need or want everything a monthly
| contract provides, particularly for budget conscious users.
|
| Contracts/bundles/etc appear to charge less because they
| bundle together things on the assumption that consumption
| will follow a predictable distribution, however they are
| actually a mechanism for _raising_ average selling price by
| giving people more than they need /want/use and charging them
| more for it.
|
| They build in a margin on top of the average, or somewhere
| above it on that curve. This means the average user is likely
| paying more than for their share of usage. Sure, from the
| company's perspective they have to keep the resources around,
| but that's a scaling and cost-base issue for the company, not
| the concern of the user, and if the company scales well it
| shouldn't be much of an issue.
|
| Ultimately with this service, the competition is $5/m for
| effectively unlimited usage. If this service costs the
| average user $10/m, then only a small fraction at the bottom
| end of the usage distribution are going to make a saving, and
| find it a compelling offering, all things being equal in
| terms of product quality etc.
|
| This doesn't apply to everything of course, different
| industries, product categories, etc, are priced in different
| ways and have different customer expectations, but it's
| common and I think it applies here.
| heipei wrote:
| The fact that they have "Falkenstein" as one of the German
| locations already tells me they're gonna be using Hetzner VPS to
| provision the VM :P
| jrhizor wrote:
| seems very expensive
| huhtenberg wrote:
| This sure reads like a botnet being resold as a VPN service.
|
| In other words, the pitch is suspiciously light on details that
| actually matter to back their "serverless" claim. The only
| technical way to parse "serverless" is that their exit nodes are
| spread over end-user devices. So how did they end up there?
| rvwaveren wrote:
| I think a lot of people are getting tired of subscriptions
| everywhere. For the average user, it's not possible to spin up a
| VPN because of lack of technical knowledge. So, if you are an
| infrequent VPN user and hate subscriptions, this could be a nice
| service.
| gigapotential wrote:
| I get your "tired of subscription" sentiment, it resonates with
| lot of us for certain products.
|
| Even if someone can spin up VPN server, UpVPN makes it much
| much quicker and hassle free to do it with one click or one cli
| command.
| caust1c wrote:
| This couldn't at all be related to the submission 34 days ago
| talking about building a VPN on Fly.io with Tailscale (or even
| Headscale) could it?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36064305
|
| My take is it's either a very quick copy, or the feds. Perhaps
| both.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Not everything is connected to HN's sychophantically favorite
| buzzwords.
| caust1c wrote:
| Just saying it happens to have come out of nowhere and their
| locations are suspiciously similar to Fly's regions.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| You'd have to try the service and test the IP addresses to
| be sure, but yeah maybe it's running on Fly. Or any other
| cloud network(s) with servers in those locations, which
| could be any (or multiple) of them - it's a fairly common
| set of regions.
|
| The reason most cloud providers have overlapping datacenter
| locations is generally explainable by the fact that they
| all rent space in the same physical buildings (e.g. an
| Equinix datacenter), where they peer with each other and
| classify the building as an "internet exchange point"
| (IXP). These buildings tend to congregate near each other
| for historical or geographical reasons, like proximity to
| the landing terminal of an undersea cable, or inheriting a
| building from the old DARPA network.
|
| It's actually quite annoying how clouds will label their
| region e.g. "gcp-eu-1," but it's actually just a reference
| to some rack space that Google rents in the same London
| Equinix datacenter as AWS and Azure.
| KomoD wrote:
| Bingo, the website and api itself is hosted on Fly.io at
| least. ~ ipinfo upvpn.app
|
| - IP 213.188.207.130
|
| - Anycast true
|
| - City Chicago
|
| - Region Illinois
|
| - Country United States (US)
|
| - Currency USD ($)
|
| - Location 41.8500,-87.6500
|
| - Organization AS40509 Fly.io, Inc.
|
| - Postal 60666
|
| - Timezone America/Chicago
| caust1c wrote:
| Even juicier: 15:21:52 $ curl
| https://upvpn.app/install.sh #!/bin/sh #
| Based on Tailscale: Copyright (c) 2021 Tailscale Inc &
| AUTHORS All rights reserved. # Use of this source
| code is governed by a BSD-style # license that
| can be found in the LICENSE file. # #
| This script detects the current operating system, and
| installs # upvpn on supported OS.
|
| To be clear, I don't mean to disparage upvpn, in fact I'm
| impressed they pulled it together so quickly.
|
| Just feels crazy to read about it a month ago and see it
| today, you know?
| gigapotential wrote:
| Their installation script is open source and is
| acknowledged as such.
|
| upvpn is not related to them.
| gigapotential wrote:
| None of it is related to the link above.
|
| I love Fly.io - they a building a great product.
|
| The website https://upvpn.app is hosted on Fly.io as identified
| in the comments below. VPN servers are not hosted on Fly.io
| dns_snek wrote:
| Who is this for, exactly? The only way this makes sense, in my
| eyes, is if you're:
|
| 1. Someone who uses VPN very infrequently, likely a couple of
| times per year while using less than 500GB of traffic, and
|
| 2. Someone who _doesn 't_ use a VPN to bypass georestrictions,
| excluding most travelers, and
|
| 3. Someone who doesn't mind being classified as a bot
|
| That must be an extremely tiny group of people, right?
|
| Pricing is outrageous for daily VPN users, while your use of
| datacenter IPs means it's going to be almost useless for evading
| georestrictions.
|
| Besides, I'm struggling to wrap my head around the concept of a
| "serverless VPNs". If you're actually spinning up a VPS for each
| customer then that seems like a very wasteful use of resources
| for no reason.
| cpursley wrote:
| If you translate this site & product into Russian, Farsi and
| Chinese and accept crypto, you're going to a make a lot of money.
| Those countries activity block the well known commercial VPNs and
| I'm sure others.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| For streaming that doesn't get detected as being via a VPN the
| only successful way i've found is to use a custom VPN server on
| an IP no service knows as a known VPN.
|
| My home country has TV networks that refuse to work on any of the
| known VPN providers. They've actually gone to the trouble of IP
| blocking known exits and the VPNs don't seem to change that often
| enough.
|
| I know enough to buy a lowendbox and set it up as a VPN and use
| that and it works (provided the host is oddball enough not to be
| a known datacenter based IP). But i wonder if the above would
| work better than the more regular VPN providers.
| hnav wrote:
| Once the OP has ramped up their business, they can have a
| discounted P2P offering where you use each other as exit nodes.
| r_lee wrote:
| This is what the "residential proxies" do. They push out a
| free VPN or buy out a game in the play/app store and
| integrate their p2p network on it, so that other people can
| then use your device as a proxy.
|
| Never ever would you want to pay to do that to yourself lol.
| hk__2 wrote:
| That's a very dangerous feature: what will happen when
| someone watch pedoporn using you as an exit node?
| lionkor wrote:
| I've always wondered, is there no burden of proof on the
| prosecution to prove it was you, especially with a p2p VPN
| installed?
| belval wrote:
| In a perfect world for sure, but in practice if there is
| any rumor that something as socially toxic as that went
| through your network, ultimately your reputation is
| ruined regardless of the legal outcome.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Not to mention your bank account being ruined by defense
| attorneys.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| As long as p2p exit nodes are relatively uncommon, it
| will be relatively unbelievable for you to claim that
| "someone else" was doing the illegal things on your
| network.
|
| But if p2p exit nodes were orders of magnitude more
| common, then the burden of proof would indisputably be
| the responsibility of the prosecutors, since anyone could
| credibly claim "someone else did it."
|
| And that's why this trope of "but what if someone does
| bad stuff on your network?!" is so frustratingly self-
| defeating: if everyone just ignored that risk, then
| everyone could have a p2p exit node, and the risk would
| be mitigated. It's a sort of prisoner's dilemma where
| nobody wants to be the early adopter of a system that
| would, on the whole, benefit all of us.
|
| A society is difficult to surveil when everyone uses Tor
| as both a client and an exit node, and onion routing is
| the default method of exchanging packets (some might say
| it should have been incorporated into the original design
| of the internet). So it's perhaps worth noting that
| adversaries of society, such as the NSA or FBI, have a
| great incentive to perpetuate fearmongering about p2p
| networks and the threat of "but whatabout muh criminals
| on muh network!"
|
| If you're reading this, maybe it's time to setup a Tor
| relay (with config flag `ExitRelay 1`).
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| > But if p2p exit nodes were orders of magnitude more
| common, then the burden of proof would indisputably be
| the responsibility of the prosecutors, since anyone could
| credibly claim "someone else did it."
|
| I think I'm more cynical about our justice system, but
| the way I see it, this just gives them ammunition to go
| after anybody on a whim. Simply getting tangled up in the
| justice system, even if innocent, is an expensive and
| stressful thing. Most of us do not have the resources to
| just have a dedicated team of lawyers taking care of
| everything. So if everyone was running a Tor exit node,
| and it was known that there was CSAM accessed through
| some of them, an overzealous prosecutor could probably
| push through at least a search warrant of your computers
| because as a Tor exit node runner, there's a reasonable
| chance that CSAM was accessed via your node. You're not
| getting your stuff back for a while if that happens.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| I agree, but that's why I labeled it a prisoner's
| dilemma. If _literally everyone_ ran an exit node, then
| if prosecutors wanted to assume that any exit node
| facilitated the transfer of illegal material, then they
| would need to find other ways of proving criminality
| other than what packets were sent from your IP address.
| They can 't seize everyone's hardware. If they wanted to
| obtain a warrant for you, they'd need more probable cause
| than "he's running an exit node" (because everyone runs
| an exit node).
|
| As it stands, there's already a certain level of
| injustice, because corporations like Google and Microsoft
| facilitate all sorts of illegal communications, and the
| worst that happens is they get a letter from the feds
| asking them nicely for their subscriber's information.
| The investigators don't jump to the conclusion that the
| CEO of Google is a child predator and seize all the
| Google servers. But for an independent system admin on a
| home network, that's exactly what they do, even though
| there's no fundamental difference other than the size of
| the operation (and the implicit assumption that exit
| relays are unusual, which is the unfair assumption I'm
| trying to draw attention to as an explanation for lack of
| plausible deniability on the part of the idealistic
| sysadmin in a world where exit nodes are unusual).
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| > If literally everyone ran an exit node
|
| This is impossible in practice though, so while an
| interesting thought experiment, it has little bearing on
| reality. Your local court isn't going to be running a Tor
| exit node on their systems. Your friendly nearby S&P500
| corp isn't going to be running Tor exit nodes on their
| systems. Your local public library probably won't either.
|
| > They can't seize everyone's hardware.
|
| With your thought experiment, yes, but in practice that's
| not going to be the case. You're more likely to end up
| with very selective enforcement instead -- if you run a
| Tor exit node, the justice system can effectively
| blackmail you because at the very least they can cause
| you a very expensive headache. "Shame if we had to get a
| search warrant to make sure it wasn't you downloading
| some CSAM"
| midasuni wrote:
| Legality aside maybe I simply don't want people using my
| computer to share images of children
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Would you want to provide infrastructure for Russian and
| Chinese citizens to access the parts of the internet that
| are censored by their autocratic regimes? What if the
| only way to do that also requires incurring a risk that a
| child predator might use your computer too?
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| It would be a pyrrhic victory for you even if you prove
| it wasn't you that was downloading it. Your name is going
| to be in court documents associated with prosecution over
| csam or other illegal materials. This information will be
| easily found. If you're the first case of it's kind, you
| will also have to deal with whatever tales the media
| spins about this. If you're somewhere like Florida, you
| might end up with your photo next to a label of
| 'pedophile' being plastered publicly.
|
| A lot of people will simply see the headline, assume
| you're guilty and treat you as such. And a lot of people
| are willing to treat those they think are pedophiles very
| very badly (there was a case recently where a murderer
| serving life in jail killed his pedophile cellmate)
| Anyone that knows about this incident will probably never
| allow you to be around kids unattended, regardless of
| your innocence. You will be a social pariah.
|
| Innocent until proven guilty had to be enshrined in law
| because most people will treat you guilty until proven
| innocent, and they don't have much concern about
| forgetting the 'proven innocent' bit.
| thefounder wrote:
| So I guess it's time to disconnect from the internet, at
| least your PC b/c you can't be certain it's not used as a
| vpn/proxy service through an exploit or rough app.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| No need to even be in jail for that to happen: https://ww
| w.dailymail.co.uk/news/melbourne/article-12217413/...
| Syonyk wrote:
| If you want the "full experience," just set yourself up
| as a Tor exit node. You'll rapidly find it's impossible
| to use the internet from the same connection. VPN
| services are more and more falling into the same
| category. Even just "cloud provider" IP ranges are broken
| often enough to be noticeable - I run an Outline VPN on
| DigitalOcean droplets every now and then, and I've found
| that that's enough to get me 403'd from a lot of sites.
|
| "Arrest first, deal with nerds protesting their innocence
| later" still involves getting arrested.
| spurgu wrote:
| Would you want to turn over your computer to a forensics
| expert to prove your innocence?
|
| I would hope that authorities at least would _try_ to
| build an actual case against you and not just raid your
| home because of some fraudulent traffic from your IP. I
| might be too optimistic in that regard.
| lionkor wrote:
| That is NOT how burden of proof works
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I can vouch for suspected fraudulent traffic being enough
| for authorities to warrant a raid.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| I'm guessing you can't elaborate lol
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I'd like to write up the details sooner rather than
| later, and I've got pages of notes I've written, but
|
| 1: it makes me angry to think about it
|
| 2: I have other, positive things I'd rather do
|
| It took them 8 months to return the ~$10k of gear they
| "stole" from me, and they found nothing.
|
| No apology, no explanation of how I was somehow caught up
| in their data, just "come collect your stuff".
|
| Ironically, they traumatized my kids (I don't think they
| even did any background checks on me - I don't believe
| they even knew there were kids in the house before they
| barged in).
|
| Luckily my kids are resilient and we can sometimes even
| joke (bitterly) about it.
| spurgu wrote:
| Oh man, that sounds horrible. Was this in the US?
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Australia, so at least we didn't get guns shoved in our
| faces.
|
| I should also make the point that, with one exception,
| the officers conducting the raid were polite.
| orangea wrote:
| I have no idea but maybe it would count as aiding and
| abetting.
| lionkor wrote:
| That's a really good point. It could be claimed that you
| must have known of the possibility and that you support
| it, etc
| pinkcan wrote:
| suggest the use of the term Child Sexual Abuse Media - CSAM
| as it better describes the content and reflects the harm it
| causes
| codedokode wrote:
| If "children" make such media themselves, is it still
| considered an "abuse"?
| [deleted]
| geraldyo wrote:
| Amongst "children", no. If for an adult, yes...
| john_minsk wrote:
| Just a suggestion: drop these providers
| beardog wrote:
| >We provision a VPN server on-demand when you connect. >We
| deprovision it when you disconnect.
|
| Do you still share an IP address with the other users? One of the
| main ways a VPN grants privacy is because everyone shares a
| handful of IPs. There is still demand for dedicated IPs though,
| because they trigger blocking less.
|
| I have a need for a good "residential"/"mobile" proxy/VPN
| service, but I have yet to see a company that I was confident
| that they were ethically sourcing the servers.
| KomoD wrote:
| > I have a need for a good "residential"/"mobile" proxy/VPN
| service, but I have yet to see a company that I was confident
| that they were ethically sourcing the servers.
|
| If your willing to manage/self-host it yourself, some ISPs do
| provide hosting as well, my old ISP provides a VPS at ~$10/mo
| with a completely clean IP identical to their broadband
| customers.
| greygh0st wrote:
| Hey KomoD. I'm with Proxywow. We have our own leased circuits
| and do not sell third party proxies. Happy to set you up with
| a test account.
|
| How many proxies do you need? What GEO's? What pricing model
| are you currently paying? What software will you be using?
| Lastly - what do you plan on using proxies for? What's the
| most convenient way to stay in contact? Email, WhatsApp, TG,
| Skype? Thanks
| KomoD wrote:
| Minimum charge, billed by hour and bandwidth, no mention of what
| provider the ips belong to, no bueno for me.
|
| I'd rather just use Mullvad for EUR5/mo.
|
| 12 hours of average usage for me would cost $4
|
| Also: you say "when you end your VPN session, we promptly delete
| the record from our database that links your session to the
| specific cloud server", does it also get deleted from the
| database backups? (assuming you do any)
| stainablesteel wrote:
| so now the log policy is up to whoever owns whatever server they
| use?
| shortcake27 wrote:
| This is unrelated to the product, but I'm on mobile and I can see
| your website is using a full-height scrollable container instead
| of allowing the document to scroll naturally. This causes buggy
| scrolling and prevents default browser behaviour - the address
| bar doesn't collapse and tapping the top of the screen doesn't
| scroll to the top of the document.
| jandrese wrote:
| $10/month is already double what most unlimited VPN providers
| charge, and then you're putting bandwidth and time costs on top
| of that? Even worse, for the ultra-premium price you are
| getting...an AWS IP address. So enjoy your CAPCHAs and service
| denials from bot detectors.
| avarun wrote:
| It doesn't seem to be per-month. It's just $10 to open an
| account.
| gigapotential wrote:
| Opening account is free. There is no per-month cost.
|
| $10 is a prepaid balance you start with (which never expires)
| and consume by using UpVPN. One you run out of balance say
| few months down the line - you purchase again.
| jandrese wrote:
| It is very confusing on the website.
| gigapotential wrote:
| Thank you for your feedback, making a note to improve it.
| KomoD wrote:
| Trying to open an account sent me to a stripe invoice.
| [deleted]
| cpursley wrote:
| Just signed up after spending all day messing with self-hosted
| Algo & OpenVPN. A real shut up and take my money moment.
|
| Very slow and actually quite expensive. However, works well with
| Wireguard app on iOS!
| gigapotential wrote:
| Thank you for your feedback.
|
| Your comment beautifully describes why upvpn exists: It saves
| you time and makes it hassle free if you're setting up VPN
| servers.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Just write simple script. Why this service is needed.
| Provisioning VPN server is not a rocket science.
| notavalleyman wrote:
| I really thought this was a reference to the dropbox showhn -
| "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
| anaganisk wrote:
| But in this case it actually is a onliner to spin up a VPN
| and the relevant mobile/PC client apps are already there. One
| click deploy scripts are available for digital ocean, AWS,
| GCP, Azure etc. This OG Dropbox comment was too snarky, for a
| genuine use case, the solutions in those comments were
| actually complicated than using Dropbox, while spinning up
| your own VPN is actually safer and better wrt streaming
| services etc, not easy but serves the purpose in a safer and
| better way.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| There are plenty of VPN users "intersect" never used the
| command line.
|
| And maybe a smaller set like me who are geeks but prefer
| not to manage their own server even from a script. As if
| using such a script means no problems and you wont be
| googling for why x y or z isn't working.
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| Mad haxorz skill?!?! I'm leet!
| hfkwer wrote:
| The ip space is what's valuable about a vpn service.
| [deleted]
| cpursley wrote:
| Yeah, soooo simple. I've spent the entire day trying to figure
| out how to run Algo and OpenVPN on DigitalOcean. With zero luck
|
| Some of just don't like screwing with servers and are willing
| to pay a premium for that. I absolutly loathe managing servers.
| mirchiseth wrote:
| I used to do Algo with a VM on GCP. But fly.io and tailscale
| has made this really simple. Try this if you are looking for
| an easier alternative https://github.com/patte/fly-tailscale-
| exit
| cpursley wrote:
| Thanks, can I use this like a regular personal VPN - hook
| up my phones, machines and route through it?
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| Kind of interesting idea, but looking at the per gb price, not
| really sure who this is targeting. 100gb is $4, which is at or
| more than the monthly price of many vpn companies. So downloading
| is out of the question, leaving only just web browsing really.
|
| Honestly I feel vpns are just kind of like gym memberships, it's
| not expected for everyone who gets one to use it every day, even
| though they could.
| gigapotential wrote:
| I like your analogy of gym membership to other VPN providers!
|
| If I may use analogy to describe UpVPN - its like buying Milk -
| you pay upfront you bring it home consume it and go to grocery
| store and buy more.
|
| UpVPN is an option in spectrum of VPN providers. Only you can
| determine based on your usage if this option makes sense for
| you.
|
| What UpVPN does provide (unlimited devices without subscription
| and your never expiring balance stays if you come back months
| later) other providers do not. And vice-versa UpVPN for its
| pricing model does not provide unlimited usage.
| hackan wrote:
| Yeah, the price is huge! I use terabytes of VPN traffic per
| month...
| WheatMillington wrote:
| Surely though you realise that's not typical.
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| nor the intended customer base. This seems more for someone
| who needs to use a VPN occasionally, for example to watch a
| specific movie or VPN back into their home country while on
| vacation
| KomoD wrote:
| Even on vacation it could probably be more than a normal
| 1 month subscription.
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| do you go on vacation every month?
| KomoD wrote:
| I never said so? Just dont pay for more than 1 month
| lol??
| FinnKuhn wrote:
| Most of them a subscription services though? When you are
| using little bandwith every now ans then this service
| could be the better option. Not saying it is better for
| every use case, but I can see situations where it is more
| practical and easier to use (no subscriptions to cancel)
| Crosseye_Jack wrote:
| Don't forget the per/hour connected price if you stayed
| connected 24/7 for 30 days thats $14.40 + BW charges.
|
| The only real use case I can foresee this for is for people who
| might use a VPN for a few hours, a few times a month. With that
| kind of usage pattern $10 (The min topup value by the look of
| it) could last you a fair few months so works out cheaper than
| some of the other mainstream VPN providers who offer a flat fee
| service.
| r_lee wrote:
| $10 per month +$0.05 per connection +$0.02 per hour +$0.04 per GB
| (I use about 300 GB)
|
| So in total: $10 + about $12 + $1.5 (30x connections per day) =
| $23.5 per month
|
| Mullvad is $5.
|
| Using the big 3 for a VPN is suicide. You do not want to host a
| business based on bandwidth on those.
|
| A cool tech demo but definitely not viable as a business.
|
| Also, why a California LLC?
| kwanbix wrote:
| I don't think it is $10 per month. Is whatever you use: $0.05
| per connection +$0.02 per hour +$0.04 per GB.
|
| $10 is the minium you can add to your account, and then it
| deducts from there.
| water9 wrote:
| Because paying taxes is fun
| croddin wrote:
| I read it as $10 is the minimum to add to your account not a
| monthly fee, so just $13.5 for you and potentially cheaper than
| mullvad for light users, is that correct?
| hnav wrote:
| Who cares if it's on big 3? If it takes off and they start
| getting charged 10c/GB, after about 10-20k spend for the month
| they'll be paying about 5c/GB so close to breaking even. More
| importantly, at that point they'll have a business with 10s of
| thousands of revenue which is an opportunity to either
|
| - work on minimizing the cost and carve out a margin
|
| - go to VC and say "hey I have this VPN service, people seem to
| like it"
| jandrese wrote:
| Because if you come out of their IP space every major website
| assumes you are a bot and will start slamming you with
| obnoxious CAPCHAs and sometimes just outright block access.
| packetlost wrote:
| That's pretty much a given on any VPN service provider
| though. What's your point?
| hnav wrote:
| Right, and then OP can bring their /24 to AWS or migrate
| the data plane off onto a less known provider?
| michaelt wrote:
| _Is_ there a per-month charge?
|
| I know the pricing page says "Prepaid starting at $10" but
| isn't that just the minimum top up?
| codetrotter wrote:
| Mullvad is awesome, but it's not even about the price.
| pierat wrote:
| Bunches I know are fleeing Mullvad due to their 'no port
| forwarding" policy now in effect.
|
| ProtonVPN still allows forwarding and is what quite a few
| fellow pie-rats are now using.
|
| Mullvad is dead.
| chrisallick wrote:
| Does it work on airplanes and websites that actively detect/deny
| vpn servers? any ad block features?
| boomskats wrote:
| I know you're taking a lot of shit from everyone else on this
| thread, but you should know that your landing page and onboarding
| experience are absolutely flawless, and that you've just made at
| least $10.
| gigapotential wrote:
| Thank you! This is my favorite comment. I love your support!
|
| Taking any feedback and criticism is part of being on Hacker
| News.
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