side note: i really wish more companies did the no email + randomized account number flow. there is a certain popular "pro-privacy" product beloved by many here that requires an email address and refuses to offer a similar account number method, which has turned me off the product.
Please don’t speak in riddles. Just say what you mean.
although i guess people's curiosity is also dragging my comment in an unrelated direction anyways. lose-lose situation.
my main point is that the account number method is really nice, and a great selling point for such privacy-conscious products. not offering it in a privacy-conscious product is enough signal that it has made me choose not to purchase the product. that's the important bit, and where i was hoping to drive the conversation.
I also have no idea what company/service you're talking about
If you're talking about Proton VPN, they do support "credential-less accounts" through their official apps, I believe? At least, on Android since 2024: https://www.androidpolice.com/proton-vpn-works-without-accou...
Proton VPN ensures privacy.
The single point of failure for this product is Mullvad and its leadership's changing opinions.
Many (if not all) of the benefits on the landing page are available in Mullvad too, which is a more mature and reputable product, has all clients fully open-source, and powers the exit servers for Obscura.
Why should I choose this over Mullvad?
According to Obscura's legal page, it is a New York-based company [0]. Under US law, a company can be issued a gag order forcing them to log activity on a specific account, which ultimately defeats their core privacy promise.
[0]: "(2) your written notification must be mailed to 169 Madison Ave.; Ste. 11185 PMB 63183; New York, NY 10016..." https://obscura.com/legal/
Really? XD
You would go with this solution if you don't trust Tailscale or NordVPN, I guess.
Secondly, Mullvad did what Obscura does now years ago.
Furthermore who needs a gamified VPN tool?
They are careful to not exactly claim the same anonymity properties of Tor, though I think a lay reader will read that differently (ie, that they do have the same anonymity property as Tor).
That said being able to verify the inner wireguard conn to mullvad is nice. Of course you have to trust them that they aren't colluding with mullvad to share your identity/ip. But same goes for OHTTP.
We wrote a research paper on the general principle a few years ago: https://conferences.sigcomm.org/hotnets/2022/papers/hotnets2...
I didn't realize Chris Wood was also an author!
osnxkwmxkwnd•46m ago
Seems like you guys have two distinct ideas of a visual identity completely at odds there. Shape contrast is nice and can be rather fun to play with, but it has to be handled with care. Right now it feels like the designer had a bunch of ideas and didn’t know how to bring them together in a cohesive identity.
Bonus point for the TRON reference at the end! “I fight for the users!”