
Free VPN integrated in Opera for better online privacy - nmjenkins
http://www.opera.com/blogs/desktop/2016/04/free-vpn-integrated-opera-for-windows-mac/
======
zo1
Some terms from the SurfEasy, Inc company, which is the VPN provider for this
service[0]:

SurfEasy does not store users originating IP address when connected to our
service and therefore cannot identify users when provided IP addresses of our
servers. Additionally, SurfEasy cannot disclose information about the
applications, services or websites our users consume while connected to our
services; as SurfEasy does not store this information.

 _However_ , further down, you have this:

SurfEasy is required to comply with law enforcement where subpoenas, warrants
or other legal documents have been provided. We may collect and disclose
personal information, including your usage data, to governmental authorities
or agencies, including law enforcement agencies, at their request or pursuant
to a court order, subpoena or other legal process, if there is a good faith
belief that such collection or disclosure is required by law.

At this point I'm not quite sure what to make of the above two combined
together.

[0]:
[https://www.surfeasy.com/privacy_policy/](https://www.surfeasy.com/privacy_policy/)

~~~
anexprogrammer
Isn't that fairly standard amongst the privacy respecting VPNs?

We store nothing / log nothing.

We'll comply with law enforcement as far as we're able (ie not at all beyond
billing, email and perhaps bandwidth used).

So that seems to say they'll perhaps be able to tell when you were logged in,
who you are + payment info, and perhaps volumes transferred. Where and on
which ports? No clue officer.

Private Internet Access seems similar:
[https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/privacy-
policy/](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/privacy-policy/)

~~~
MasterScrat
But what happens if law enforcement specifically ask them to start recording
more information?

~~~
EwanToo
I think this assumption is true of every VPN provider:

If the courts or intelligence services tell them to capture a username's data,
or access to specific websites from all users, they will do it.

If the choice is between keep quiet and do it, or potentially get shutdown or
arrested, you have to assume that almost everyone will do as they are told.

~~~
wahsd
Is that a fair assumption? I guess at that point you are simply biding time
because if it ever comes out or there is even just a suspicion that you are
lying your business is dead as word spreads across the internet

~~~
jameshart
As word spreads across the internet that... what? That you comply with the
law?

Isn't it worse if word gets out that you deliberately _evade_ legal compliance
frameworks? When a bank is found to be skirting regulations around money
laundering, the reaction is not typically 'good on them, standing up for our
rights against the man!'.

~~~
derefr
If all your customers are criminals, then yes, your reputation hinges on not
complying (or not yet having to comply) with the law.

------
sspiff
I've got a few questions, and their puffy news post doesn't answer them:

* Is this a real VPN service, or simply an HTTP/HTTPS proxy?

* Is DNS resolution also securely handled through the tunnel, or does this stay in the clear?

* What region(s) is their VPN service located in?

* Is it possible for other software to use this tunnel in any way?

Upon first reading, this doesn't seem very different from their old
"accelerator proxies" which compressed HTTP traffic into a binary format, and
reduced image detail/resolution, but with a new marketing spin and those old
features removed or disabled.

~~~
mihok
Just installed it, and looks like you get, Canada, US, and Germany as options
for the VPN. Tiny text below the enable button has this:

"Secure proxy provided by SurfEasy Inc., an Opera company based in Canada. By
using the service you accept the Terms of Service. VPN connects to other
servers around the world so your connection speed might be affected."

My only gripe with it so far is the VPN is across all tabs, so I have to
switch it off to access some of my office VPN sites

~~~
sspiff
Interesting, how did you try it?

I just installed the Opera developer version and can't seem to find anything
to enable or configure VPN usage.

~~~
mihok
Top left 'Menu'-> Settings -> Privacy & security, about middle of that page
has 'Enable VPN'

After you do that it shows up in the address bar beside the SSL lock

------
verytrivial
Is this the same Opera that was recently purchased by a shady Chinese
consortium? [1]

1:[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/11/browser-m...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/11/browser-
maker-opera-acquisition-chinese)

~~~
hungryfoolish
It hasn't been purchased yet; the buyout deal is yet to go through AFAICT.

~~~
neurobuddha
So I guess this an attempt to add value to push the deal through.

~~~
wagglycocks
Opera has a long history of adding innovative browser features. There's no
reason to think that this has some kind of ulterior motive related to a
rumored sale.

------
a_imho
Couple with native adblocking I'm very tempted to switch browsers (from FF)
and probably do so when available. But it just sounds too good, what is the
catch?

~~~
glaberficken
I'm not a specialist, but you can start by researching how the Opera company
makes money. It would seem to me a possible future "catch" would be that they
could charge selected advertisers to let their ads through...

From their own FAQ:
[http://www.operasoftware.com/press/faq](http://www.operasoftware.com/press/faq)

    
    
        "How Opera makes money"
        Opera provides cloud-based mobile services and
        solutions to operators, publishers and advertisers
        and enables hundreds of millions of consumers, via
        the Company's global cloud infrastructure, to
        connect to the internet content and services that
        matter most to them. Along those lines, Opera has
        different revenue models, depending on the
        customer type:
        
        *Operators.*
        Opera's revenue sources from this
        hosted solution include active user fees, data
        fees, NRE/development fees, hosting services,
        advertising and maintenance, and support.
        
        *Mobile consumers*
        (via partnerships with search
        providers and advertisers). The primary driver of
        mobile consumer revenue is revenue from mobile
        search, the Opera Mobile Store and active user
        growth.
        
        *Mobile publishers and advertisers.*
        Revenue comes
        from Opera's mobile advertising services and
        technology solutions, offered to premium and
        performance advertisers, ad agencies, publishers
        and developers.
        
        *Device OEMs.*
        Revenue comes through license
        agreements with a wide range of
        consumer-electronic-device OEMs.
        
        *Desktop consumers.*
        Revenue comes primarily from
        search and e-commerce partnerships.

~~~
j_koreth
They literally have an advertising division as Opera Mediaworks

~~~
blowski
So do the other three biggest browser vendors - Microsoft, Apple and Google.
So I'm not sure what that shows.

~~~
cyphar
You missed Mozilla.

------
xrstf
The VPN is operated by "SurfEasy Inc., an Opera company based in Canada".

Just tested it and it worked flawlessly to watch a YouTube video that has been
blocked in my country. [Edit: Netflix seems to block SurfEasy already. Sad.]

~~~
arm
They didn’t exactly get a standing ovation the last time¹ they were mentioned
on here though (for good reason… if they’re offering a service to help protect
people’s privacy, it seems a bit odd that they’d opt to compromise said
people’s privacy by having multiple trackers on their website).

――――――

¹ —
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10700792](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10700792)

~~~
DyslexicAtheist
I'd mainly be worried how said VPN is using the subscriber data and what is
their policy on storing access logs. But even they promise to not track you
how would one even hold them to account considering that they must have an
interest in the data due to their adtech part of how the parent/sister Opera
company makes its money.

------
Flott
"a native, unlimited and free VPN client, right inside your browser!"

Serious question: Money wise, how are they able to afford this?

~~~
lucaspiller
Data of course! Opera (the company) are one of the big players in mobile
advertising. They have their own mobile ad platform [0], and a few years ago
acquired a couple of agencies that specialise in mobile advertising [1].

[0] [http://operamediaworks.com/](http://operamediaworks.com/)

[1] [http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/16/opera-snaps-up-mobile-
theor...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/16/opera-snaps-up-mobile-theory-4th-
screen-for-26m-in-mobile-ad-push/)

~~~
Spivak
Just to point out, if you have a distaste for this monetization strategy and
you're reading this in Chrome I've got some bad news for you.

~~~
niij
How so? I'm genuinely curious what information Google collects? Is Chromium
better to use in this case?

------
w3designer
As of now it's working in China. I'm able to access
Facebook/Twitter/Youtube/Google without my normal vpn or ssh tunnel. Will be
pretty useful if it stands up to the constant changes. Great work!

~~~
vinceyuan
I bet it will be blocked soon.

------
0x0
If they are bought out by the Chinese, does using this mean the new Chinese
owners will see all your traffic?

~~~
746F7475
If the traffic is encrypted then they wouldn't see into it, but it would go
through their servers, so in worst case scenario you'd be surfing from behind
the Great Chinese Firewall

~~~
LamaOfRuin
The traffic is encrypted between you and the server. They control that server,
where it gets decrypted to be sent out over the public internet (where it may
be encrypted or not depending on the site). You've introduced a man in the
middle. You must trust that man (but that man also already controls the source
code for your browser, which can also see all your traffic).

------
marcosscriven
Doesn't this just move trust from your ISP to whomever runs the VPN?

~~~
mikeokner
Yes, but if you live somewhere that definitely surveils your communications or
prevents you from accessing certain content, a VPN is a good way to browse as
though you were physically located somewhere more permissive.

------
throwanem
"If you're not paying for the product..."

------
vbezhenar
If country is blocking websites, they probably will block that VPN service as
well (and possibly Opera website).

Why this thing is called VPN anyway? It looks like HTTP proxy should be enough
for browser.

------
kardos
What stops someone from making a Firefox plugin that (ab)uses Opera's free
VPN?

~~~
ashmud
Ultimately, nothing. They could still aggregate your usage data, though, and
not necessarily be out anything investment-wise, compared to using the Opera
client proper.

~~~
halostatue
There’s a few things that would (probably) stop this from working, but it is
possible that the new Opera-based implementation is different than when we
implemented it (the proxy version) as a custom Firefox browser back in
2011–2013.

------
codenhagen
Just tried out the developer version
([http://www.opera.com/developer](http://www.opera.com/developer) \- built-in
VPN and ad blocking is currently only available in the developer version of
Opera). Both the ad blocking and the VPN works great in the few sites I
tested. I especially love that turning the VPN on doesn't require any type of
login.

------
Al-Khwarizmi
"This is why we today have more engineers than ever before working on new
features for our desktop browser."

Is this true or just PR BS? Because my understanding is that they had laid off
most of the desktop browser team a few years ago and there were only a few
left working on it.

~~~
LamaOfRuin
Now they're based on Blink, so the they don't have to work on the core
features of a browser engine. I imagine that means they have more engineers
working on what they class "features for our desktop browser" as in user
facing features, rather than W3C spec implementation.

~~~
shwetank
Opera does still contribute quite a lot to blink/chromium (check out
[https://operasoftware.github.io/upstreamtools/](https://operasoftware.github.io/upstreamtools/)
which lists them), though the gist of what you've said still stands.

------
SubiculumCode
To sell your web history themselves.

~~~
skrowl
The VPN is also in Canada, a
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes)
country, so in addition to selling your web history they'll also turn it over
to any govt agency with no warrant or even notifying you.

------
thinkMOAR
Though we all know by know that there is no such thing as 'free'?

~~~
azazqadir
Some regions could require you to have a paid account or something, like what
Zenmate does.

------
summarite
An interesting angle is that this might prevent big companies, government
agencies, schools etc to disallow just of opera if it was ever possible in the
first place. Poor they'll just block the IPs with their usual web filter
software and none of these promises behind true. Might work for private use in
non-repressive countries, but anywhere else it will face the same blocking as
any other VPN. Still a great initiative!

------
roddux
I think this is a _great_ idea, in part because it makes it super easy for the
less technically minded to secure their public internet traffic. It also
brings VPNs and network security discussion more into the public eye.

------
dang
There's another article at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11540648](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11540648),
which discussion we merged hither.

------
bowlofstew
I have been using this build today and like it. My only minor gripe is the
selection of only 3 locations for the VPN. This one doesn't so far from what I
see but then again, it is free.

------
mhd
The "VPN" feature doesn't get through my work's firewall, so I guess that
works mostly in your own home or less secure public networks...

------
jordache
With the VPN enabled, I am able to resolve local network computer names and
domains that reside in my work's local DNS only?

How is this resolution working?

------
johansch
The performance is quite bad at the moment. It takes 5-7 seconds to load
google.com using either the Germany or US location - from Sweden...

~~~
batrat
I watched some YT videos and seems ok for me. US server from Romania.

~~~
johansch
It works better now.

They under-dimensioned the launch peak capacity. This is peculiar, I do know
they have much, more more capacity than needed for in that terms of both
servers and bandwidth. ;)

------
anExcitedBeast
I know they have no incentive to do this, but it would be nice if they let you
configure alternate VPN providers. This is a really clean VPN UX.

------
SubiculumCode
Just to sell All your web history themselves.

------
libeclipse
Sounds pretty good, but I still wouldn't trust it with anything more than a
YouTube video.

------
uslic001
Definitely slows down browsing but it is simple/easy/free so I would expect as
much.

------
ommunist
Since Opera is now owned by China, I'd really think twice before using it.

~~~
xufi
That scares me. The last program I used that was Chinese was the QQ messenger.

------
owly
There are too many reasons to keep VPN separate from a browser to list here.

------
betaby
In VPN mode I got 184.75.221.xxx - Toronto In Turbo mode 107.167.108.xxx - US

------
chris_wot
If I use this though, will Netflix block me from accessing any content?

~~~
zo1
Netflix blocks you from accessing _all_ content if you are behind any sort of
proxy or VPN.

~~~
ChicagoBoy11
How do they detect that you are using a VPN?

~~~
Arnt
They have a list of VPN providers.

Probably they also have some heuristics that look closely at people who geoip
in a different country than their billing records, and whose IP address seems
to be in a colo rather than a DSL subscriber block.

~~~
chris_wot
This is why I would love to see a Visa card that anonymises you to
corporations, but not necessarily the government - and available to those
overseas. Don't suppose such a thing exists?

 _Edit:_ Scratch that. What I'd like is a high speed consumer cable account
that I could proxy into.

~~~
Arnt
What you need is a friend abroad and a raspberry pi.

I have a raspberry pi attached to the wall of a home which is not my own. It's
in a country where I occasionally want to be (in a geoip sense of "be"). The
rpi maintains a VPN connection to me, so I can reach it even though it's
behind a NAT middlebox that knows nothing about it.

~~~
chris_wot
You realise that you could have just given HN a new startup?

I'd gladly pay someone to access a portion of their bandwidth - at least
enough that I could stream content.

~~~
Arnt
That's great.

Potential founders should consider the costs of providing tech support for a
tunnel that crosses two NATboxes, both controlled by strangers.

~~~
chris_wot
If you can remotely login to the box, it wouldn't be that bad. And if you can
lock down the box physically then it would be pretty tamper proof.

Anyway, it was just a thought. It's possible it's impractical :-)

------
novaleaf
slightly off topic, but does anyone know a good proxy-as-api service? the ones
I've seen are either really bad, or really, really expensive.

------
subliminalpanda
Any specifics of what type of VPN protocol its using?

~~~
raddad
>Any specifics of what type of VPN protocol its using?

According this chart of vpn's, OpenVPN

That One Privacy Guy's VPN Comparison Chart

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FJTvWT5RHFSYuEoFVpAe...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FJTvWT5RHFSYuEoFVpAeQjuQPU4BVzbOigT0xebxTOw/edit#gid=0)

edit: Name of the service is SurfEasy

~~~
subliminalpanda
Thanks!

------
jordache
How does the Chromium Opera compare to Chrome?

------
rasz_pl
Free, unlimited VPN for sending all of your secure surfing to CHINA ....

~~~
anc84
Free, unlimited VPN for protecting all of your secure surfing from your
domestic surveillance...

------
html5web
Very slow in US

------
haosdent
I love this.

------
xjpi250
Better online privacy? Ridiculous!!! It is just a honeypot. As the most
notorious company which good at stealing people's privacy, in China no one
trust Qihoo360 (opera is acquired by Qihoo360). Qihoo360 is the pet and lackey
of Chinese communist party. Go to hell!

~~~
dang
We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11541610](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11541610)
and marked it off-topic.

------
xjpi250
Ridiculous!!! It is just a honeypot. As the most notorious company in China,
no one trust Qihoo360 (opera is acquired by Qihoo360). Qihoo360 is the pet and
lackey of Chinese communist party. Go to hell!

~~~
dang
This comment breaks the HN guidelines. If you want to make a point here,
please do so civilly and substantively.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11540857](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11540857)
and marked it off-topic.

------
arca_vorago
I really want to like Opera, but I won't be using it until its open source,
full stop.

------
sotrueee
Free as in free 500MB and then you have to pay.

~~~
iancarroll
Source? The article says it's unlimited.

------
Fundlab
This is a game changing feature and I hope other browsers follow suit, I would
love to see it implemented in the mobile version especially.

~~~
vonklaus
Really? I am all for it, but in 2016 putting an extra server in the middle of
my request isn't really a game changer. Brave is leading the charge with
extensions as a service, and I love them for it. However, I just can't see it
being profitable. Brave can def make money, but I don't think people care
about privacy. The other usecases make sense, but between opera or brave (both
totally unknown companies to non tech crowd) Brave would for sure win that.

In Opera's case, one more person would get "all" the data. In all other cases,
1-3 companies get all the data. So it's good, I just can't call it a game
changer.

