
TunnelBear Joins McAfee - ssorc
https://www.tunnelbear.com/blog/tunnelbear_joins_mcafee/
======
taddeimania
I'll save some of you the task of searching through their FAQ if you want to
cancel your account.

[https://www.tunnelbear.com/account#/remove](https://www.tunnelbear.com/account#/remove)

~~~
TomV1971
“We’re sorry but we can’t cancel your account automatically. Please contact
support.”

Yeah...

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taddeimania
I had the same issue, was hoping it was isolated to my account. What
unfortunate timing.

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tokanizar
Seemed so. I was just able to delete my account.

~~~
astrojams
I also had no problem cancelling my account.

~~~
TomV1971
I retried. Still doesn’t work.

Looks like I’ll be forced into human to human interaction.

~~~
dawnerd
Last time that happened to me I just called the bank and told them to block
payments. I think it was either stamps.com or siriusxm. Really no reason to
prevent someone from cancelling right away... just a shady tactic to retain
people.

~~~
sitepodmatt
Sounds like Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Bunch of wankers that want a 10 minute
call just to cancel, you can't even cut them off 'listen mate, i just want to
cancel and finish this call' as they don't process it. NEVER subscribe to WSJ
even if you get 6 months free - there is no online cancellation and cunts
refer to debt collection agencies for renewal fees.

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rasengan
This is the opposite of privacy and you should be ashamed. You sold all of
your customers’ info to Intel/McAfee at a price.

~~~
tssva
They have a very detailed and plainly written privacy policy which details
what information is gathered and how it is used. If their customers put a
premium on privacy they should have read the privacy policy prior to using the
service and understood Tunnelbear's obligations under it. As long as
Tunnelbear has met them they have nothing to be ashamed of. It even addresses
the possibility of being acquired and the impact that may have regarding the
data they have collected.

"If our organization structure changes (i.e we undergo a restructuring or are
acquired), we may need to migrate your Personal Information to a third party
related to a business transaction, but, we will ensure that such a third party
has entered into an agreement under which the use of your Personal Information
is only related to purposes necessary for the transaction."

~~~
rasengan
OK, so you’re blaming the customers for not carefully reading the privacy
policy? I understand that people should read things, but they don’t. They read
the marketing text where Tunnelbear claimed to “really really” care about
privacy.

Further, they gave all of the personal information since it was all necessary
for the transaction.

Unsustainable VPN companies that operate at low margins to sell to the highest
bidder like this are the exact opposite of privacy conscious. :(

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lathiat
RIP marketing department budget at Linus Tech Tips

~~~
sebtoast
That was my first thought too, I hope Linus will talk about it at some point.
They seem transparent and upfront about their income.

~~~
RosanaAnaDana
I don't see them keeping TB around as a sponsor after this. Pretty darn bad
press.

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tptacek
I don't know what all you Tunnelbear users were thinking. Do you believe other
commercial VPN services are doing a better job of protecting your privacy?
Spoiler: they are not. Commercial VPN services offer the safety of coffee shop
open wi-fi, in The Cloud, from the convenience of your own couch.

Stop using commercial VPN providers.

Honestly, at least now they have the McAfee security team working for them.
There are better teams, but anything is better than getting a single point-in-
time audit and slapped "independently audited" on your front page.

~~~
dorian-graph
> Stop using commercial VPN providers.

What would you recommend, BYO?

~~~
davepeck
For BYO, you might consider Algo VPN
[https://github.com/trailofbits/algo](https://github.com/trailofbits/algo) \--
it gets IPSec right -- or, if you're feeling more bleeding-edge, WireGuard.

~~~
pvg
Do any of the planned clients exist yet, for WireGuard? Without that, it’s not
all that useful to most people.

~~~
tptacek
No. WireGuard, right now, is mostly useful to people who can run Linux (or
people who want site-to-site VPNs). There's a cross-platform userland client
in progress; a couple different organizations (us included) have kicked in to
fund it.

~~~
pvg
Yeah I've heard that but the Wireguard site never seems to say much about it.
Is this happening somewhere outside the Wireguard repo/main project?

~~~
tptacek
No, I think it's more that Jason is a serious engineer and researcher and not
as serious a marketer. It'll get better over time.

~~~
pvg
Hmm, not really important but I looked at it again and I don't think whatever
is happening on the userspace client front is going on in their server repo.

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nugi
Whelp, that singlehandedly kills any credibility tunnerlbear had in my mind. I
hope the buyout was worth it guys. The exact market for services like
tunnelbear are the same ones that avoid the likes of mcafee (the company) like
the plauge. I can see them jumping like rats from a burning ship. They should
just find a new name at this point, ala comcast, blackwater, etc. Even their
literal namesake disses them publicly.

~~~
technion
Whilst they probably lost a certain market, they certainly gained another one,
and I'm not convinced it's a net loss as a business.

Once this reaches Mcafee.com (as opposed to tunnelbear.com) I am entirely
confident executives will inform me the product is an important part of our
security strategy. At some future point, there will probably be a Gartner
Quadrant rating them highly.

McAfee has a poor name on HN, but this isn't generally reflected in business.
This should be self evident- they'd be broke if it was.

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badprose
I don't see how this purchase changes anything. How was "TunnelBear: an
independent VPN provider" ever any more trustworthy than "TunnelBear: A
service from McAffee"?

In both cases, I have no idea what they're _actually_ doing with my info.

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Arubis
Nice while it lasted. Any alternative recommendations for less tech-oriented
folks? TunnelBear has been what I pointed friends and relations towards
historically.

~~~
bitxbitxbitcoin
Private Internet Access is my suggestion given their support of EFF, FFTF,
Creative Commons, as well as the greater FOSS community.

Full disclosure: I work at Private Internet Access.

~~~
matlock
Can second PIA. Used it for years now and its solid. And I'm not affiliated in
any way with it, just a happy customer

~~~
typicalbender
Thirded, used for years and have never had a problem with their service.

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11eleven
Also important: "TunnelBear is now part of McAfee, a US based company" =

customer information can be subject to US court orders.

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kylehotchkiss
I can't wait for the mcafee themed bear photos! Bears on drugs , bears hiding
in Mexico, and bears trying to sell you cryptocurrencies in back alleys.

~~~
jlgaddis
You do realize he hasn't been involved with the company since the 90s?

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ohf
FWIW, I'm pretty sure the market segment of tunnelbear users were people
dodging network restrictions, not people who valued privacy much.

That aside, there are exceptions and someone is getting fucked over.

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moistoreos
Tried them until they implemented the policy to block the torrent protocol.
WHY. WOULD. YOU. DO. THAT. TUNNELBEAR. That's a legit protocol where legit
downloads happen barring the overwhelming illegal activity that happens there.

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sleepychu
F __*, just renewed at $49.99 for a year.

Cancelling automatically downgrades, how unreasonable.

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crysin
Someone should let Linus (the Tech Tips one) know. Not sure if he'd want to be
endorsing tunnel bear now that its owned by McAfee.

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kennydude
Well, goodbye nice looking VPN.

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mrweasel
I don't get this kind of purchases. If McAfee intends to just let TunnelBear
be TunnelBear, then what they're after must the business (as in the profit).
In that case would there be more business sense in not selling, from the
TunnelBear perspective?

Edit: Also TunnelBear isn't joining McAfee, or I doubt that they are. McAfee
BOUGHT them. Joining implies that you merged the two businesses with no money
changing hands.

~~~
gk1
> Joining implies that you merged the two businesses with no money changing
> hands.

Not at all. Saying you "joined" a company is often used as a less
transactional (that is, warm and fuzzy, not cold and financial) way of saying
you were acquired.

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BlackPlot
IMHO all users should consider switching to some reputable VPN with no logs
policy [https://vpnspecial.com/tunnelbear-has-just-been-purchased-
be...](https://vpnspecial.com/tunnelbear-has-just-been-purchased-best-
alternative-vpns/)

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ksec
Why does Intel wants TunnelBear?

I dont see the logic behind this, any one could explain?

P.S Is anyone still using McAfee ? It seems Symantec has taken up most of the
enterprise sales, while consumer are happy with Windows default protection.

~~~
mrkidd
Intel no longer owns McAfee, they were spun out a year and a half ago.
[https://venturebeat.com/2016/09/07/intel-teams-with-tpg-
to-s...](https://venturebeat.com/2016/09/07/intel-teams-with-tpg-to-spin-out-
mcafee-security-unit-in-deal-valued-at-4-2-billion/)

Lots and lots of people still use McAfee. Symantec's management products are
still light years behind McAfee. Symantec really wasted a big opportunity with
what they did to Altiris.

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dogma1138
I don’t understand why people used them they didn’t had an explicit no logging
no retention policy and they are located well within the reach of the US legal
system as they were a Canadian company.

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jabberwik
Because my threat model is a Wifi pineapple. I don't need protection from the
entire Internet and all the governments of the world. I want to make sure an
overzealous college kid isn't stealing my cookies.

~~~
dogma1138
And there were much better and cheaper companies for that like NordVPN and
VyprVPN.

Neither of them would protect you against governments that much, but they do
protect your privacy.

Do you want another place where all your data has been logged? I bet McAfee
will have a field day with all the data tunnelbear has accumulated over the
years.

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aarpmcgee
Canceled my subscription.

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sireat
If you can't trust a goofy bear who can you really trust then?

If you think about it all the goodwill Tunnelbear had was built on
quirky/irreverent front end client.

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wemdyjreichert
Someone tell Linus Tech Tips

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PuffinBlue
I'll save you the trouble of ctrl+f'ing:

"We’d like to thank you for being part of the journey so far, and we look
forward to sharing more about our plans in the coming weeks."

[https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

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corobo
This one was only a regular journey though. Must have been less money than the
usual buyouts

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tenpies
Perhaps it was still incredible by previous years standards, but it did not
keep up with the journey inflation?

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burner5692
TunnelBear never had good security. It's Canadian HideMyAss. Well, it was.

