Xerobank too expensive

Am I the only one who thinks Xerobank is way too expensive? $35 a month! $420 a year! C'mon Xerobank... get real.

I'm not knocking your product but it seems to me that your price is out of line.

 

I can definitely see that it is higher priced than others, but there is a definite difference too. Other proxy networks are poorly designed, or poorly implemented, and have non-existent customer service. They are single-hop proxies in jurisdictions of high political risk. They offer only tunnels or vpn service, and their unspoken caps are around 15GB to 25GB per month. XeroBank is entirely different. It is a multi-hop network, running openvpn for client, you get vpn, email, and shortly you'll get storage, and a little later this year you'll get anonymous voip, anonymous telephone, and xerobank for your PDA. Not to mention you need only one account to hook up all your computers. We aren't exactly comparing apples to apples here.

But, lets take a look at another good company, and see their vpn costs equivalently. For an equivalent multi-hop vpn from low political risk jurisdiction, there is only diclave. vpn only. no extras.

Diclave, 12 months, 75GB/month: $985
XeroBank, 12 months, 75GB/month: $420

So if you're comparing premium providers, customers win with xb. What you're doing is complaining that a ferrari costs more than a toyota. No surprise there, they aren't even in the same league. XeroBank is a premium privacy service. But don't worry, we've got another vpn-only solution coming soon that will be affordably priced.

 

i am trying the 1 month demo and have to agree its to expencive for normal person i wont be carrying on with it because of price but would deffo come back when a new vpn comes out by xerobank

steve i agree your service is much better than others by far but swiss vpn at 5 usd a month is just as good for the normal person i think for keeping your surfing habits safe you deffo wont agree but price will win over at end of the day


i will deffo be watching your site for the new service you mention and will join as soon as new price appears

 

I'm not complaining. It is apparent, however, that you are not marketing this product for users like myself. I'm just an average Joe that wants my privacy protected. I'm not negotiating multi-million dollars deals. I'm not trying to hide top secrets nor I'm not up to anything sneaky, nefarious, or 'sub-legal'. What I want is an encrypted connection to a VPN where I can be reasonably sure that I can be anonymous when I want to be and that my online transactions are conducted in as safe a manner as possible. I don't want low-lifes stealing my identity or hacking into my Amex account. My needs are simple but are much the same as most users.

I won't pretend to know enough about this stuff to debate this with you. You're an expert and I know essentially NOTHING about security. I don't even know if I'm comparing apples to apples in this example but let me just toss it out there for your comment...

Take a look at what Ironkey is offering with their 'Secure Sessions'. This is HARDWARE encryption into their private multi-hop network. Their system is well designed and implemented, it is fast and reliable and their customer service is first class. They don't offer email... yet. They don't offer storage... which I don't need or want. They don't offer anonymous voip or anonymous telephone or use with a PDA (Which you don't actually have at this time either). Their account is single usage but you can take it anywhere to use on any computer.

The cost? Well that depends. You do have to buy their hardware encryption thumb drive... about 80 bucks for a 1 gig... more for the larger drives. But with the drive comes a 1 year free access to their VPN AND there is no cap on usage. After the first year I believe the price is about $24 per year. Basically, one can get hardware encryption into a fast, reliable system for 80 dollars... plus you get the most secure flash drive presently available.

I certainly don't mean to be argumentative but tell me... why should I even consider buying your service for $420/year given my needs and given what Ironkey offers?

I hope you think about this for a minute... it is meant as constructive criticism. If you want to market to users like myself, you're gonna have to offer your service at a reasonable price. As it is, it is really only makes sense for corporate power users... and even for those folks an Ironkey MIGHT offer better security given its hardware encryption.

 

It's true. xb isn't for everyone. they aren't the discount provider or offering low-privacy services. but again, no worries. xero will release a discount service shortly for people that just want really fast vpn with a company with the strongest privacy policy.

 

hi steve can i ask you what i am finding with a couple of companys is a double vpn can you tell me will you be offering this within your current prices because from what i read it seams a better idea to offer that than other items you are throwing into your overal packge

for anyone who wants to look at the 3 diffo companys i found for you to mull over you can find them here

http://translate.google.co.uk/trans...t=result&prev=/search?q=double+vpn&hl=en&sa=G


http://www.vipvpn.com/


http://www.anonymator.cc/index.html


mods if this breaks rules please delete and accept my apologies

 

"double" vpn, i would assume means 2 hop. but that's worthless if the hops are in the same jursidiction. they really don't explain their service, which means they probably don't know what they're doing, or they are reselling something else.

PPTP is bad vpn. Stay far away from it. OpenVPN is the only vpn worth doing when you have a computer.

Anonymator is an amateur outfit. They definitely have no idea what tehy are doing. Single hop openvpn + tor = completely insecure with traffic monitoring and injection risks.

Stay away from "double vpn". That means nothing. You must have multi-jurisdictional VPN. I can make 10,000 hop vpn, but if it's in the same country or datacenter, who cares.

 

i just done some googling to see how many out there, yes there are lots of cheap service providers, price range from 6.75$ to 50$ a month

 

The discount vpn-only service is ready for pre-signups for those who are interested.

ShadowVPN, built by Xero Networks AG.

 

thanks steve for the explanation on the ones i listed do you know prices per month for your new service

i have joined the mailing list so hope to get set up asap

 

I think it is ~$10/month.

 

Steve,

I've sent you a PM days ago about this but got no reply, when do you think you will offer the new service? and is there any chance of getting it soon?

Thanks

 

thanks steve will deffo go for that

 

But Steve, wasn't Xerobank Plus already $8/month?
Or did I mis something?

 

all depends upon where the server is located, i mean a multi-hop in netherlands is better than a multi-hop in the US. i love vpn companies that say they are off shore but have them in china/hong-kong, russia etc.

so where abouts are the shadowvpn servers located, are they based upon XB servers located in canada (sidenote: seem to be no better the the US nower days stupid DCMA)/netherlands, seems the place to be is either germany or the netherlands at the moment (based upon what i've researched anyway).

those looking at vpn providers may wish to look at purevpn.com, not badly priced and uses L2PT/Ipsec and has servers in the US and Germany, through i haven't had time to do more research than that, through they have a good thread going at digitalpoint forums. others include swissvpn (PTPP with EAP, switzerland) and vpnout (openvpn,US). can't think of any others at the moment.

 

Steve, can you kindly prepare and post a feature/benefit comparison of xB VPN versus ShadowVPN?

Thank you.

 

Plus was an SSH tunnel, not a vpn.

ShadowVPN is the following, from my understanding:

OpenVPN w/password login
Netherlands or Canada servers for low political risk.
Protected and managed by Xero Networks AG, Panama for low legal risk.
256-bit AES crypto
single-hop or multi-hop through DC
channel multiplexing with round-robin network nodes
Single session per account

 

Steve,

You still talk as if you're only partly "in-the-loop," when it comes to knowing what ShadowVPN is all about. To me, it appears like more charade to mask your one-man operation. Your forums, at least when I checked a week or so ago, had zero support questions. That tells me you don't have enough customers to support much more than a one-man operation.


To act like ShadowVPN is something you only know the details about as they trickle down to you is weird considering that a WHOIS check on shadowVPN shows the billing contact as:

billing-contact: P-SET125
billing-organization: TORRIFY LLC
billing-fname: STEVE
billing-lname: TOPLETZ
billing-street: Mellingburgredder 81
billing-city: Dittenheim
billing-zip: 91723
billing-country: DE
billing-phone: 8888677439
billing-fax: 8888677439
billing-email:

When did you move from Dallas to Germany? I know that's where the servers are located, but your name is listed as the billing contact in Germany. You also have obviously had this domain name since you were Torrify. You - as in Steve Topletz. More coincidence and explain aways?

Are you ready to come clean about it being a one-man shop?

 

to be honest with you i am not savvy in all this and thats why i like this forum so much and what you say rings bells in the sence i reported a prob to steve and he found the prob but no update to the vpn software to sort it

so now in my mind it puts dout who you are really dealing with hmm might need to rethink things about who i join any ideas guys in the know

 

Genady makes his appearence!

Give people the whole truth Genday, not half truths. It makes your fud too easy to deflate, my friend. For example, telling people it was registered for years... they can clearly see it was registered a couple months ago. However, the billing information isn't correct, I just used the same registration account for registering this domain through idotz. It's part of my job, nothing nefarious. I do think you let your imagination get away with you sometimes.

I appreciate your attention to the support forums, but they aren't public, that's why you see they aren't flooded like they existed prior. You'll notice no link to them anywhere on our site. But you will find support requests in there, however that is only from people who use xb, who are wilders readers, who have read about the forum thread, and registered.

geazer, I solved the vpn shutdown issue (that was your issue, no?) but I've got to rewrite the auto-update features. Currently it notifies only, so I'm not satisfied. I am debating if it should be a modular update or run the installer all over again.

 

I meant it is yours since it was registered to the torrify email address and YOU are listed as the billing contact. That's part of your job? To be listed as the billing contact for the corporation? You wear many hats, my friend. Let's see, you are a "consultant" to XeroBank, you are "just another employee of Xerobank." You told us that, as far as the owners of XeroBank, "to be honest, I don't actually know." You seem to handle all support issues yourself as one can be mentioned on this board and ten minutes later you're posting "fixed!" You seem to have the keys to the payment department too because people having problems with paying for the service ask about something here and it's a "I just checked and found your email - you should be good to go." But then, just a few days before you had said your role at XeroBank was like "any other employee." But....let's see...you are their PR department too, as you have talked of your developing presentations and there is even a Xerobank talk on Google Video at DefCon - presented by, none other than, surprise! - Steve Topletz! You were interviewed for an online magazine about XeroBank. You talked early on about how you were looking into switching servers or something or another. Just what is it you don't do at XeroBank?

Steve, It's more than obvious. TorPark to Torrify to XeroBank and now ShadowVPN a service of XeroBank, which is -- another service from Steve Topletz! Oh, I forgot, it's just your "job" to be the billing contact. You do it all, Steve! There's nothing that you don't handle at XeroBank! When I first called on you for the fact that names are never mentioned, you began using names and referring to other people. Like magic! You signed up an impressive list of "advisers", but Steve, where are the offices of XeroBank? Who owns XeroBank if not Steve Topletz - and you alone?

 

does anyone know how to get tor to work inside the guest os with virtual box?

 

Yes, I registered the domain for shadowvpn. Guilty as charged. As for the rest, same questions, same answers. Unsure about ownership because I don't deal with officers except the CSO, but I'm certain you can request that information from the Panamanian business registrar. But you're right, some days I do feel like I do it all. I'll let you in on a secret though, when your superiors ask you to do something, you never say "it's not in my job description". And hey, sometime if you want something done right, or right now, you've got to do it yourself. Take for example the xb anonymity checker. It was on Kyle's plate for a week, but he got swamped so tonight I taught myself some php and javascript. Although I must admit it is incredibly flattering that you estimate my skills to be so superhuman. May I use you as a reference?

 

ye steve you told me you sorted the prob but how long ago was that and i would have thourt that would be sorted now

i can understand that because i am on 1 usd trial i cant expect alot but for 35 usd a month you would expect that i should not have to keep shuting down pc the way i do

i think the guy who posted about being a 1 man operation prolly has a valid point because if you was more than that i think as a paying customer it would have been sorted

so i think his obersavations are valid in that respect and there is nothing worse for people like me for this stuff to pop up about someone because no matter how many hops threw how many countrys you do it threw if there is any dout about the person running the outfit then i am no worse taking chances with other providers

 

geazer, don't let anyone spread fear to you through disinformation. People like that thrive on requesting others to disprove negatives. That same logic follows that since none of the other providers has a single employee visiting their boards then they must not even exist. Obviously flawed logic. Btw, there will be a new version of the installer out tomorrow because I promised Kyle and Stefan I would have one out before Defcon conference in Las Vegas.