Not too surprising sadly. I do wonder if this sort of thing could undermine the public perception of VPNS.
At first read this is just a beat up. Didn't see any "Tier 1" providers listed. ~OT comment removed~ Chinese owned does not mean that there are 17 people assigned to watch everything you do.
Related: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/thr...owns-10-vpns-with-86-million-installs.417186/ Link to the VPNpro study: Hidden VPN owners unveiled: 97 VPN products run by just 23 companies
Huh. So I don't see any of my favorites there. And not many that I even recognize. IPVanish and StrongVPN, owned by US company j2 Global Hotspot Shield, owned by US company AnchorFree PureVPN and Ivacy, owned by Pakistani company Gaditek Anonine and FrootVPN, owned by Seychelles company Edelino Commerce Inc HideMyAss, owned by Czech company Avast CyberGhost and ZenMate, owned by Isle of Man company Kape Technologies So for the most part, I gotta say "meh"
Kape turns privacy crusader with purchase of VPN provider PIA November 19, 2019 https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.u...with-purchase-of-vpn-provider-pia-907357.html
I've heard that PIA was hugely in debt. So I'm not sure how the acquisition will boost Kape's income. Unless they increase prices, I guess. And PIA was amazingly inexpensive. I doubt that I'll ever use PIA again. And I'll definitely not recommend them. Because they're dead, gone, no longer of this world, ... There's just Kape, which bought the corpse.
moses, smell the roses. $95.5m acquisition. what once was a niche market became a multi million dollar industry.
Isn't there an argument - presuming you're in a 5 to 21-eye country - for actively wanting at least 1 VPN connection in an ownership jurisdiction that is not cooperative with your own country's government? On the basis that your own country has the ability to easily lock you up based on false positives (if they can routinely monitor your VPN), since even if you've done nothing wrong, you have something to fear. A VPN in the 5 to 21 eyes will likely welch on you or be compelled to. Likewise on that basis, the Chinese government doesn't have the power to lock you up, nor is it (normally) going to have much interest in your doings. Correspondingly, a Chinese person - if they manage the firewall, would be better off with a VPN with a jurisdiction in the 5+ eyes.
I agree. It makes sense. But arguably in the middle of your VPN chain. There's also the issue that CyberGhost (owned by Kape) did at one point install TLS certs to MitM HTTPS. For ad injection, as I recall. But if one just didn't use their custom OpenVPN client, just their PKI credentials with a stock client, that wouldn't happen.
I had it wrong. Kape is a UK firm, with connections to Israeli intelligence. So that's not something that you want anywhere.
