I know that they have a no logging policy and all that, but can this service really be trusted? First of all, it has a free model which gives people about 10 GB each month, which is more than most other VPNs. Secondly, it’s price. $2 per month for unlimited data is a price that is lower than most other VPNs, however Windscribe is still able to provide about the same amount of servers (over 200). Where is the money coming from to make this business model sustainable?
The software provided is also closed source, compared to some other providers like PIA, which is open source. Windscribe has no tested court cases either where it is shown that they really don’t have data to provide law enforcement at all, which is a bit surprising that no one has done anything illegal over the many years that it has been running. Just want to hear some thoughts.
We certainly get legal entities requesting data from us, maybe a handful of times every month. It’s not exactly fully public but we do keep a count of all these requests here: https://windscribe.com/transparency
The reason you don’t hear about these publicly is because the case doesn’t go anywhere thanks to the no-logging policy. They request data, we tell them we don’t have any and that’s that.
In terms of offering Free VPN service, it’s not as bad as you think. We’ve done all the math and on top of the great white-label program we have with companies like InvizBox and a few others, the Pro users actually do provide enough money for us to offer the Free service as it currently is. If at any point there is an issue with this model and we can no longer afford to offer the Free service, you will certainly know about it as we would announce something that major. And as someone else already pointed out, the CEO and Founder of Windscribe wrote about this Free VPN myth in our blog.
Finally, we’ve had an interest in open-sourcing our applications before and the option it still on the table, we just have so much other great stuff on our plate that we want to take care of first before getting to that. An audit of our systems is also on the roadmap.
You’re just used to shady anonymous VPN owners wanting to keep obscene profits to pay affiliates 50% of their revenue, buy night clubs, IRC networks, etc.
We don’t advertise, so our affiliate spending is less than 5% of our earnings. Soon to be zero, as we’re getting rid of the affiliate program.
PIA had a support team of 70 people, while supporting fewer active users than Windscribe (if you include our free users). We have 3 people doing the same job, since our software is less prone to failure.
PIA open sourced their browser extensions… ours have been open sourced for well over 1.5 years: https://github.com/windscribe you just don’t hear us rave about it, since EVERY SINGLE BROWSER EXTENSION is open source, it’s source is on your computer, since it’s JavaScript.
Law enforcement stuff has already been explained in the thread.
Well yes it is $2/month for unlimited data but that only gives access to one premium server, therefore making this sustainable. I think until there’s something to prove that Windscribe isn’t safe, we can treat it as it is.
It’s only as safe as it can be. Don’t want to be caught doing something illegal? Don’t do anything illegal. Nothing is 100% safe. Weigh the risk to the benefit and if it’s not worth it to you then don’t do it. Windscribe (and other VPNs) isn’t made for breaking the law, it’s to keep your traffic as private as possible.
i expect several vpns are controlled by bad actors, while users remain oblivious. pia’s testing in court was great, but doesn’t prove there isn’t access for parallel construction.
personally i use a vpn to bypass censorship, torrent in peace. and to not have my isp/gov know my porn tastes since the fucking snooper’s charter was implemented here in uk.
Well it’s not a phishing attempt, if that’s what you’re after. It really is a service and it works as advertised. I’ve been using it few years and am very happy with it. Like stated earlier, it’s not absolute protection from detection of illegal activities. But if used correctly, it helps a lot with privacy. It keeps my IP out of my business. They know how much, but not where or what.
Even if a service is open-source and code-audited, you have no guarantee that what is running on their servers matches what was published and audited.
Even if a service “passes” a court test, that just establishes their behavior up to that point, for that targeted user. They could change after that point, or for a specific user targeted by them and/or law-enforcement.