2d ago

Chrome VPN Extension With 100k Installs Screenshots All Sites Users Visit

koi-security.webflow.io

SpyVPN: The Google-Featured VPN That Secretly Captures Your Screen | Koi Blog

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/35967051

Most people turn to a VPN for one reason: privacy. And with its verified badge, featured placement, and 100k+ installs, FreeVPN.One looked like a safe choice. But once it’s in your browser, it’s not working to keep you safe, it’s continuously watching you.

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2d ago

Chrome VPN Extension With 100k Installs Screenshots All Sites Users Visit

koi-security.webflow.io /blog/spyvpn-the-vpn-that-secretly-captures-your-screen

83 comments

There's no such thing as free vpn. Any idiot who falls for this quite frankly deserves it.
You can't trust extensions these days. Granted if you are using a "free" vpn, you are the product.
Sure THIS will protect the children!
/s
There are things on the internet that are free and fine to use. VPNs are not one of them. They have ongoing hosting and bandwidth costs. They are not eating those costs without recouping them somehow.
God that ai image the article uses is such shit
- The dingy color scheme gives it away immediately. AI thinks comics should look dingy. Are all LLMs trained on comics printed on old newspaper or something?
  
  It's similar to something we'd do on purpose in the mid 2010's, deep frying, when people made satirical MLG compilations they would throw memes in as many filters as possible, making a piss yellow slowly cover the meme the more filters you used.
How the fuck else do you think a for profit company is offering free tech?
- Free trial with limitations is a classic method that has worked well
  
  I’m saying it’s literally a free VPN. But they’re q company. If they’re offering you free shit, you’re the product.
pay an illustrator, ai slophorse.
Ubiquiti router with all traffic (excluding streaming sites and video games) encrypted via Mulvad. Checkmate atheists.
Also PS, if you’re not paying for the product you’re the product. Checks notes: I’m not paying for Lemmy?
PPS reminder to donate to Lemmy/PieFed
- Whats more is that, anyone who creates a server can scrape all the data on fediverse. It's every AI company's wet dream.
  And any comment you delete will still be visible to server admin.
  Lemmy currently does have these privacy issues
  
  OMG! They will know all of Hue Manne's secrets!!!
  
  Meh you’re not wrong, but I just wanna browse content and not see ads. Capitalism is gonna capitalism, but I just want it to leave me alone. There’s a good chance I’m gonna regret this later lol.
- excluding
  Why?
  
  Minecraft, to keep my ping down
  Streaming, because Netflix and others will aggressively block VPNs
- I'm looking to expand beyond my edge router X. What router do you use?
  
  I’m using a cloud gateway max with a single U7 Wall Pro AP. 10/10 performance for my medium small sized apartment.
Any free VPN is a scam.
- is ProtonVPN a scam then? no.
  Most are, but not necessarily
  
  Honestly I thought their vpn was only on paid plans. Kinda impressed they offer it free. I assume it’s a way to get people into the ecosystem and also use their email and etc
- Proton isn't.
  
  andy yen is a pro big tech fash so yeah it is
  
  Didn’t even know they offered a free vpn. I thought it was only on paid plans. Shrugs, I already use mullvad
- Unless you sign up for a VPS free trial yourself and set it up. I have two Oracle always free instances running right now
  
  Ya if you are hosting it yourself then pretty different. I use them for a basic Nextcloud server myself. Their ARM servers are dirt cheap even when you have to go above their free generous cores and ram.
  
  be forewarned, oracle is known to randomly just delete free VPSs out of nowhere with no warning.
  
  What's the point of setting up a VPN like that?
Never use VPN add-ons for your browser. Unless you get them along with your paid VPN. You should run your entire network through the VPN, not just a browser.
- I use my paid vpn extension (Nord) to select a Country for twitch.tv which isn't served ads. However I would all my traffic go through that specific vpn as it causes trouble with other appe/pages. So being able to cnveniently switch my IP per domain is pretty nice sometimes.
  
  It is a paid VPN luckily though. The issue is with "free" VPN browser add-ons.
  There's also different adblocker rules and extensions for twitch ads.
  
  Curious, what country doesn't get twitch ads?
- Do you not run into issues doing this? I'm constantly having to split my VPN or disable my VPN for certain logins to work, such as banks, government sites and shit.
  
  For some games and websites I have to turn it off yeah. Or at least switch the server to one that isn't blocked.
  It's a shame that websites are allowed to track and block VPNs.
  
  Seperate browser for Clearnet /KYC
  For example "mullvad-exclude trivalent"
  I actually go further and have seperate VMs with different networks (VPN1, VPN2, whonix, i2p, or clearnet
  That way split tunneling feature Is not needed and I can have 2 mullvad clients on lockdownmode connected at once
  
  Most people don't need to run everything though a VPN. That just slows everything down. You would normally only use them to access resources on a private LAN such as when working from home or accessing your self hosted services when away from home.
  
  That's why I temporarily disable it for some websites
- Not to be confused with "Tor Browser" (not a VPN, just providing clarification)
- Unfortunately that means disabling my entire network VPN anytime I need to bypass a VPN block. And also makes switching between different servers significantly more complicated.
use either Mullvad (yes, I know, the GUI sucks) or set up your own VPN.
the mullvad cli is very quick and easy. it's a lot faster than what it was. OR set up your own wireguard VPN on your server, again very easy to set up.
- Those two are for pretty different use cases, no? First is for general internet access - for semi-anonymity or to skip Geo blocks. Second is when you want to access specific services you host yourself.
- What about proton?
VPNs are wild to me. "Hey! Pay some company to promise not to watch you so you can pretend to be private and not have some company watching you."
- Generally speaking, if you're paying for a VPN, then you should be paying for a provider that is no log. Free VPNs, you get what you pay for, which is nothing. So you don't really get any security with that.
  
  I've watched this go down long enough in enough industries to know better than to believe their claim of not logging.
  You're being watched. Hell, your data's probably being handed over to cops without your knowledge.
- better than having a company that is directly known as watching you and sending all of it to your government
  some companies have built a strong reputation
  
  Knowing a company is watching me because it's openly known, is to me better than paying a company to not watch me and likely risk them simply selling out eventually like they all do.
  It's funnier when you stupidly expected them to protect you, PAID them for it, and they don't.
  It's like 23andme. Too fucking funny and everyone deserves it for their stupidity.
  
  What's better? The devil you know or the devil you don't?
it’s FreeVPN.One
Hey, you know when people in the UK were saying that the online safety act would drive teenagers to use dodgy vpns? This is what we meant.
Stopped reading as soon as I saw an AI image for the article.
- Isnt that at the top?
  
  Yup. Spent about 1.5 seconds on that site before closing it out.
This is the reason I've always been skeptical of all those Video Download Non Plus Ultra Pro 9000 extensions, also in Firefox. I'm like yea right. Next thing I know I'll be getting copyright infringement and piracy notices plus cease-and-desist letters.
good thing they got rid of adblockers to make users safer tho
- not on firefox they didn't
  
  TIL Chrome makes Firefox.
First mistake: using Chrome.
So Microsoft Recall but by a third party?
People won't plug their phone into a USB socket in an airport lounge, but they will install software that sends 100% of their web traffic to a third party and has unfettered device permissions.
- But you have to understand that it's still preferable to a wanking license.
What about Firefox? Looks like it exists for more than just chrome. I know because I literally used it this week for the first time ever due to being on vacation in a state that wants my photo to view porn... I couldn't believe this shit actually exists now.
Yup. You gotta read the fine print folks. You can all got to stack social and pick up 5 years of adguard vpn with no log policy. Its not the best out there, but its not horrible either. And at around 26 quid for 5 years, it aint bad.
Not unexpected

83 comments