Beware of the Facebook VPN
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Do Not, I Repeat, Do Not Download Onavo, Facebook’s Vampiric VPN Service
Dell Cameron
Monday 4:45pmFiled to: FACESUCK.....
There’s a new menu item in the Facebook app, first reported by TechCrunch on Monday, labeled “Protect.” Clicking it will send you to the App Store and prompt you to download a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service called Onavo. (“Protect” shows up in the iOS app. Gizmodo looked for it on an Android device and didn’t see it—though, presumably it is only a matter of time.)
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Facebook, however, purchased Onavo from an Israeli firm in 2013 for an entirely different reason, as described in a Wall Street Journal report last summer. The company is actually collecting and analyzing the data of Onavo users. Doing so allows Facebook to monitor the online habits of people outside their use of the Facebook app itself. For instance, this gave the company insight into Snapchat’s dwindling user base, even before the company announced a period of diminished growth last year.
To put it another way, Onavo is corporate spyware.
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[TechCrunch] -
@catweazle I've edited your subject line for you [in my own mind, anyway]:
Beware of Facebook
Do Not, I Repeat, Do Not Download Facebook -
@steffie said in Beware of the Facebook VPN:
@catweazle I've edited your subject line for you [in my own mind, anyway]:
Beware of Facebook
Do Not, I Repeat, Do Not Download FacebookThen we have edited both at the same time XD
Thank's -
I'm using Diaspora
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This post is deleted! -
@anajames said in Beware of the Facebook VPN:
The reason I have never opted for a free VPN service. Free VPN service means you have to pay a price for it in some other way and that is definitely your personal data.
That is only true for totally free services. There are free VPN accounts with limited speeds, data allowance and exit nodes. They make the money with people upgrading to a premium account.
I don't need a VPN very often or for big things, so the free Avira VPN does me just fine.
Invading your privacy is not the only way to make money when offering free services. There are often paid upgrades or other products available. -
@dr-flay said in Beware of the Facebook VPN:
@anajames said in Beware of the Facebook VPN:
The reason I have never opted for a free VPN service. Free VPN service means you have to pay a price for it in some other way and that is definitely your personal data.
That is only true for totally free services. There are free VPN accounts with limited speeds, data allowance and exit nodes. They make the money with people upgrading to a premium account.
I don't need a VPN very often or for big things, so the free Avira VPN does me just fine.
Invading your privacy is not the only way to make money when offering free services. There are often paid upgrades or other products available.If you only use a VPN in a timely manner, for example to watch a restricted video in your country, a free trusted VPN can suffice (For this, it is often enough for me to use the Startpage proxies or watch the video in its search result. For this I like Startpage), but this, many free are not, some are directly a fake, traffic with your data or they even steal bandwidth, using your IP as a server.
In the free VPN you have to be very careful, nobody gives anything for free and a server always costs money.
Always read the small letters in their conditions of service. -
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