I am still getting emails from people asking if we are really renaming to YellowFur.com. Sorry for those that fell for our April Fools joke, no need to worry but we will be keeping our great domain and brand BlueFur.com.
Now that we own YellowFur.com I was thinking that we could create a sister site with a new service. I have been doing some research on providing VPN services. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. The way a VPN works is it allows you to connect to a remote network so that you can then surf the Internet from that server.
Why would anyone want to use that service? I have found a few sites, especially movie, TV and music sites that prohibit Canadians from viewing content based on having a Canadian IP. If I were to connect to a US based VPN I could then surf to these sites without any issue and view the content. There is a downside to VPN in that there is usually a reason why those sites are blocking access (legal issues). There is also the concern that someone would be using the VPN to spam, phish or do some illegal behavior. We have the ability to phone verify customers automated so those doing illegal behavior can be curbed.
With those factors in mind what do you think of us offering a VPN service?
Pricing would be in the $10 per month range which would include a secure VPN with a dedicated IP on a server in the US. We would have a 50% off coupon for BlueFur.com customers bringing the price in around $5 per month. I am curious to see what you think of this type of service before we continue with any internal testing.
What other services could we brand with YellowFur.com if not this?
Nick
April 15, 2008 11:46 am
Why would people use this service over a proxy. It the same thing , http://www.proxy.org , you can surf sites through different I.P address all over the world and its 100% free.
I’m guessing this is something a little different.
Dr. Cossack
April 15, 2008 6:11 pm
Huh, this is something that I might be interested in if it was done properly, and the price you mention sounds decent enough. I’ve run into several walls before trying to access US-only sites, even if there was no apparent reason to block Canadian visitors.
Nick raises a good point, though: what’s the difference between using VPN and a Proxy for the scenario you described? I’m no expert at that stuff, so I’m curious to learn more about it. :)
Bill
April 16, 2008 5:11 am
Well, VPNs aren’t really like a proxy. They tunnel so that you can have security, etc., and are mostly used by companies to allow people to connect to the business intranet over the internet. So, your VPN client would have an IP address on the company network and be able to access everything, but you’d still be using your home IP externally.
I assume this setup would be sort of the same, but you’d tunnel to the US server and connect from there, so requests would look like they were coming from the US. Although most VPNs will make it look like your home IP is the one being used when you are not accessing the secure network.
Of course, if you are just trying to hide the IP address of where you are from, there are easier ways (including proxies).
I’m curious what VPN solution YellowFur would use… Something simple like SSH with port forwarding or a VPN solution like Cisco offers?
blogadmin
April 16, 2008 5:42 pm
We have been testing out open VPN software.
Proxies are usually banned quickly from most sites.
Matt
April 16, 2008 6:42 pm
How exactly do you connect to a VPN?