Thoughts on Google’s Outline VPN?

VPN
1

Hi, I am trying to become more private. That included throwing google out of my life.

However, the only shadowsocks app I could find in the AppStore is Outline VPN, which is made by Jigsaw which is a subsidiary of Google. I share VPN with some of my friends, so using an app that is not in the AppStore is out of the question.

Is this a trustworthy app, are there any alternatives?

2

There are a lot of alternatives, but I recommend ProtonVPN. They’re based in Switzerland and don’t collect any logs.

3

Outline VPN has lots of tracking SDKs embedded in it. It’s a product of Jigsaw, one of the subsidiaries of Alphabet. The community anticipated it.

There are some ways to verify my “claim”, but you’re on iOS. There is also a good Shadowsocks client for Android, and it’s FOSS. I’m sure there are a handful of trustworthy SS proxy providers out there.

Avoid Outline VPN.

4

By “App Store” you mean iOS?

What is shadowsocks and why is it do or die for you?

5

Thanks for suggestion, but I’m looking for a shadowsocks service. Sadly vpns like Mullvad do not work in countries with aggressive censorship.

Have ProtonVPN enabled shadowsocks?

6

Thanks for info!
Can you please elaborate on extent of this tracking? How bad is it? I believe their app is open source, maybe some 3rd party code audits?

Also I’m a bit confused about term “provider” since I’m running my own outline instance on hosting that at least claims to be privacy friendly. I know it’s their code but still maybe there is a “ungoogled” version of it I can install?

7

Shadowsocks is used to hide the facts that you are using a VPN. This is useful is some places that try to block VPN access to reinforce censorship or track it’s citizens e.g. China or Kazakhstan (and some that are transitioning like Russia)

So my situation is like this: I cannot make my friends give up their iPhones or jail-break them, but any other protocol I tried fail semi-often so… I guess I’m stuck with this app

8

Yes, this is my concern as well. This is the only reason I made this post.
Regarding sharing vpn with friend I don’t think I understand you fully. Can you please elaborate? Why is it not okay?

9

I used Mullvad and I agree with you. Sadly Mullvad does not provide Shadowsocks on iOS and that is a dealbreaker for me.
Cannot comment on torguard since I didn’t use it and that one privacy guy doesn’t have much info on it

10

According to Mullvad they offer Shadowsocks:

11

I love you, u/dadbot_2. :girl:t4::heart::robot:

12

To be specific about the trackers, I could install Outline, then run it through the RE utilities I use to inspect apps. Once I’m done, I’ll uninstall it.

Let me know if this would be OK for you.

If you’re self-hosting a SS proxy, that’s lovely. I saw an alternative SS client for iOS, but I didn’t save the link. I’ll look it up again later.

13

Here is the official alternative Shadowsocks client for iOS: Big Boss.

Looks like either the app hasn’t been updated in more than five years, or the website information is stale. It’s better to get the app from the GitHub project listed there.

Just checked. The GitHub page no longer exists.

I got this client from the official Shadowsocks website. Seems weird that they’d still list abandonware. Maybe it works pretty well, and there haven’t been any complaints from the userbase.