Alternatives
Products that do what Responding to NSA spying with a simple consumer VPN service does
The NSA metadata gathering and passive monitoring is quite upsetting, and we don't have much confidence in legal changes happening quickly, so we put together a really simple consumer VPN service. We're still cleaning up the UI and making the install process easier, but it should work for people now. Yes, it's based in the US, but there's a big difference between "will turn over data proactively" and "will push back on requests to the fullest extent of the law". Since we don't fall under CALEA, there's no requirement for us to have any monitoring infrastructure. We're focusing on the mobile…
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5ATAsk the NSA▲68
"The NSA Transparency Initiative was undertaken in response to the recent unauthorized disclosure of classified information. This website will answer your questions about the NSA's programs."
2013 · askthensa.com
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10IW
Hi everyone, after months of hard-working, I'm glad to have something to show HN. It's an iOS app to help you directly capture and intercept HTTP/HTTPS Traffic from your iPhone/iPad with ease. It's suitable for any developers who would debug iOS without needing a computer. You can also share all traffic to Proxyman macOS via AirDrop for better previewing. - Please join a beta in TestFlight (iOS 14+): https://testflight.apple.com/join/nQ69eb35 - How it works if you don't have any devices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpzpoTN8efM&feature=youtu.be…
2021
- 11VW
We've been working on Verelo website monitoring for just over six months now. Our project was created out of frustrations with existing monitoring tools while working in the DevOps team at our past employer. We consider ourselves different to what's out there today for a few reasons: - Our main goal is to provide a monitoring service which can truly help you meet and prove your SLA. This means a few critical enhancements from what's out there today. - We provide sub-minute checks. You can use us to check as regularly as every 5 seconds (for paid accounts, free beta accounts can only do 60…
2012
- 12IM
I spent last 6 months trying to build Simple Ops [1] to democratize website performance monitoring so anyone can use it. A year back, while I was trying to measure performance for Visa List as it became a huge content website with more than 100K pages. Also as data is changing very frequently, it's very hard to keep doing this manually. I searched on google and found that all the solutions are just uptime monitoring and nothing and none of them truly measure performance. So I decided to build one for myself. But it turns out website performance monitoring is not so simple after all and with…
2020
- 13IB
Hi HN, I'd like to share a small Go utility I wrote called prxy. The idea was born out of my frustration with accessing my self-hosted services when I'm on the go. I use WireGuard to connect to my homelab, but I really dislike sending all my computer's traffic through my home network — it slows things down and is inconvenient. I wanted proper application-level split-tunneling. A tool I love, wireproxy, got me most of the way there by creating an HTTP proxy from a WireGuard peer. This is perfect for apps that let you configure a proxy. The problem was the other 10%: apps that don't. Think of…
2025 · github.com
- 14
- 15MN
Hello HNers. I'm launching my new service, Certician, and I'd love some feedback from HN users. A while back, I asked if anyone knew of any good, simple tools or services for monitoring SSL certificates [1]. I didn't find any compelling services, so I decided to build one. I tried to keep it simple, since it's self-run and bootstrapped. I know my landing page needs help. It's a lot harder to distill down a service (even a simple one) into compelling, actionable copy than I thought! I have to work at my real job today, so I'll only be able to reply when I have time to take a break for a…
2011
- 16IH
Last week I decided to have a go at building a location based app, using native APIs for both android and iphone, but using a webview to display the content. It came together pretty well I think, still waiting for the ios app store to approve or reject the app. The app sends messages to anyone within 100 metres of you: http://herenow.nolanconsul.com/ I blogged a bit about it here: http://bennolan.com/2014/05/27/herenow-retrospective.html
2014
- 17
Hi HN, Shawn here. My rooftop system lost about half a year of production and nobody told me. Not the installer, not the monitoring app, not the utility. I found out from an electric bill that made no sense, then spent weeks digging through the monitoring portal by hand. SunRanker is what I wished existed that day. Connect a system once (Enphase OAuth, or a SolarEdge site ID plus API key) and it reads production daily, shows it in plain language, and emails you when something actually changes. Three alerts only. The connection broke, the monitoring went quiet, or output has been well below…
27d ago · sunranker.com
- 18EC
We launched an early version of our uptime monitoring service Erlywarn to the public this week. http://erlywarn.com The project was scratching an itch that monitoring services would only alert you if your site went down and not if they started responding slowly or erratically. So we built Erlywarn to keep track of the response times and allow it to send notifications if your site responds unusually, as this is often an early warning sign that something is starting to go wrong. It's only been 2 weeks from conception to this, so feedback would be most welcome, especially: Would you consider…
2011
- 19TG
Is anyone else on HN participating in this FCC research project to measure broadband performance? [1] I signed up for more information when the project was announced, some time ago, but a few days ago the device arrived. Technically, it is quite an interesting little box. It's a generic consumer device, shaped like a wireless router, with an antenna and five RJ-45 jacks. But it works more like a bridge, plugging in between my existing ADSL modem/wireless-router and any wired devices that used to be plugged directly into the existing ADSL. No changes needed to be made to any of the…
2013
- 20NM
Raising my hand as someone who's checked Settings > General > Software Update way too many times. I got tired of finding out about iOS updates from Twitter 6 hours after they dropped, so I built EarlyNotify. It's dead simple: the system watches Apple's firmware servers, and when a new iOS/iPadOS/macOS/watchOS/tvOS update hits, you get an email within 15 minutes. That's it. No app to install. No account dashboard. Just an email saying "hey, iOS 26.1 just dropped." It's free, open-source, no upsells, just notifications. Would love any feedback! Happy to answer questions…
Nov 2025 · earlynotify.com
- 21VA
I miss the old web. As a kid I could type in "a/s/l" in AOL messenger and chat with someone my own age, without worrying about the dangers that lurk on the web today. After seeing what happened to Omegle, a question stuck: is there a simple way to do age verification that both keeps people safe and doesn't contribute to a surveillance state? After a year of hard work, that question resulted in AGEWARDEN. Each part of the service puts people first. No tracking, nothing stored (it's more difficult these days to NOT collect data :smh:). Please give it a try if you have a moment…
Jun 2026 · agewarden.ai
- 22MO
Sup HN, So a couple of months ago I posted my OSINT app ShadowBroker here and got WAY more attention than I expected. Some of the feedback was brutal, but honestly, a lot of it was right, and it made the project a lot better. And sure, I had a blast tracking billionaire jets and yachts or discovering GPS jamming in Ukraine was a thrill, and so was watching CCTV feeds from London, along with ships, satellites, conflict zones, etc., but eventually it dawned on me…where does my OSINT dashboard actually go from there? What good is all of the telemetry if people cannot communicate with each other…
May 2026 · github.com
- 23UB
A few months ago, i was looking for a simple uptime monitor service to monitor my websites, but i wanted some extra features that i couldn't find anywhere. These aren't wild features, but oddly enough couldn't find a service that was easy to setup, cheap, and that could do simple uptime mointoring for databases (sql & mongodb), docker containers, rabbitmq queues and os memory/cpu. It's only when i was almost done that i realized uptime monitoring services had become something of mania in the indiehacker/solopreneur world. Anyways, hoping it can provide value to some of you.…
2023 · uptimefunk.com
- 24IH
Hi HN, Long time reader, first time poster. The EV charging infrastructure in the US is quite a mess (unlike the EU), where we have very few roaming options and the apps suck to use. Have been spending the past year building a native Swift app which lets you charge with over 7 networks, and it's really easy to use. I've seen a lot of threads on HN on this topic so thought I'd share it here :) iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/porta-charge/id6449201933 Sorry that it's not on Android yet... I made a web app for the time being, which lets you start a charge from…
2024
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Refine with a description →