Thoughts on ZenMate?

[hellogoodbye]

I was just telling a friend that I had bought a VPN service (VPN.sh's recent special, to be exact) to mostly stream Netflix at the moment when she asked me why I wasn't using a free service like ZenMate. It's apparently a recent startup to offer VPN-like browser security and is currently free at the moment, though they have plans to introduce tiered payment plans down the road.

How it works

 

With the ZenMate extension running in your Chrome browser, your internet traffic gets encrypted and redirected via the high speed ZenMate servers. This way your real IP and location are hidden. It works just like a VPN but is much more simple to use: on and off with a single click! We also compress all data going through the ZenMate cloud for maximum browsing speed.

 

https://zenmate.com/

 

Has anyone heard of or tried this plugin? I'm not very familiar with VPNs so I'm curious about how it stacks up against something like OpenVPN, what the advantages/disadvantages are (other than the fact that it only works on Chrome-based browsers), any security concerns etc. What do you think of it? 

 

[KuJoe]

I'm not a big fan of browser plugins when it comes to security. I think you made the right choice going with a VPN service you have some control over (i.e. the client).

 

[HalfEatenPie]

Yeah I'd have to agree with KuJoe on this. I mean there isn't much more to add except "I agree".  You have more/better control when connecting using a VPN client than a browser plugin (in addition, many good browser plugin developers have (in the past) sold out their plugin to advertisement companies and whatnot).  

 

[iWF-Jacob]

Eh, I've used it. It wasn't anything special, it worked. I think they are catering towards an audience that may not know how to connect to a standard VPN. At the moment I believe they only have a couple locations, so I would imagine their IP space will be blocked fairly soon by places like Netflix.