I’m on a privacy tear today so I thought I’d mention this start-up. Officially launching on Wednesday, Spotflux is a browser encryption plug-in for Windows and OS X. Simply put, it protects your Internet connection by encrypting all connections through a VPN. Arguably there are approximately a billion VPN services, but this one looks to be one of the simplest I’ve seen in a while.
To run it you simply download the app and flip a switch. The servers do the rest. A little digging shows us that the service used to be called RaptorVPN but is now rebranded as a simpler, cleaner offering. There is no mention of capacity, however, which is the Achilles heel of many of these VPN offerings. If the servers choke under pressure – and there’s no telling if they will right now – the service is worthless.
The founders explained that the service also strips out “dangerous” web data including known malware and unwanted tracking services.
There are plenty of ways to keep others from snooping on your Internet traffic. While Spotflux is one, I personally like DNSCrypt coupled with OpenDNS to stop DNS snooping/spoofing and HideMyAss when I’m trying to pretend I’m not where I really am. Services like Spotflux offer a decidedly cheaper but less fully-featured experience for the average web user, ensuring that, on the aggregate, things that need to be kept in the dark (passwords, credit cards, and the like) will be kept in the dark.
The company raised $1 million in seed funding last year and was founded by Dean Mekkawy and Chris Naegelin. They’re based in Brooklyn, N.Y.