# Obscura VPN

12 Hacker News commenters recommended Obscura VPN and 16 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** People recommend its two-hop design, which splits trust between two parties. The most common caveat is its US jurisdiction and possible legal compulsion.

## Why people recommend it

- No single party to trust (9 comments): "Obscura makes it so that there's no single party that if hacked or otherwise compromised would hurt your internet privacy." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49808204)) "Having a company outside of EU jurisdiction makes it hard for both layers to be compromised at the same time." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49808992)) "With Multi-Party Relays you no longer have a trust a single entity not being malicious or compromised." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49807969))

## What people warn about

- US jurisdiction exposes it to orders (5 comments): "If men with guns and gag orders haven't shown up at their new york office yet, they will as soon as this VPN gets popular enough to show up on their radar." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49808460)) "Under US law, a secretive court order could compel a US company to update software or implement targeted logging" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49807450)) "Under US law, a secretive court order could compel a US company to update software" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49807556))
- Privacy claims called misleading or unproven (3 comments): "the claim in Obscura's FAQ that paying with Bitcoin or Monero offers more privacy than paying with a credit card is sadly misguided" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49811530)) "Any vpn company who market itself as aiming for the anonymity of its user is essentially selling snake oil to its customers." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49811200)) "it's just marketing trick, which means they care more about sales than your privacy" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49807421))
- Depends on Mullvad's keys and leadership (3 comments): "It's the latter right now (which is not ideal), but I think Mullvad is going to sign their server pubkeys pretty soon" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49809877)) "The single point of failure for this product is Mullvad and its leadership's changing opinions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49807289)) "Many (if not all) of the benefits on the landing page are available in Mullvad too" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49807302))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Mullvad VPN](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mullvad-vpn.md): 255 recommend
- [Proton VPN](https://hackerapproved.com/p/proton-vpn.md): 63 recommend
- [iCloud Private Relay](https://hackerapproved.com/p/icloud-private-relay.md): 26 recommend
- [Cloudflare WARP](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cloudflare-warp.md): 18 recommend
- [Firefox VPN](https://hackerapproved.com/p/firefox-built-in-vpn.md): 16 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://obscura.com/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Obscura VPN", https://hackerapproved.com/p/obscura-vpn/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).