CrazyPhuD |
08-16-2013 05:19 PM |
So do understand technically what it means when you sign up for the 'Hola Unblocker'.
So it would be awesome if they were running as a pure VPN because then all traffic would be routed through them. But then the traffic costs would be massive for them. Instead what they do is set up your machine as a peer to peer server and they use the bandwidth of all the people running the Hola service to deliver the video. While your system is up and running Hola will be using your bandwidth to upload and download data to other clients who may be streaming even if you're not actively watching.
For many people this will probably be no issue, but if you have bandwidth caps in your system this can be a problem. It's the age old issue of you never really get anything for free.
Is there a potentially legal risk involved? Possibly, you are acting like a P2P server in delivery copyrighted content to other people. Considering that you gain economic benefit by watching copyrighted content for free, you don't have the same protections that say someone who runs a TOR system does.
Do they do enough things to protect you if the copyright cops wanted to come after you? I honestly don't know, I'd have to see their system architecture to know for sure.
This isn't meant to say if you should or should not use the service. All this is meant to do is to educate you about what the service is that you are using and to say there is some risk in using it. It may not be huge, but it is still there.
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