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Comment by epscylonb | Hacker News Reader

Agree that they are on to something. I gave a tech talk about them a while ago at work and said that I think they are on the cusp of providing a consumer VPN product that appeals to mainstream consumers. The Apple of VPNs, everything "just works" and is easy to understand.

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Do mainstream consumers really need a VPN?

Tailscale isn’t really a VPN, it’s an OSI layer 5 for the TCP/IP world. It makes connectivity as easy as 90s LAN parties were.

I use Tailscale - so I can do remote tech support on my 81 year old mother’s computer

- So I can remote in to my desktop from anywhere with my mobile phone or iPad or Vision Pro or Steam Deck if I need a file or need to print something

- watching streaming media from my home network when I’m travelling (and avoiding VPN blocks because my home computer isn’t on a known VPN network)

And the best part is none of this required almost any configuration beyond (a) installing the software, (b) checking the “allow exit node” box on my home computer, (c) sharing my mom’s computer onto my tailnet.

It really is just useful with minimal fuss.

The Magic DNS feature is super cool as well. I'm not sure exactly what the mainstream killer app would be. But I feel like Tailscale is poised to execute if/when it arises.

Perhaps the AI age makes everyone more data privacy conscious.

I've also long thought that eventually every household will eventually have a mini server for home automation and storing personal information. The rise of the cloud kinda slowed this down, but I don't think cloud and home server are mutually exclusive.

> I'm not sure exactly what the mainstream killer app would be.

Maybe a NAS that comes with Jellyfin and Immich pre-installed? But that still leaves the problem of content...

I hosted an Arma 3 server via Tailscale with a bunch of non technical folks running the daemon using magic links b

I used to host an Arma 3 server using Kubernetes, I had a scalable set of headless clients to distribute the AI load. My friends called said it was the smoothest server they ever played on despite using hundreds of AI groups. With Tailscale I wouldn't have needed host networking enabled on the Pods, come to think of it.

What do you mean by AI groups in this case?

The CPU controlled squads of enemy soldiers and vehicles the players shoot. Arma is a first-person shooter game. The game engine it uses is not heavily multi-threaded, but the multiplayer system has some weird quirks that you can exploit to distribute AI processing across multiple networked instances, either in a multi-core or multi-machine topology.

I get all that, but why do you say it's not a VPN and then go on describe it as a VPN at length? Of course it's a VPN.

Is it because lot of people are just using a VPN as a proxy replacement, watering down the original meaning of the word?

> Is it because lot of people are just using a VPN as a proxy replacement, watering down the original meaning of the word?

Yes. The question was about a “mainstream consumer”. While “mainstream” is always a moving target, today (in March 2025) that mainstream consumer believes that a VPN == NordVPN == ExpressVPN == what we call/know as a proxy.

NordVPN added some mesh features and you can CTRL-F this thread to find a confused person asking “how is tailscale different than Nord?”

>So I can remote in to my desktop from anywhere with my mobile phone or iPad or Vision Pro or Steam Deck if I need a file or need to print something

What's app do you use to browse data on your desktop?

Yeah I mean that's all good stuff, but I just don't see mainstream consumers having a need for all of that. Barely anyone even has a desktop anymore.

Yes, although many won't realize it.

I use VPN (usually Tailscale, though I have the Proton subscription package that includes their VPN - mainly useful if for some reason my home internet is slow or out, otherwise I would just TS it) on all public WiFi. My work's remote access blocks logins from outside the US, so if I'm out of the country, my wife and I both need VPN to be able to log in.

Interestingly, while my work's network blocks Tailscale's initial authentication, it doesn't actually block the traffic. I can authenticate my iPad via cell phone tethering or just before I leave the house and it will work when I connect to their network. It's a personal device without any access to their internal network, and I'm using the guest network, so I'm not compromising security to actual work devices. But when I'm stuck up there and I want to stream a movie from my NAS at home, I can.

I had some of my family install Tailscale to access my tailnet. They can watch movies from my collection more easily than using Netflix, and we can share files through the client with a single click. I have other friends using it to play old-school dedicated server games without having to deal with CGNAT/hairpin NAT problems.

Maybe if there was a mainstream reason to connect home machines with their phones. Personal backup, game streaming, etc. im not in this camp of believing it but maybe!

I do this - I self host my movies/TV, ebooks, comics, photos, etc. and use tailscale to access it from anywhere. It's not really great for "mainstream" but for "tech enthusiast" it's very useful. Basically anyone who would consider buying a NAS (most consumer NAS devices can also run Docker containers these days)

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