Tailscale only allows you to create a new account by signing in with Google, Microsoft or GitHub. It's a real shame because it's a great service otherwise, but this left a very sour taste.
The term "VPN service" has become synonymous with "proxy service that allows circumventing region locks that is implemented using VPN". These services are often pretty scammy and have come in the news often for harvesting user data.
These VPN services have little to do with the traditional meaning of a VPN. They don't provide a private network at all, they just use VPN tech to implement a proxy service.
Tailscale is not a "VPN service" in that sense, they actually provide software for setting up a VPN between computers you control.
Yes, that's what my comment is about: Tailscale is about privacy from the outside world for your network, not the privacy and anonymity VPN proxy services claim to provide.
Something being private and having privacy mean very different things in practice. I can stand in the middle of a field that is my private land, but have no privacy from people on the adjacent road looking at what I'm doing or listening to what I'm saying.
No they don’t. VPNs allow _access_ to a set of subnets that might not be accessible otherwise - normally from external to private. Even though usually vpn traffic is encrypted it’s not a rule or an inherent property of VPNs - see GRE and PPTP for example.
It does look like they support SAML and OIDC. I think the idea here is that many (most?) Tailscale users will be corporations, and most corporations would rather integrate Tailscale access with their existing auth system, and not have an extra employee account to deal with that needs to be disabled when the employee leaves the company.
That does make things harder for small shops where things are more ad-hoc, or an individual hobbyist who wants to use it. But not sure how much of Tailscale's market consists of people like that, or if Tailscale even cares that much about that segment. No judgment if they don't; that's a perfectly reasonable decision to make.
If you want anonymity, why not just create new Google/Microsoft/GitHub accounts? How is that different from creating a new "Tailscale account" - presumably with what, your existing gmail address?
