SlipstreamVPN

Overview

SlipstreamVPN is a Chrome extension proxy that encrypts your traffic, allowing you to unblock sites and browse privately. SlipstreamVPN blocks connections to ad and proxy servers for a fast and unobtrusive browsing experience. The project includes a Chrome extension, a main website, and an account management site

Pricing & Monetization

SlipstreamVPN includes a generous free tier, with limits on bandwidth and monthly data usage. Users are able to subscribe to one of two higher tiers, and are prompted to do so when they run out of data for the month. Stripe and a webhook is used to manage billing and subscriptions.

DevOps

SlipstreamVPN's proxy server is run as a DigitalOcean droplet due to favorable data transfer rates compared to other cloud solutions. Firebase is used to manage user authentication, and Google Cloud Platform is used to manage application logs and monitor availability. The main site, account management site, and proxy server are checked for availability once every minute from 5 regions via GCP Monitoring. If any server fails to respond, returns a HTTP status other than 200, or fails to respond within a timeout, an alert is created and a notification is sent to my mobile device.

Memcached is used to cache data before it is uploaded to Firebase. Firebase Firestore is used to store account information and data usage.

A dashboard, shown below, unifies various statistics from GCP Monitoring. (Note that the "No data is available for the selected time frame" warnings are present because there were no application errors in the last timeframe.)