> This isn't the first time I've heard from folks that the whole thing comes off as scammy / scareware. Is it the website design? The copy? The readme on GitHub? The name of the project?
This is interesting, it's hard to put my finger on it. There's nothing in particular that I think is "wrong" but there were a few subtle things that might have caused me to bounce were I not already curious:
1) It made the front page of HN (so I'm already primed to expect a SAAS) and it was the landing page (rather than, say, the git repo)
2) The domain name mismatch with the project name - other comments have already mentioned this one - and especially the "Brave" in there (which has an immediate negative association for me)
3) The suggestion of cloud DNS servers and cost model in the main landing page, which made me wonder for a second about the business model and incentives
4) The github link wasn't terribly prominent and the phrase "open source" (while present) doesn't stand out visually (when I see something like this I know to ctrl+f for "github" and "source" so I found both of them without issue, it's that just they weren't immediately apparent).
I know I'm an outlier in many ways, though, so I don't know how far those observations would take you in general. In my case a prominent link to an F-Droid page (or a note by the Play Store badge that F-Droid support is being considered) would have sent a signal I would recognize instantly, for example! Something minor like hosting the APK as a github release and changing the non-Play-Store download link to "download from github" also would have clued me in immediately.
> This isn't the first time I've heard from folks that the whole thing comes off as scammy / scareware. Is it the website design? The copy? The readme on GitHub? The name of the project?
This is interesting, it's hard to put my finger on it. There's nothing in particular that I think is "wrong" but there were a few subtle things that might have caused me to bounce were I not already curious:
1) It made the front page of HN (so I'm already primed to expect a SAAS) and it was the landing page (rather than, say, the git repo)
2) The domain name mismatch with the project name - other comments have already mentioned this one - and especially the "Brave" in there (which has an immediate negative association for me)
3) The suggestion of cloud DNS servers and cost model in the main landing page, which made me wonder for a second about the business model and incentives
4) The github link wasn't terribly prominent and the phrase "open source" (while present) doesn't stand out visually (when I see something like this I know to ctrl+f for "github" and "source" so I found both of them without issue, it's that just they weren't immediately apparent).
I know I'm an outlier in many ways, though, so I don't know how far those observations would take you in general. In my case a prominent link to an F-Droid page (or a note by the Play Store badge that F-Droid support is being considered) would have sent a signal I would recognize instantly, for example! Something minor like hosting the APK as a github release and changing the non-Play-Store download link to "download from github" also would have clued me in immediately.