Arovax Smarthide 2.2.192 Released

[btman]

In case you haven't already heard.. Arovax the company went through some struggles the last couple years.. Daniel Nowak, the Project Manager of Arovax Smarthide, posted on the Smarthide forums:

As some of you probably know, Arovax Company is a small friendly company of people, devoted to the mission of making internet experience of each and every World Wide Web user more safe and secure. Back in 2004 we created a number of projects, each covering it's own field of the Web security. Pretty much all of them were freeware, so we've invested a lot of time, efforts and money developing those, trying to make the web safer for a common internet user.

Unfortunately the lack of resources and the recent global recession did not let us finalize our plans so I have to officially announce that for the current moment Arovax Company stops the further development and support of the following projects:

Arovax Shield (http://www.arovaxshield.com)
Arovax AntiSpyware (http://www.arovaxantispyware.com)
Arovax TraySafe (http://www.traysafe.com)
Arovax NoSpam (http://www.arovaxnospam.com)
Old Arovax Forum (http://forum.arovax.com)

More info here:
http://forum.smarthide.com/showthread.php?t=1

So now they are currently developing and supporting their lead product. Smarthide. Arovax Smarthide has always been a pretty stable, light, anonymizer and hopes to continouslly improve in the future. Arovax had been pretty silent before this re-packaging but from viewing their forums I think it's safe to say their support is back to a place it once was when Arovax's security products started to become known.

Complete change log of Arovax SmartHide v.2.2.192:
*New: Vista x64 compatibility
*New: Revised user interface
*New: Fast server switch from the tray menu
*New: Improved VPN engine
*New: Additional options in settings dialog
*New: Possibility to enter sites into Visibility List
*Fixed: Text links updating during language change
*Fixed: News tab hanging up while opening
*Fixed: After Personal IP selection and SmartHide restart the selection is not saved
*Fixed: With the activated option “Reconnect” and deactivated “SmartHide server change” the connection status is shown incorrectly during the reconnection.
*Fixed: Unstable News tab behavior
*Fixed: Multiple memory leaks

You can download at www.smarthide.com and if you have any questions about the product feel free to register for free at http://forum.smarthide.com/

I almost forgot Danny is also posting all updates for Smarthide, some useful security tips, a bit of an FAQ, and general things about the Arovax Company @ http://blog.smarthide.com/ so feel free to check it out.

[pidbo]

Is that register the software for free or register just to ask questions?

[fuzzylogic]

Has anyone used the paid version and whats the preformance like? Does one get to choose what servers they can connect to or is it just another proxy to the US?

[btman]

Originally Posted by pidbo

Is that register the software for free or register just to ask questions?

Registering on the forums is to ask questions.

Originally Posted by fuzzylogic

Has anyone used the paid version and whats the preformance like? Does one get to choose what servers they can connect to or is it just another proxy to the US?

It's not very heavy on performance at all in my usage. And I'm pretty sure you can choose the servers.

[tipstir]

So we have to paid to block the IP, but a free proxy app would do the same thing for free..

[lordpake]

Tipstir, can you trust free proxies?

Arovax as a a company deals with trust with this service. They help user to stay anonymous.

[btman]

Hello I'm a little late on this one but anyway:

Arovax SmartHide v.2.2.221 is released!

The major change in this release is that Smarthide is now Windows 7 Compatible with a couple bug fixes and has some minor changes in the installation.

www.smarthide.com

Existing members can upgrade from
http://www.smarthide.com/members/index.php

[caspian]

Originally Posted by tipstir

So we have to paid to block the IP, but a free proxy app would do the same thing for free..

I would assume that it does more than just change the IP address. Hopefully it would also encrypt the connection. But if it is a US or UK company, I would be uncomfortable. It may be better not to use anything at all.

[markoman]

I was giving a quick look at the website, and I couldn't find many of the information that I believe are fundamental when choosing an anonimity service, and especially I can't see where the company is based nor what technology is used.
Also, I read that the "Personal Subscription" gives you "Personal IP": not sure what it means, but if it means that the user is assigned an IP only for that user, this is not going to help in making his online activity anonymous.

[btman]

Originally Posted by markoman

I was giving a quick look at the website, and I couldn't find many of the information that I believe are fundamental when choosing an anonimity service, and especially I can't see where the company is based nor what technology is used.
Also, I read that the "Personal Subscription" gives you "Personal IP": not sure what it means, but if it means that the user is assigned an IP only for that user, this is not going to help in making his online activity anonymous.

To be honest for most users just trying to say safe, the website is a simplified resource (e.g. the whole "One Button Click" promo). If you have any questions feel free to post on the Arovax forums and the devs would be glad to answer you! They also have the blog I linked at the beginning of the thread which also might answer some questions.

I don't think the "personal IP" thing is forced upon users either, I think they can turn it on or off.

There's more info on the usefulness of it here though:
http://forum.smarthide.com/showthread.php?t=54