VPN Giveaway 1 Year

Discussion in 'privacy technology' started by MisterB, Jan 13, 2015.

  1. MisterB

    MisterB Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2013
    Posts:
    1,267
    Location:
    Southern Rocky Mountains USA
    http://www.windowsdeal.com/w/okayfreedom-vpn-premium-100-discount/

    This is the second round for this giveaway and I got it a couple of weeks ago. It is pretty basic as VPNs go and you have to use the supplied client even though it uses OpenVPN. The client isn't bad. I find it a bit pushy in the way it sets itself up but it isn't a resource hog like the one that comes with Cyberghost. It also works fine in a standard user account even though the website says it needs to be run by an administrator account. Not a lot of countries and connections to choose from but the connection passes dnsleaktest.com. Bandwidth is decent. The best thing about it is that it is good for a whole year. I don't know a lot about the company but here is the privacy policy. https://www.okayfreedom.com/privacy/

    I am testing it as a secondary VPN in a layered setup. Since it is a freebee, there is no payment transaction that can be traced in any way and it is good as the second or third VPN in a chain if you really want to be anonymous.
     
  2. LockBox

    LockBox Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2004
    Posts:
    2,328
    Location:
    Here, There and Everywhere
    FYI, OkayFreedom is a Steganos product. They're out of Berlin.
     
  3. Nebulus

    Nebulus Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 20, 2007
    Posts:
    1,635
    Location:
    European Union
    I tried to play with it a bit, but unfortunately I couldn't start it on an XP SP3 inside a Virtualbox VM...
     
  4. MisterB

    MisterB Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2013
    Posts:
    1,267
    Location:
    Southern Rocky Mountains USA
    The client is really fussy. There is a bit of conflict with other OpenVPN clients. I'm testing in with Windows XP SP3 on an old thinkpad. I've got the Cyberghost client and the Windows version of OpenVPN on it as well and they all share the same Tap adapter. Installing one OpenVPN client over another just reinstalls the TAP adapter. Okay Freedom renames it to "Steganos VPN Adapter". I noticed this and renamed it to just "VPN Adapter". Okay Freedom stopped working. It does let you dump it's log file to desktop and I did that and it does check the adapter's name. Both Cyberghost and generic OpenVPN do fine whatever the TAP adapter is named. Only one of them can use it at the same time. I wanted to see if I could get two VPN clients going at once and used OpenVPN to make a second TAP adapter. It didn't work. Both were active but the data only passed though one. It did work with VPNgate Softether. I could run OpenVPN on top of it because it set up its own virtual adapter. That was really cool. I had two VPN client tunnels chained on one laptop chained to another in the router. It was slow--around 400kbs--and used a lot of CPU cycles but it worked. Then I put TOR on top of it and it was usable.
     
  5. imdb

    imdb Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 2, 2011
    Posts:
    4,208
    is there a deadline for the activation?
     
  6. MisterB

    MisterB Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2013
    Posts:
    1,267
    Location:
    Southern Rocky Mountains USA
    It is supposed to be activated during the giveaway period. There are now 2 giveaway sites with it so it might go on a few days. And try afterwards anyway. I find a lot of these giveaway keys will work long after the giveaway. Process Lasso is a good example. I installed it months after I downloaded it. The key that was supposed to be used in the 24 hour giveaway period worked fine and even let me upgrade to a new version.
     
  7. subhrobhandari

    subhrobhandari Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 6, 2009
    Posts:
    780
  8. ance

    ance formerly: fmon

    Joined:
    May 5, 2013
    Posts:
    1,360
    Crashes, bugs, Steganos. :thumbd: It's the worst VPN I've ever tested.
     
  9. LockBox

    LockBox Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 20, 2004
    Posts:
    2,328
    Location:
    Here, There and Everywhere
    I tried it and found, as did MisterB, it doesn't play well with any other OpenVPN software. It's solution: Uninstall everything else, of course!
    No go.
     
  10. MisterB

    MisterB Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2013
    Posts:
    1,267
    Location:
    Southern Rocky Mountains USA
    I've had issues with every custom VPN client I've tried. The Cyberghost client wraps a whole lot of eye candy around an OpenVPN TAP connection. I got the 6 month freebee. I had to install the software to register and it required me to install .net 3.5 to work. After trying it, I just downloaded the .ovpn files and use Cyberghost with OpenVPN. The client software for Security Kiss and Torguard didn't impress me very much either. I prefer plain OpenVPN for Windows which is light, reliable and flexible, not to mention open source.

    The actual VPN connection for Okay Freedom was good after the software went through all it's hoops. It did better on a dns leak test than Cyberghost which reveals not only that you are using a VPN but which VPN you are using.
     
  11. imdb

    imdb Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 2, 2011
    Posts:
    4,208
    thanks.
     
  12. ance

    ance formerly: fmon

    Joined:
    May 5, 2013
    Posts:
    1,360
    I reported all bugs but never got an answer. I think they don't really want to fix bugs but they rebrand the user interface every year. Steganos could be a part of Bitdefender. :D
     
  13. MisterB

    MisterB Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2013
    Posts:
    1,267
    Location:
    Southern Rocky Mountains USA
    Cyberghost has a 3 month freebee today.

    http://www.windowsdeal.com/w/cyberghost-5-premium-vpn-discount-coupon/

    Once you get the free account, you can download .ovpn files for the servers that interest you and ditch the Cyberghost client software.

    I just ran OpenVPN with Cyberghost .ovpn file for a couple of hours. The bandwidth is good. Cyberghost uses it's own DNS server and that shows up in a dns leak test so it will hide your real IP but not that you are using Cyberghost.
     
  14. imdb

    imdb Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 2, 2011
    Posts:
    4,208
    should it be activated before giveaway ends?
     
  15. Tarnak

    Tarnak Registered Member

    Joined:
    Feb 5, 2007
    Posts:
    5,285
    I have downloaded a free VPN offer from Steganos, last year and have never got it to work. I have downloaded this offer, but haven't activated yet.
     
  16. MisterB

    MisterB Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2013
    Posts:
    1,267
    Location:
    Southern Rocky Mountains USA
    I think it is good till the end of the month.
     
  17. XIII

    XIII Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 12, 2009
    Posts:
    1,383
    Is there a way to run this on an iOS devices with OpenVPN?

    I found the necessary certificates and keys, but not the configuration (server, port, protocol, etc.)
     
  18. imdb

    imdb Registered Member

    Joined:
    Nov 2, 2011
    Posts:
    4,208
    thank you for the info.
     
  19. MisterB

    MisterB Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2013
    Posts:
    1,267
    Location:
    Southern Rocky Mountains USA
  20. XIII

    XIII Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 12, 2009
    Posts:
    1,383
    @MisterB Thanks. I knew that, but could (and can) not find that .ovpn file (or its content) after installing OkayFreedom.
     
  21. MisterB

    MisterB Registered Member

    Joined:
    May 31, 2013
    Posts:
    1,267
    Location:
    Southern Rocky Mountains USA
    That was what I said in the first post, albeit indirectly. You have to use the supplied client. I didn't find anything in the installation that gave any information that would be in an .ovpn file. All of that including account and logon information is automatically generated when it is registered. As I said then, the best thing about this freebee is that it is for a year which is rare for VPN giveaways. Most of the paid VPNs give you options on how you connect to their service and using generic OpenVPN with .ovpn files is the norm as an option because it can be used in a lot of platforms like Android, IOS, and Linux based routers without having to do any special coding for it.

    Try the Cyberghost Giveaway. Once you have the account set up, you can download .ovpn files and use them just like in most other paid VPN services. I would not recommend Steganos as anything but a free VPN because of the lack of support for platforms other than Windows.
     
  22. XIII

    XIII Registered Member

    Joined:
    Jan 12, 2009
    Posts:
    1,383
    Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately I'm too late. When I checked the deal this afternoon on my iPad the page said there were 2 days left, but when I now surf to the same page on my PC it says "Expired"...
     
  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.