How to use Mullvad VPN - Free

Discussion in 'privacy technology' started by luciddream, Oct 5, 2011.

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  1. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    I had this posted in the "Anonymous Services - Can we get a list going..." thread, but it's a long thread and I realize most people will never see it buried on page 14, and I want to get this information out there because I believe it can help a lot of people. So here goes:

    First download the free OpenVPN client here:

    http://www.openvpn.net/index.php/open-source/downloads.html

    Install the OpenVPN client. Recommend installing it to the default path (ex. C:\Program Files\OpenVPN)

    Then come here to get the Mullvad config file:

    https://mullvad.net/en/openvpn_conf.php

    > On that page click on "Create a new account"
    > On the next page download the file that has random numbers with a .zip extension (ex. 59439574.zip).

    Extract the contents of that folder into the "config" folder in your OpenVPN directory (ex. C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config).

    * Tip - delete this line of text from the Mullvad config file to fix disconnect issues:

    serverping-exit 60# Daemonizeservice mullvadopenvpnping 10


    ... please post feedback about your experience (speed, stability, ect...) to help others make an informed decision.

    ... another poster noticed Mullvad was making outbound ICMP attempts after disconnecting, and that it would continue until you closed the OpenVPN GUI. So you may want to make a FW rule, and/or make sure to close the OpenVPN GUI after disconnecting to prevent it. The nature of this activity is probably benign, but I prefer to be on the safe side. I personally have all ICMP blocked (both in & out), so it's not a problem for me.
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2011
  2. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    Also, here are the other solutions that we found to be the best after combing through many anonymity services. Again, because I know many of you won't comb through 15+ pages to find it. I want this information to be easy for people to find:

    Paid services:

    BolehVPN
    iVPN


    Free services:

    Mullvad VPN (mentioned in the OP)
    TOR
    Ixquick search engine/built in proxy


    * Mullvad can also be purchased, which confused me at first. It appears that what you're paying for is their custom GUI, which has some handy things built into it, such as the ability to auto-login, and to drop your internet connection on VPN drop via simple tick-boxes. This latter feature prevents data from spilling out into the open in the event of a VPN drop, for example if you're using P2P/Torrent when it happens. I didn't get a chance to try it out for myself, and didn't hear from anybody that did. If someone could try this Mullvad custom GUI out and convey just how this functionality works, it would be greatly appreciated. I haven't found a 3'rd party application that accomplishes this reliably, so it'd be a great feature. It might even make Mullvad worth paying for if you like what you see in the free trial.

    Mullvad also offers great, anonymous payment methods, including BitCoin & cash by mail. You can send them any amount. From what I recall $10 will get you like a month and a half.
     
  3. DasFox

    DasFox Registered Member

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    I only thought Mullvad offered a free trial was all?

    So you can use them for free?
     
  4. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    Yes, Mullvad can be used for free through the OpenVPN client. Seems that the only thing you really pay for with Mullvad is their custom client.

    It was off & on for me... sometimes speeds would be great, just like they are now with iVPN. Other times it would crawl just like TOR, pages would fail to load completely, ect... so I had mixed results.

    I had a theory that perhaps when you pay you get better (less crowded) servers too, but no way to substantiate that claim.
     
  5. DasFox

    DasFox Registered Member

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    Well I didn't realize they offered this for free, I overlooked that, so it might be worthwhile to reconsider these guys...

    By the way I'm connected to it at the moment in Linux and it's working fine and I do like the fact they are in Sweden...

    Cheers...
     
  6. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    I hope it works out well for you, and everybody. Chime back in after a week or so, then a month, let me know how it worked. Like I said, it had it's ups and downs for me. It wasn't consistent enough. But I've heard some say it worked great for them and that the only problem was the disconnect flaw, which is fixed with that tweak (thanks to 0strodamus for that one :) I wish it would have worked that well for me too. I considered $85/year worthwhile to obtain that consistency I wanted. And @ $78/year, Boleh is too.

    So everybody should try Mullvad first, because free is always best, provided it's effective enough to suit you. And if it's not, then you have 2 affordable alternatives.

    As a free solution I'd prefer it for anonymity & privacy over a proxy.

    So let's hear your feedback in this thread everybody. And if anyone wants to shoot Mullvad $7 or so in the mail to test that custom GUI, I'd love to hear if the functionality to disconnect the internet on VPN drop works as it should. I regret that I didn't get to test this out, and now that I have everything the way I want it I don't wanna screw around with my setup.


    Edit: I realized the link I provided for the OpenVPN client was broken. Fixed
     
  7. bryanjoe

    bryanjoe Registered Member

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    hi lucid,

    so u r saying that one actually pays for the mullvad client only.
    otherwise, it will be free if connected through openvpn.

    i just dump the whole zip into the openvpn "Config" folder.
    and good to go.
     
  8. NormanN

    NormanN Registered Member

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    Thanks for this, posting from it now. Two things, I put everything in the Config folder, not Bin (like README says). And deleting those entries for the disconnect issue, caused me a problem. I'm sure some of them are what's needed, but Open VPN complains, starting with "Open VPN needs to know server or client" which has to do with the serverxxxxxxx part, next it complains about TLS. I didn't step through putting them back into the conf file, 1 by 1. Where did you get that string again? But this *is* awesome, thanks.

    NN

    Edit: It just disconnected, need to figure that out.

    That '60' may be seconds...I just made it '600' and so far, so good. If that's it, I don't mind it disconnecting after a time I can set...it's free and needlessly tying up a tunnel if I forget to disconnect isn't good 'netiquette' :)
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2011
  9. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    Sorry, don't know what I was thinking there. It does indeed go in the config folder. I fixed it.

    That string of text was in the Mullvad config file, at least the one I had. And removing it didn't break anything for me, and it solved the disconnect hangs. Don't know if they've changed the file since then, their service, or what the case is that removing it causes problems now.
     
  10. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    I do not see anything at OP's Mullvad link about "free". Clicking "Create a new account" leads to "Your customer id is 15...9. Days left: 0. Add more." Maybe they're authenticating authorized users through their GUI. That seems dumb. But maybe freeloaders get low bandwidth and provide free crowding.
     
  11. DasFox

    DasFox Registered Member

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    I see ping exit 60, so I'll comment that out and give it a try...

    #ping exit 60 :)

    Well so much for Swedish servers... :(

    SmartWhois is the Netherlands and so is the Geoip;

    dns.mullvad.net (95.211.10.3)
    95.211.4.0 - 95.211.10.255
    LeaseWeb
    P.O. Box 93054
    1090BB AMSTERDAM
    Netherlands
    www.leaseweb.com

    http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/95.211.10.3
     
    Last edited: Oct 6, 2011
  12. traxx75

    traxx75 Registered Member

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    I think Mullvad is marketed towards Swedish users so having a server outside of Sweden makes sense. In their FAQ they mention an option in their client to route traffic destined for Swedish locations outside of the tunnel to avoid being eavesdropped upon by the Swedish signals intelligence agency, Försvarets radioanstalt [FRA].

    The reason for this is the FRA is only allowed to listen to traffic that crosses Sweden's borders, not traffic between Swedish IPs within the country. If a Swedish person were using Mullvad and sent _all_ traffic through the VPN, then any traffic between them and a Swedish IP would be:

    Code:
    [SE] ----- encrypted ----- [NL] ----- unencrypted ------ [SE]
    This means that the FRA could see the unencrypted traffic between the VPN server and the Swedish IP, even though both end are actually Swedish. If they enable the option in the Mullvad client to not use the tunnel, then all traffic is simple SE to SE and cannot be [legally] seen by the FRA.

    I am not sure what kind of traffic the FRA are currently collecting but you would have to assume that, if you were using a VPN located in Sweden, they could see all traffic exiting that server and then leaving Sweden. This means that you should probably not use a VPN server in Sweden as your exit point but it is probably OK to use as entry point or a hop because traffic will be encrypted into, and out of, the country.
     
  13. bryanjoe

    bryanjoe Registered Member

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    have connection issues with the original mullvad config file..

    i found this and tried S/no 2 only...quite intermittent ...

    any experts can share a better config ?

    h**p://fbtubt.blogspot.com/2011/07/connect-mullvad-vpn-udp-globe.html
     
  14. bryanjoe

    bryanjoe Registered Member

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    doesnt really work via the openvpn config file.
    get disconnected easily.

    anyone can pm the working config?
     
  15. Ranget

    Ranget Registered Member

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    Not Really Sure :/
    thanks amazing Tutorial saved my Life

    but i have another question why we use mullvad in open vpn
    doesn't have it's own Program or what not ?
     
  16. mirimir

    mirimir Registered Member

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    Mullvad uses OpenVPN for server client connections. Its GUI wraps OpenVPN. Most high end VPNs use OpenVPN. A few also offer IPsec connections. Some older junk ones still use PPTP, which is much less secure than IPsec or OpenVPN.
     
  17. DasFox

    DasFox Registered Member

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    I started having issues with the speed...

    I sit back thinking, when compared to Tor, why bother with Mullvad, they are certainly a lot smaller of a project with what looks like ZERO development on any large scale when you compare this to Tors'...

    Tor has come a long long way in the last few years and it seems smarter to stick with that if you need something free then some small nobody offering a little VPN service for free....

    Anyhow just my 2 cents... :)
     
  18. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    Same thing happened to me Das. When I first starting using it I was like "man, this is free"!? It was snappy. After awhile it started crawling on me, and pages hanging. It was inconsistent. I wanted to hear from other people to hear their experiences too, because some claimed it was consistently solid. I had the same problems with TOR though, so I'd still prefer a VPN over a proxy. At least with a VPN everything doesn't break when you allow scripts, and/or render the protection completely moot. Though from what I hear flash can give your location away even through OpenVPN.

    Seems people are having problems when deleting that line of text. I wonder, has anybody deleted exactly the part of the config file I pointed out and had it work right? I'm certain that that's the part of the file I deleted, and it fixed the disconnect issues with no side effects. It worked for me.

    Note: The only part you really have to delete to fix the disconnect issues is: service mullvadopenvpn

    The rest of it I deleted hoping to stop the pings after you disconnect. It didn't work, but it didn't break anything when I did it, and I think actually made it a bit more stable. But if people are having problems deleting all of that, then just delete "service mullvadopenvpn" instead. I heard somebody say it asked "client or server?" when they deleted it all. I wonder if that person deleted the first "server" in the config file instead?... because that will indeed produce that result.
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2011
  19. caspian

    caspian Registered Member

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    Is BolehVPN multihop?

    I currently use Cryptohippie and Xerobank. Occasionally Mulvad. I am also curious about Rayservers http://rayservers.com/
     
  20. DasFox

    DasFox Registered Member

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    This is a Mullvad post, so let's please direct other VPN discussions on the VPN post I made instead...


    THANKS Caspian...
     
  21. bryanjoe

    bryanjoe Registered Member

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    hahaha.... he is fanboy from XB.
    Also a unofficial XB helpdesk in wilders.

    :D :D :D
     
  22. caspian

    caspian Registered Member

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    Ooops sorry. I do use Mulvad sometimes as well. It's fast. And I love being able to just pay for one month whenever I want, with paypal. It is the most convenient VPN I have used as far as payment options.
     
  23. NormanN

    NormanN Registered Member

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    verbosity.verb 3remote-cert-tls server #Daemonizeservice 10ca master.mullvad.net.crtcert mullvad.crtkey mullvad.key

    Be aware of spacing issues, but you should be able to figure it out. This is where you need to start editing. Compare to original.

    I have this working...so far (been about an hour). I will be sending them cash. This allowed be to test thoroughly, so I'm glad they have this work around. Disconnecting seems to be a problem, you have to go into Task Manager and kill openvpn.exe. Thanks again lucid.

    NN
     
  24. CasperFace

    CasperFace Registered Member

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    If properly configured, Comodo will accomplish this perfectly; no need for any other 3rd party app.

    For example:

    Code:
    Allow IP In/Out From In [Virtual Private Network] To MAC Any Where Source Port Is Any And Destination Port Is Any
    Block and Log IP In/Out From [Local Area Network] To MAC Any Where Source Port Is Any And Destination Port Is Any
    In the example rules above, "Virtual Private Network" refers to the Network Zone (as defined by Comodo) which has the range of internal IP addresses used exclusively for your VPN connection (such as 10.x.x.x). Similarly, "Local Area Network" refers to the Network Zone of your regular LAN network adapter (usually 192.168.x.x range).

    As long as your applications are bound to the specific Network Zones in the aforementioned manner, Comodo Firewall will fully protect you against leakage resulting from VPN connection drops. Even if your OpenVPN client claims to have this functionality built into it already, I would still recommend setting application-specific firewall rules in Comodo--just as an added precaution.
     
  25. bryanjoe

    bryanjoe Registered Member

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    what do u mean? like this? please share the working config.


    verbosity.
    verb 3
    remote-cert-tls server
    #Daemonizeservice 10

    ca master.mullvad.net.crt
    cert mullvad.crt
    key mullvad.key
     
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