iVPN

Discussion in 'privacy technology' started by overworkedmonkey, Aug 14, 2011.

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  1. overworkedmonkey

    overworkedmonkey Registered Member

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    Has anyone used iVPN? How would you rate them in terms of serviceability and responses to any questions? Where are their server located?
     
  2. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    That's actually the one I'm trying right now. I just signed up for the 1 mo. "no plan" to get my feet wet. So far, so good. They're based off-shore in Malta, Italy. Customer service is excellent. I had a ton of questions and "Sam" responded to them all promptly, usually within 24 hours.

    I've been using their multi-hop UK to NL servers and there's hardly any slowdown compared to my normal speeds. I thought it would be slow using multi-hop. It's not at all.

    Get the plan I did and try it for yourself.
     
  3. overworkedmonkey

    overworkedmonkey Registered Member

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    Thanks. How did you find them with their no logging policy especially with servers in the US? What are the EU laws regarding logging?
     
  4. box750

    box750 Registered Member

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    The Republic of Malta whose official languages are Maltese and English, although very close to Italy, is an independent country and not part of Italy, but as a EU member state, Malta has to abide by any EU laws.

    I got a 1 month iVPN service in a giveaway promotion and I was happy with them, filesharing is allowed but not in the US servers, they have VPN servers in UK/US/NL/France, speeds were ok for what I do, watching TV online, not impressive but enough, no complaints there.

    I contacted support two times and they always got back to me in under 24 hours, after opening a ticket in my account to keep track of it, I think they are ok, I don't know anything about the logging policy.
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2011
  5. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    Like box said, their US servers do log and file sharing isn't allowed. I'm not sure there's a VPN service in existence that isn't bound by some govt. regulations. And if "the man" demands it, I'm sure they have to bend to their will. I think the main thing is to just avoid any based in the US, and avoid using US servers even for those not US based.

    In the end my list was down to iVPN, Anonine, and VPNTunnel. With Anonine I didn't like that you had to use the OpenVPN client. I was testing it out, trying free VPN's, and it seemed buggy to me. Then when I uninstalled it it took my network adapter with it! For VPNTunnel's client I needed to install .NET Framework on my computer, which I consider bloatware. iVPN had everything I wanted, and when you throw multi-hop into the equation and their prompt responses to my emails it put them over the top.

    If everything continues this way I'll be signing up for a year when this month runs out.

    I see that Ixquick's proxy works just fine with it too, not that it's necessary, I was just curious if it would even work. I read in another post that this doesn't accomplish anything though.
     
  6. DasFox

    DasFox Registered Member

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    Anything we do on the internet can be regulated, it's not just about VPNs.

    Doing business with US based VPNs isn't really the problems, it's the fact of the RIAA, MPAA, MAFIAA, being in the US and putting pressure, along with the US government, these are more of the real problem, not the services... But also because of this, some of these US VPNs could be honeypots, so it's just best to avoid.

    Don't go signing up for one year, big mistake, these people could just take your money and run next month and you're out.

    iVPN is not a well known reputable business that you should be throwing your money around like this. Oh yeah sure they all offer discounts, but did you ever think it was to collect a little and when they have enough take it and run...

    Pay month to month and be safe...
     
  7. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    There is always the risk of that happening in that line of business. The only provider that's really been doing it for a long time is StrongVPN (1995). That is something I put consideration on, but in the end other things warned me off about them (US based, logging). So that risk exists for pretty much every other contender on my list equally.

    iVPN is quite reputable, based on everything I've read about them. I don't think they are any more or less well known than any other reputable VPN service. It's not something that gets discussed a lot. I've come to find that the best things are almost invariably lesser known anyway. Years ago I'd never heard of Avira, Avast, or Kaspersky. Or Comodo. I used McAfee or Norton's, because they're the only ones I'd ever heard of. When somebody recommended Avast to me I said "never heard of em". So that doesn't deter me one bit.

    Paying by the month it'll cost me $80 more per year. At that rate I may as well just pay the $100 for the year and hope they don't go AWOL. I will lose almost that much paying monthly anyway.

    Based on everything I've experienced first-hand I have no reason to distrust them. And until they give me a reason to, they have my trust. They've earned it up to this point. I think they have a really good thing going, and none of the signs are there of a company looking to cash out. Some of the other companies I looked into on the other hand... raised some red flags. But I won't drag their names through the dirt because I could be wrong.

    I am cautious, but sometimes some level of trust is necessary. Otherwise your only option is to not have internet service at all.
     
  8. 0strodamus

    0strodamus Registered Member

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    @luciddream: Thanks for the feedback you've posted on your experiences with iVPN and others. I've been looking at VPN providers too and so far I've got my choices whittled down to iVPN, Anonine, Mullvad, or Anonyproz. I'll most likely follow in your footsteps with a 1 month "trial" of iVPN followed by a 6 month or 1 year payment for the savings over month to month. How are you finding the speed of iVPN to be? Are the claims on their website regarding latency in line with your experiences so far?
     
  9. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    When using single-hop I notice no slowdown at all, and multi-hop only a slight slowdown. Of course I only have a 1.5 mbps connection to begin with. Maybe people with faster connections will notice a significant slowdown.

    As others have pointed out you can use Mullvad's servers for free using the free OpenVPN client and extracting a folder from their site into the config folder. So it appears the only thing you'd really be paying for was their own GUI, which has convenient, simple tick-boxes for auto-login and to stop your internet connection on VPN drop. But I'm not 100% convinced that using the free method is a true representation of their service. Maybe they stick you with overcrowded servers, and have better ones reserved for payed customers? Because I kept getting disconnected. I was thinking about shooting them $10 in the mail to test this theory, but now that I've tried iVPN first I don't have much reason to look elsewhere. I'd love it if somebody else paid Mullvad to test this theory and provided feedback. I'd like to know if that simple tick-box really does work to drop your internet connection when the VPN drops. It's hard to believe, since nothing I've tried so far accomplishes this, that they have that secret figured out and have such a simple remedy for it.

    If they added something like that to the iVPN client it'd make their service perfect in my eyes. In my correspondence with their customer service I hear they are working on such functionality in a new client. I hope they figure it out.
     
  10. rudyl

    rudyl Registered Member

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    I think that it messes with your routing. And, if things go wrong, you may be left with a trashed network connection, and may need to reconfigure it manually.

    With some tweaking, one can configure an OpenVPN client for one's VPN service in pfSense, and route the connection to a LAN (outbound NAT). Specifying the VPN service's DNS servers in the LAN DHCP server, and disabling DNS forwarding from WAN, prevents DNS leakage. Once you get it working in VirtualBox or whatever, you can easily replicate the setup using inexpensive hardware. You could even, for example, attach a WiFi router to the LAN. Search the pfSense forum for your provider. If you don't find anything, look for one that uses a similar OpenVPN configuration.
     
  11. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    I'm pretty sure that's what VPNCheck Pro did (break my routing). Not sure about the Mullvad client. I might end up shooting them like $10 to test it out for a month or so. The curiosity is getting the better of me. It would take a lot to sway me from iVPN at this point, the bar has been set high, but I still like to sample other things.

    So 0strodamus... have you tried any out yet?

    Edit: I said above that iVPN logged on their US servers. I just assumed that since they're US servers, they have to. But it does state on their site that they do not "keep any logs, period". So perhaps they're obligated to log, but the logs are deleted as soon as you disconnect?

    And they probably don't allow P2P on the US servers because they know dmca notices are inevitable. Some US based VPN companies, on the other hand, will claim they support file sharing, then give you the axe after a few notices (sometimes only 1). I heard about a few of these services during my research, and I think that's shady. I'd prefer they were just honest and said you can't do it, like Witopia.
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2011
  12. 0strodamus

    0strodamus Registered Member

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    Not yet. Hopefully early next week.
     
  13. bryanjoe

    bryanjoe Registered Member

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    by the way, if i am on a vpn....is there still a need for peerblock?
     
  14. apathy

    apathy Registered Member

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    I've been using iVPN for more than 6 months now and I have had no complains. Mullvad also has a great service but I like using double hops to multiple countries.
     
  15. traxx75

    traxx75 Registered Member

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    Peerblock will still prevent your own PC from making connections to "bad addresses" even though they can no longer attempt to connect to you (unless your VPN service has port forwarding enabled) so it is still partly providing the service you had before.

    Depending on your specific threat model (ie. what lists you use and why), I think peerblock is a waste of time, but that is a discussion for another thread ;)
     
  16. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    Yeah the multi-hop is nice. Probably an overkill, but it doesn't really impact my speeds so why not?

    The problem I had with Mullvad was it wouldn't disconnect. I had to disable the network adapter to get the connection to shut off. If you can get past that, it's a really good service for free. Probably the only free one I'd really trust.
     
  17. overworkedmonkey

    overworkedmonkey Registered Member

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    traxx would you mind elaborating what you meant by 'even though they can no longer attempt to connect to you (unless your VPN service has port forwarding enabled) so it is still partly providing the service you had before'
     
  18. traxx75

    traxx75 Registered Member

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    Applications like Peerblock will prevent connections from being established in both directions. In other words, it prevents blacklisted IPs from connecting to you but it also stops your PC connecting to them (eg. due to malware or P2P applications). VPNs generally prevent other entities from connecting to you because their attempt will stop at the VPN server and go no further. Thus, Peerblock will most likely no longer need to block incoming connection attempts but will continue to block connections made by your PC to potentially "bad" IPs.
     
  19. rudyl

    rudyl Registered Member

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    Just a minor clarification to traxx75's explanations. In order for others to initiate connections through a VPN tunnel, your machine must have a port forwarded to the exit node (and open). Many VPN services don't allow port forwarding. It's more secure, and it prevents their clients from running servers. For P2P networks, that means that you can find peers, but they can't find you. Torrenting, you can download just fine, but you can only upload to peers that you've found. Freenet OpenNet works OK, but I2P is pretty much useless.
     
  20. overworkedmonkey

    overworkedmonkey Registered Member

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    Thanks rudyl. Can you please elaborate on what you meant by 'In order for others to initiate connections through a VPN tunnel, your machine must have a port forwarded to the exit node (and open)'? Also how does port forwarding work on VPNs? My understanding of port forwarding is that if traffic is coming back to your PC on Port 80 you forward it to a port that the web server is running on say 12345.
     
  21. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    Well I was so impressed by my test run of iVPN that I've decided to sign up for a year. It fit the criteria for everything I was looking for: non US based, very fast speeds, simple/stable service & client, great customer service, infrequent disconnects (I did have a few this past week). The multi-hop is just an added bonus.

    Anyone looking into VPN services should take this one for a spin with the 1 month "no plan".
     
  22. bryanjoe

    bryanjoe Registered Member

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    hi there, does it allow torrent?

    i just check the payment. the subscription fees is recurring.
    does it mean that it will charge u automatically when the e.g. Quarterly susbription is up.... am i right? why doesnt it allow 1 time payment for 1 year and not recurring?
     
  23. luciddream

    luciddream Registered Member

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    P2P & Torrents are allowed except on US servers.

    I'm not sure about how the payments work yet other than that the $20 "no plan" has no commitment. That's the one you should get to give it a test run. But if you have any questions about payments (or anything for that matter), email their sales dept. Their customer service is great and you'll probably get a reply within 24 hours.

    Edit: I just sent them an email asking about this. I'll post the result in here. I didn't notice it myself, as I was told to wait until my current month runs out until buying the year. Perhaps it will automatically renew your subscription unless you call to cancel before it's up? I myself would rather that not be the case. The old... "things should be opt-in, not opt-out" way of thinking that us Wilders members adopt.
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2011
  24. bryanjoe

    bryanjoe Registered Member

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    thanks for sending them an enquiry.
    i noticed it when i was comparing the $20 one time fee for 1 month and the $15 monthly recurring fee.
     
  25. 0strodamus

    0strodamus Registered Member

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    They create an auto-renewal in Paypal. You can immediately cancel this after paying if you don't want the auto-renewal. It's all very easy to do in your Paypal account.
     
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