A virtual private network offers several advantages over the normal Internet connection. It increased privacy and data safety by making use of encryption. The VPN provider basically works as a proxy for all Internet traffic. The websites and services that are accessed send the data to the VPN without knowing where the data is really send to. The same is true for the ISP of the Internet user who also does not know the real destinations nor the kind of data that gets transferred.
Astrill is a new virtual private network provider. Servers provided by Astrill are located in the United States and the United Kingdom and it is up to the user to decide which to use. This can be important from a performance perspective but also to access contents that make use of country locks to only allow specific countries access to the contents.
The biggest benefit of Astrill over comparable vpn providers is that the service does not require any connection configuration. Most vpn providers ask the user to create a new vpn connection. Astrill comes with a software that will handle all the connection settings. All the user needs to do to login is to provide the login credentials that have been selected during setup of the account.
Starting Astrill afterwards will display a small program window with Off and On buttons, a country selector and links to settings and help.
The same window displays the download and upload speed of the service. The homepage of Astrill displays additional interesting information in a server stats menu including the current network utilization.
More important than those raw figures is if performance demanding applications run fine when using Astrill. A problem of many vpn providers, especially the free ones, is that they do not provide the infrastructure to make activities such as video and audio streaming enjoyable. Astrill manages to provide the speeds needed to watch videos at sites like Hulu or Youtube HD videos without buffering issues.
Astrill works without lags with many popular services such as Hulu or Pandora.
The software is currently offered as a version for the Windows operating system. A Mac, Linux and mobile version is following shortly according to the developers.
Beta Invites:
We were able to get 1000 Beta invites for Ghacks visitors. All you need to do is to signup at the Astrill signup page and enter the code ASTRILL-GHACKS-32140-MMTGK in the Private BETA Invitation code field. These codes are provided on a first come first serve basis so hurry up if you want to enjoy a lag free vpn service. The service is free in the beta period.
The paid plans that are offered at Astrill are astonishingly moderate when compared to other vpn providers. A one month plan is offered for $10.95, a yearly plan for $59.95. All plans include unlimited traffic usage.
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I’m intrigued, but more than somewhat concerned with Astrill’s suggestion that the traffic is encrypted by “their very own encryption algorithm.” In the world of cryptography, that usually means that they are selling bunk.
Unless they disclose their algorithm somewhere–and it’s a common, accepted one–I would not use this VPN for much.
Are there any limitations to the beta invite? Is this account time limited for instance?
It certainly is quite simple to use and worked perfectly on Hulu and Pandora.
The account will be free for the beta period, no limitations as far as I know.
How long will the invited version be valid?
This service will sound much more interesting if it has servers in say the Netherlands (where privacy laws are better than the UK or US) or in Turkey where there are no laws or extradition treaties with the West.
I think it is good they have their own algorythm. I looked into HTTP traffic incoming and outcoming and it indeed is encrypted. At least its enough to bypass any words filters as no letters are visible.
Nice post!
I have tried several free VPN, Astrill is the fatest in my experience.
Sure it worked to stream (lag-free) geo-limited UK only content. But didn’t like the .exe files it run’s by force from login. Made a workaround, but this beta is little better than any other proxy. ‘Least for me.