Businesses and organizations use vpn servers to secure data transfer. This can be useful in countries where services or websites are blocked, or data transfers are likely monitored.

Home users can benefit from vpn connections as well. They can use it to protect their connection on a public network or to access services that they would not otherwise be able to access.

Users from outside the United States, or US citizens abroad, can use vpn servers to connect to sites such as Pandora, Hulu and many other services that are limited to users from the United States.

All they need for that is a VPN that is located in the United States. We have covered several vpn services that offer free limited accounts for users from all over the world. This includes the popular Hotspot Shield, Ultra VPN or Vypr VNP which is free for Giganews Diamond account owners.

TunnelBear is a vpn service that is offering easy to install and use clients for Windows and Macintosh PCs. Users need to register an account before they can make use of the vpn. A free account limits the monthly data transfer to 500 Megabytes, a commercial account allows unlimited transfers. Free accounts are protected with a 128-bit algorithm, while paid accounts make use of 256-bit data encryption.

New users can setup an account right in the software during installation (please note that you need to confirm the email to log in). The program will handle all the heave lifting on its own, including the installation of a new network connection that is used to connect to the VPN.

The core application interface has only two switches. One to connect to the virtual private network, and the other to select a US or UK server to connect to.

The interface displays the current connection status and the remaining bandwidth for the month.

TunnelBear offers one of the most comfortable experiences when it comes to setting up and using vpn servers. The 500 Megabyte limit should be enough for users who do not access a lot of media in a month. Those users may consider paying the reasonable price of $40 per year for unlimited data transfers. The company is currently running a Twitter promo that offers 1 Gigabyte of additional data transfer when completed.

TunnelBear can be downloaded from the developer website. The software is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system, and for systems running Apple Mac OSX 10.6 or greater.

Free VPN services like Hotspot Shield are very popular, even though they are usually limited in bandwidth and running on low priorities.

Comodo TrustConnect is a VPN service by Comodo that sets you back $8.99 monthly with unlimited traffic, $99.95 annually or $3.99 daily. To promote the service, Comodo is offering free accounts with a 10 Gigabyte data limit per month. 10 Gigabytes should be more than enough for day to day surfing in unsecure locations like coffee shops, hotels or other public Wi-Fi locations. The free service unfortunately has a few downsides. This includes not being able to select the location of the VPN, ads being displayed in the web browser and some blocked protocols like ftp or NNTP.

Free users need to use the TrustConnect client for their operating system. The software is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Installation should not pose any problems. You are asked to create a network installer on Windows during the installation though. You then need to paste the license key from the Comodo Account page into the application. This links the program to your account.

I suggest you use an IP checker to verify that you have received a new IP address.

My computer connected to a VPN in the United Kingdom during tests, and not a US location. This makes sense as it improves connectivity. I was able to connect to the BBC website and stream shows and radio using their iPlayer service. Playback was smooth most of the time after the initial connection phase.

Comodo Trustconnect works well enough for now, and the ten Gigabyte should be more than enough bandwidth for the majority of users. It remains to be seen how the service fares when user counts surge due to the free offering.

Interested users can sign up for the free VPN account at this page here. (via)

Firstly, start by going to your control panel in Windows 7. You should see an option called “Network and Internet”. Click on this and then click on “Network and Sharing Center”. You will then be at a screen where you can view all your network information, and set up connections to other networks and computers. On the left hand side, you should see a link called “Change Adapter Settings”. Click on this and you’ll see a list of network connections. There may only be one connection at the moment, the connection you are using to access your existing network.

There should be a menu bar at the top of the screen. If not, press ALT on your keyboard and it should appear. Next, click on “file” and then on “New Incoming Connection”. This will start a wizard, and the first step is to decide whom you’re going to give access to. You may just want to give yourself access, but it might also be a good idea to also select the computer administrator. The next step will be to tell the computer how people will connect to the computer – there’s only one option, and that’s through the Internet. The final page concerns allowing access to different types of computers such as Unix servers and Macs. Just leave the default settings alone and click “Allow Access”.

Your computer will now spend a little time setting up the connection for you, and will tell you the name of the connection. The name could be anything, depending on the name of your computer, but remember to note it down, as you’ll need it later. You’ll then be taken back to the network connections screen, and you’ll see your new connection as an icon, called “incoming connection”.

You’ll now need to know the IP address of your computer. The easiest way to find this out if you don’t already know it, is to type “cmd” into the run box on the start menu, and then type “ipconfig” into the DOS window. This will tell you your IP address. It may be something like 192.168.0.1. Also note down the IP address of your default gateway, this is the address of your router.

The next thing you’ll need to do is add a port forwarding on your router. So log into your router by typing it’s IP address into your browser. All router consoles are different, so you may need to hunt around for a bit to find the right settings, but there should be a section called “port forwarding”. What you need to do is create a new forwarding for port 1723, which is the port VPNs use to connect. You need to point that port to the IP address of your computer, which we found out earlier. At this point, you may need to reboot your router once you’ve saved the port forwarding in order to active the new settings. Once this is done, you should have a working VPN server set up on your computer.

Testing your VPN Connection

In Part 1, you will have gone through the steps to set up a VPN server on your Windows 7 computer. The next step is to configure a client machine to connect to your newly created server to check that it’s working correctly.

In order to do this you need to go to the machine you’re going to use to test your VPN and bring up the control panel. Inside the control panel you need to click on “Network and Internet”. Once in the next screen, click on “Network and Sharing Center”. As in Part 1, you’ll be presented with a screen where you can set up new connections and edit existing ones. You’re looking for a setting near the middle of the screen called “Set Up New Connection or Network”. Click on this and you’ll start a wizard. The third option down will be the one you need next, and this is called “Connect To A Workplace”. You’ll need to click “next”, and then you’ll be asked how you want to connect to your VPN. The option to choose is via an Internet connection, and on the following screen you’ll need to enter the IP address of your VPN server.

The IP address of your VPN server is whatever IP address you found in Part 1, but in case you forgot, you can check by going back to your server and typing “cmd” into the run box on the start menu, and then “ipconfig” in the DOS box.. If your client machine is not on the same local network as the server, you’ll need to know the Internet IP address of the server. You can find this out from logging into the router again, or from the server computer you can go to http://www.ghacks.net/ip/. Armed with your server’s IP address, you can now enter this into your wizard, and click next to go onto the next screen.

This next screen will be asking you the username and password in order to connect to your VPN. You should already know these details, as you need them to log into your server locally. So enter your credentials here and click on “connect”.

Your client computer will now be talking to your server and setting up your new VPN connection. First it will verify your username and password, and after a few seconds it should connect. You have successfully set up a VPN between your two computers.

You might now want to check to see if you can access shared folders. This can be done by going to the run box on your client-computer’s start menu, and typing \\SERVER (if server is the name of your VPN server, if not substitute it for your server’s name). If all is well, you will see a list of files and folders and you’ll be all set for using your new VPN. Congratulations!

Virtual Private Networks (VPN):

There are two virtual platform versions provided in VPN, the Gateway based and Client based. These platforms can be initiated from the web browsers such as the Internet Explorer version 7 or Firefox version 3 and higher. There are a few glitches with the newest and oldest versions supporting the functions of VPN interface efficiently. A Virtual Private Network establishes a connection between the entire corporate network and the cloud network. This type of connection is useful when there is a mixed pool of public and private cloud applications. Once the connection between the networks is established it then requires mapping the network drives of the server using the inside IP address. The mapping not only assists in making file transfers at a faster rate but also assists in making the necessary changes whenever required in the file system. The most popular VPN is the Cisco AnyConnect VPN Client. It is a great platform which can easily set up the connection between the networks for safe and fast file transfer.

Remote Desktop Connection (RDC):

This establishes connection with the remote cloud servers directly from the desktop of the computer. RDC is used most often for the Windows Virtual Server and needs the connection port-3389 to be connected to the web network. Once RDC has been set up on the computer, the server desktop will be displayed on the window of your computer and this can be used as a virtual interface to manipulate and alter the commands to effectively manage the server remotely. RDC for virtual cloud networks is similar to the Remote Connection between the physical servers used for the local network connections, so interfacing with it can be easy for those who use the Windows Remote Desktop connection for establishing a connection between physical servers in their enterprise.

Secured Shell (SSH):

Secured Shell functions similar to the RDC but it only uses the Linux based Virtual Server. It also requires a few console based commands which are used to start the database or web servers or setting up new file shares. This method requires that the appropriate ports to be connected to the cloud server.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP):

This is the best method for bulk and easy file transfer for activities like loading the data base or developing a new website. For this method it is required to connect the ports 20 and 21 appropriately so that it points to the outside IP address of the server. Once the connection is correctly established, a FTP virtual platform can be installed on the desktop or the FTP command can be easily run directly from the server. This platform will enable efficient bulk file transfer from the file resource to the cloud server.
Using a cloud server can make your life much easier, especially with the knowledge above.

The advantages of using a VPN are manifold, among them that it sits like a proxy between the computer of the user and all Internet activities. It does not matter if the user browses the web, plays a game on Steam, downloads files via P2P or watches streaming movies. The VPN will always act as the proxy, something that web proxies cannot do.

Another advantage is the fact that it makes the Internet connection more secure. VPN connections are encrypted by design, which means that users in the same network, say a public network at school, dorm or work, will not be able to eavesdrop on the traffic. Firesheep? Not a problem for VPN users.

Invisible Browsing VPN (IBVPN) offers free and paid accounts. The company gives away 30 free accounts per week, offers a 2-hour trial account and several paid options which range from $4.95 to $7.95 per month. The paid accounts differ only in the countries the user can connect to. The two $4.95 accounts offer either VPN access in the United States and Canada, or the United Kingdom and Ireland. The premium VPN service contains the four and in addition network access in Germany, France and the Netherlands.

So what can the average web surfer do with a VPN?

• Access country-limited contents on the web, e.g. Hulu or Pandora in the United States, BBC in the UK or Zattoo in Germany. Using the VPN you can use those country-specific services providing you connect to one of the country VPN servers. This is also handy for users who go on holidays oversea but do not want to miss their favorite show. Lastly, ex-pats come to mind who can now connect to services and websites from their country that would otherwise be restricted to them.
• Hide your IP. This can be beneficial in many cases. Maybe for employees who want to comment on their company, webmasters who want to check search engine rankings or contents on their websites, users who have medical questions and a lot more. A vpn will also hide the tracks from your ISP and network.
• Bypass Internet censorship. There is likely no country in the world that does not censor the Internet in one way or the other. Censor may not be the right word in some cases, but the fact remains that it is likely that you stumble upon blocked websites if you search long enough. China for instance is a prime example, or Iran, but the problem is not limited there. A VPN can bypass censorship which other services might not.

Now that we have established what you can do with a VPN, we should take a closer look at how it is setup. IBVPN offers easy configuration guides on their website for Windows, Linux and Mac users. Windows users can even download a small client which is dead easy to use.

Just start the portable application and enter your username, password and a server that you want to connect to. A list of servers is provided in the welcome email and in the account section over at the Invisible Browsing VPN site. A click on Connect establishes the connection to the selected VPN which is visualized by the Connected status message in the program application. A click on disconnect breaks the connection again.

Advanced users, and users with Linux or Mac, can follow the guides on the website to configure the VPN manually.

Those three are just examples of the services that limit their contents to users from specific countries, and that you can watch by using the VPN from outside those allowed countries.

IBVNP Verdict

Setup is really easy on Windows, especially if the vpn client is being used. Everyone can do that without having to create a new connection manually. That’s a big plus for the service as most of the VPN services do not provide access to a client software. The connection speed is good, both Hulu and Pandora streamed without interruptions, BBC was a bit slow in the beginning but it ran fine after a bit of buffering. Speeds are excellent and tests at speedtest.net have shown connections speeds of 5+ Mbit down and 1.5 Mbit up.

Invisible Browisng VPN Giveaway

We have 20 IBVNP premium accounts that are valid for 3 months for you. Premium meaning that you get the whole package and can connect to a VPN in all supported countries. For this we are asking you to let us know what you would do with the service or use the service for.

What’s the solution? Easy. You make the location checker script on the website believe that you are from the US. How is that done? There are a few options available, but the most reliable so far is by using Virtual Private Networks. This sounds intimidating at first, and complicated to setup, when in fact it is not.

Setup basically revolves around setting up another Internet connection, which is done in less than a minute on Windows. Not a big deal.

The biggest hurdle is to find a suitable VPN for this task. There are free ones out there, but those limit the bandwidth and it is usually not a pleasure to watch anything with them. Commercial vpns are the solution. Prices ranges from a few bucks to $20-30 for the most part. Usually, what you get is what you pay for. If you except to be able to watch streaming media 24/7 by paying $2.99 you are definitely wrong. But you can get a decent setup for around $10 a month, and that includes all the other benefits that vpns offer.

VyprVPN is a solution that sets you back about $14.99 per month. That is, unless you are a Giganews user who has a Diamond account subscription. If that is the case, you get VyprVPN free of charge as a bonus.

Lets take a look at how easy VyprVPN can be configured:

• Open Network and Sharing Center in the Control Panel
• Go to the Windows Menu, then Control Panel, Click on Network and Internet, Click on Network and Sharing Center
• Click Setup a new connection or network
• Choose Connect to a workplace then Next
• Click Use my Internet Connection (VPN)
• Enter one of the following names in the Internet address: field:
  us1.vpn.goldenfrog.com for Los Angeles, CA
  us2.vpn.goldenfrog.com for Washington, DC
  eu1.vpn.goldenfrog.com for Amsterdam
  hk1.vpn.goldenfrog.com for Hong Kong
• Type VyprVPN in the Destination name: field
• Check Don’t connect now then Next
• Type in your Golden Frog Login (e-mail address) and Password in their respective fields; leave Domain blank
• Check Remember this password
• Click Create and then Close

Connecting to VyprVPN

• In the Windows Taskbar, click on the Network icon
• Click on VyprVPN, then click on the Connect button
• Type in your Golden Frog Login (e-mail address) and Password in their respective fields
• Click Connect

As you can see, it is an easy to follow process.

Lets take a look at other benefits of using a vpn connection:

• A VPN connection replaces the local computer’s IP with an IP of the VPN server. Websites and users do not see the local IP address.
• All Internet traffic gets encrypted, reducing eavesdropping possibilities in local networks and ISP.
• Protection from data snooping on public and wireless networks.

With the VPN connection setup and connected, it is now possible to access all US sites as if you were in the United States. VyprVPN offers two different locations in the US, one in Amsterdam, Europe and one in Hong Kong, Asia.

The addition of VyprVPN free of charge to Giganews Diamond account owners was a pleasant surprise, and something that you do not see very often these days. This basically allows me to access US-only contents whenever I want, free of additional charges. This allowed me to cancel the subscription to my previous VPN service to consolidate services and save $15 per month in the process.

Something to think about for users who work both with a VPN and a Usenet account. Non-Giganews customers can get more information about VyprVPN at the GoldenFrog website.

VyprVPN is now officially out of beta and the good news is that it remains free for those Giganews users. We have reviewed VyprVPN in the past, let me fill you in on the details if you have not read that review.

VyprVPN is a virtual private network that users can connect to. Giganews offers servers in the United States and in the United Kingdom. It is usually better to log into the VPN servers nearer to the physical location unless specific contents need to be accessed that have a country restriction.

This is for instance the case when a user tries to access Hulu or Pandora Radio in the United States or iPlayer content in the UK.

VyprVPN has been improved since we last reviewed it. Speeds and reliability has increased and it is now possible to view HD content without connection interruptions or slow loading times. But VPNs offer more than just the ability to access content on the Internet that is restricted to a country or region: Virtual Private Networks use encryption to secure the Internet connection between the user’s home computer and the target server.

Users who do not want a Giganews Diamond account can purchase a VyprVPN account directly at the Golden Frog website for the price of $14.99 per month. The offer is not online yet but will be soon.

Giganews users can visit the VyprVPN website at Giganews for instructions on how to configure the VPN on their computer system.

A virtual private network on the other hand replaces the user’s IP with its own so that the servers and users that the user connects to only see that IP and not the real one. This is also beneficial for services that only allow access to their service from specific countries. If the vpn is offering servers in the country then the service can be used. That’s great for services like Hulu, Pandora, BBC and many other streaming video or audio related services.

VyprVPN is a virtual private network service by the company that is providing the world’s best Usenet service Giganews. The service is currently in beta and all Giganews Diamond customers have been invited to test it free of charge. The vpn service will remain free at least until June of this year.

* Private web browsing, e-mail, instant messaging, newsgroup reading, and more — totally secure from ISP, wireless or neighborhood eavesdropping
* The ability to choose a US or European online identity
* Protection from data snooping and identity theft on public Wi-Fi hotspots, iPhones, PDAs, and cable Internet
* The same access to all of your favorite applications you enjoy today

The connection to the vpn service needs to be created manually by the user. A detailed explanation is provided for various operating systems including Windows XP, Windows 7 and Mac OSX. Two different server clusters are currently provided that the VyprVPN user can connect to: Los Angeles in the United States and Amsterdam in Europe. It would be nice if additional locations would be provided including the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada.

The selection of the vpn server is relevant in several ways. First, it is the server’s IP that is used to connect to the servers worldwide. Users who want to access a US only service like Hulu or Pandora need to select the Los Angeles connection to do so. But the distance between the user’s location and the server’s location is also relevant for the user’s connection. Everything that the user does is first routed to the vpn server and then to the destination.

Virtual private networks should be able to deliver sufficient speeds so that the usual Internet activities experience no lag or interrupted connections. The streaming video and audio connections that we tried worked fine and without interruptions most of the time. Sometimes lags were noticed and we had to wait a few seconds before the streaming media would continue to play. This is something that the developer’s should work on but since VyprVPN is currently in beta it is likely that this will be taken care of.

The only users who can currently test VyprVPN are Giganews Diamond customers who can use it for free until June 30, 2010. It is likely that the service will go released to the public in the next month. We will keep you updated once this happens and see how the service has been changed and improved in that time.

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.

One of the best ways of accessing these services from outside the supported countries is to use a VPN, a virtual private network. This is helpful for citizens on holidays who want to access the services abroad but also – obviously – for users from other countries who want to access the services.

UltraVPN was discovered by Nakodari from Addictive Tips and we have to say that it is one of the easiest solutions right now. It works great currently and gives access to Hulu, Pandora and all the other US-only websites and services out there. The streaming quality is excellent unlike that of other free competitors (like Hotspot Shield). Our guess however is that it is only a matter of time – thanks to popularity – before the performance of UltraVPN will get a dent or two as well.

Installation is a breeze. All the user needs is to create an account at the UltraVPN website (only username and password required). The VPN setup is available for Windows and Mac OS. The username and password have to be supplied on startup. The vpn service will notify the user that the computer has been connected to it. What’s left is to access the websites and services to test the speed and quality of the service.

Head over to the Ultra VPN website to download the client, create an account and access additional information about the virtual private network. The vpn service has been successfully tested with Hulu, ABC and Pandora.

Only a handful of additional information are known about the service at this time. It is expected to cost about $5 per month which is a more than acceptable price considering the bandwidth requirements to run such a networking service. They state that they do not log traffic data of any kind which would make it impossible to identify the connections made by a user of the service in case of a server seizure.

It is very likely that the new service will come under heavy traffic the minute it becomes public. Similar services such as Relakks were not able to cope with the massive signups after they have gone public.

Interested users can enter their email address to be informed when the anonymous virtual private networking service goes public.

Hotspot Shield was the Virtual Private Network software that everyone was talking about. Mainly because it offered free access to their network – with limited bandwidth usage. Always VPN could be a viable alternative to watch Hulu or listen to Pandora from outside the United States.

The Virtual Private Network is easy to setup and can be downloaded as a client for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X or Linux. Once the software has been installed the connection to the VPN can be established from the Start Menu in Windows.

Users get the choice between compatible and faster editions, and can also change the configuration if they want to tweak it further. Tests with Hulu and Pandora were successful. A lot of buffering was going on though which could have been a temporary problem or caused by the increasing popularity of the service.

There is one more “thing” that has to be mentioned. The Virtual Private Network is displaying advertisement on top of each web page to finance the service.

Always VPN can be a viable alternative to Hotspot Shield, especially if the latter service is not working for you or if you already used up all of your bandwidth and want to continue watching or listening to those services.

Update: Always VPN is no longer a free service. The service provider is now charging users for bandwidth usage.

Each client creates a unique ID and password and the user who wants to give access to his computer has to send that data to the other user who enters it in his computer. The presentation mode for example displays the full computer screen of the client’s computer giving the other user the option to follow each and every action of the client in real time. There is virtually no delay and the quality of the picture is really good. Even small fonts are readable.

The other options, remote support, file transfers and virtual private networks work the same way. Everything is streamlined for ease of use. Transfers and connections work behind firewalls as well which works nicely in combination with the portable version of Teamviewer.

Teamviewer is free for commercial usage. A few additional versions are available at the developers homepage that suite specific needs. A support version is available for customers which is a basic version of Teamviewer that can only be used to connect to the client’s computer.

You also find a server version and a manager version at the download page. This is an excellent solution for anyone who has to remotely connect to clients computers regularly, who wants to do presentations over the Internet or use a virtual private network. It is free only for non-commercial usage.

Problems can also arise after establishing the connection. Users might have to change certain settings like the default printer or SMTP email server that requires manual work.

Avanquest Connection Manager is a software that tackles those situations by detecting and memorizing connections and settings for the user so that future connections demand almost no attention and time.

The software can be freely downloaded from the Avanquest homepage. Users still need to register the product to receive a serial number which will be send to an email address.

The software scans the existing network connections immediately and provides a manual wizard which can be used to add other connections. This can be useful if the user has all the information about another location and wants to add it to the Connection Manager before he goes there.

Profiles can be accessed through the main window which resembles the Windows Network Connections window which sorts connections by type or by so called groups which offers a custom way of sorting network connections.

One interesting feature is the apply best profile option in the program’s main window which can automatically select the best known profile for the current situation and location. Buttons are provided for WLAN and LAN connections.

Feature Overview:

• Easy Connection Wizard – Detects and displays every network available
• Profile Manager – Saves profiles automatically whenever the user connects to a new network
• Enhanced Security Settings – Supports Virtual Private Networks, Firewall settings and WEP / WPA /WPA2 for wireless connections
• Network Profiles – Save network related settings like network type with support of wordgroups and domains, default printers, email, internet connection sharing and drive mapping.
• Automatically match networks – Applies settings automatically if a match is found

The Avanquest Connection Manager is a handy software for every notebook owner who is connecting his notebook from different locations. Best of all it’s totally free, my only complaint would be the advertisement that is displayed in the main program window. It’s not a huge deal because that window is only open for a short time. It is compatible to Windows XP and Windows Vista.

While three Gigabytes is a lot of bytes when surfing the Internet it’s not enough if you regularly watch movies or hear radio which have much higher bandwidth demands than normal websites. Hotspot Shield does not require user accounts which means that they must have different means to track user bandwidth. Two possibilities are the IP address of the user and / or the MAC address of his network adapter.

Raymond already conducted some research on his own and he discovered that the Mac address is being used by Hotspot Shield to keep track of the bandwidth usage. The only thing left to do would be to change the MAC address to another one which would basically mean that the counter would be reset to 0 again and that the user could use another 3 Gigabytes with Hotspot Shield.

The easiest way to do that is a software called Mac MakeUP. Just install the software, select your network card, click on the Generate Random button, select completely random mac and click on the Change button. Et voila the MAC address has been changed. Reconnect to Hotspot Shield and you should be able to connect normally and use the service as usual.

I decided to try it out once again and was able to sign up again with their service. You have to configure a new VPN connection in your operating system which is explained in the faq section of their website. Details are provided for Microsoft Windows XP, Vista and Mac OS X. Even beginners should be able to create a VPN connection this way. You can now choose to automatically use Relakks whenever you connect to the Internet or manually activate the service, I decided to use it manually but it does not make a difference as long as the service is running.

I suggest to check your IP if you are really connected through the VPN before you do any other activity on the Internet. Let us talk about speeds. Web surfing does not seem to be limited at all by Relakks, everything works fine and fast as usual. I was able to retrieve emails using Thunderbird as well, Winamp streams are working and streaming video on sites like Youtube looks usual.

I decided that it was now time to stress test the connection and see how fast I could go with it. What can I say: Speeds vary a lot. I was not able to maximize my 16 Mbit connection which is no problem usually, the most I got from Relakks was 11 Mbit which is fine but not great. I was able to connect to Giganews and Bittorrent without problems.

It remains to be seen if the service will continue to function this way or if the servers will again go down if to many users sign up for the service. I will keep an eye on it for the next seven days and let you know if I was able to see any changes.

I would sign up with them if that is of interest to any of you. Let me know.

Lan over the Internet has many uses but it was especially designed for gamers in mind. Now you can play games in lan modus over the internet, no need to carry your computers to your friends anymore. Can’t join a lan party because you have work to do at home some of the time ? No problem, just fire up Hamachi and join the fun in your spare time. Hamachi works great with most games with no configuration whatsoever. Let us take a look at this in detail:

Hamachi adds a new network adapter at installation, if you are using firewalls you might have to adjust your firewall rules. (By default Hamachi uses the port 12975) You have to enter a nickname at first start and recieve a unique IP in the range of 5.x.x.x. Enter the preferences before you start a network, you have to adjust some settings in there. (click on the button configure hamachi and select preferences).

You should setup an master password for security reasons. You have the option to run Hamachi at windows startup which I do not recommend unless you and your friend(s) are always online and want to use the service. You should Block Vulnerable Microsoft Services in the Security tab and probably block new network members by default. (you might want to wait until all your friends are known in the network)

It is time to create your first virtual network, to do so click on Power on (if you have not done so already) and select Create or Join Networks. One person has to create the network while all others join the network. Choose create a network and give it a name and a password. Voila, your vpn is active and you see the name of it in the main window.

Once a friend connects to it you see the ip of that friend and the nickname beneath the channel name. The light should be green which indicates that everything is running fine. Right-Clicking a name allows you to ping his computer or chat with him. I recommend a voice application software like Skype or Teamspeak for troubleshooting purposes, you are probably going to use one of those anyway when playing games. You should be able to ping the other connections (right-click, select ping) which indicates that everything should be fine and ready to go.

You can also do other things with Hamachi, here is a personal selection:

• Run an Internet (LAN) Radio Station with Hamachi
• How to setup and connect a proxy over Hamachi
• User Management and Advanced Shares
• Yellow Status
• Configure Outpost Firewall, Zone Alarm, Sygate and Norton Internet Security 2005

Hamachi Troubleshooting Guide. (Taken from Hamachi forum):

• Ensure that everyone can ping everyone, use peer’s right-click menu for that. If ping times out, you will need to check personal firewall settings and make sure it is not blocking pings and game traffic on Hamachi connection. Guides for configuring some popular firewalls are available in HowTo section.
• Launch game and select LAN mode. Make someone host a game. With majority of games everyone else should see hosted game on the list and be able to join it right away.
• If the above does not work, try connecting to the hosting server by its 5.x.x.x IP
• If again it does not work and you are positive that personal firewall is configured correctly, then the game might not be coping well with the presence of two network connections (physical and Hamachi) or generally unhappy about 5.x.x.x addresses. Example of the game of the first kind is AOE series, of the second kind – CS