My first experience with Relakks
I signed up for Relakks yesterday and was satisfied with the clean and easy process. I had to provide only some information like name, email, password and username and was able to log on to their system afterwards. My status was inactive at that time because I did not make a purchase yet. I decided to try the service for one month and had to provide my credit card details in order to do so. One month costs 6$ which is a good price if they live up to their promises which are a) anonymous internet experience and b) maximum speed.
Setting up the service was pretty easy as well on a Windows XP system. I only had to create a new VPN connection, enter the details they provided on their website and was then free to connect to their system with the username and password I selected when I registered my account.
I checked my IP address first to see if the service would indeed hide the IP address assigned my provider from web servers that I'd connect to. It was indeed different and a quick look up revealed that it belonged to an IP address associated with Arabic Computer System Co. which left me puzzled.
I had no means to investigate this further because the service is currently really slow and not usable most of the time. They announced at their website that more users than expected signed up for the service and that everything is slower than expected. They are trying to fix the matter. Will keep you updated on this.
Talking about anonymity. Someone pointed out that the service does not mean true anonymity and Iagree with that. Relakks does know what you are doing which means every law enforcement agency with a search warrant will still be able to retrieve your ip and actions and trace it back to you if they get the Relakks to cooperate. I don't think that this is a big problem at the moment unless you are the kind of person who is committing crime on the Internet though.
Relakks Tips
- Relakks supports only the PPTP protocol currently.
- I highly suggest that you try the service for a month before you make a long term commitment. You can also create an account and contact support for a free 48 hour trial to make sure Relakks is compatible with your setup and also usable form your location.
- The Sign Up menu at the top of the Relakks website links to instructions to setup the VPN service on various operating systems.
Just signed up, looks great from what I have read, Like all vpn services you take a chance on the people that run it, but it adds another level. We need more service like this.
JamJar
well we need more services like this for sure if the usA can put restrictions onthe net ..then we need people like this to balance it out
i for one think this is an excellent thing
the fact of the matter is, you’re going to be *MUCH* safer when using this service than if you’re just careless browing around questionable sites from your north american ISP
end of story
i for one always welcome things that keep me anonymous
Good Question. I´am no expert in Swedish law but I think if enough illegal activities can be traced back to Relakks the authorities might be able to force them to log all activities.
I´am not sure if they do not log your actions and even if they claim they are not I would at least remain suspicious about it.
You say: “Relakks does know what you are doing which means every law enforcement agency with a search warrant will still be able to retrieve your ip and actions and trace it back to you.”
But if Relakks does not log your activity, remembering what connections you made, etc., then does it “know” what you are doing in a meaningful sense?
And if Relakks doesn’t log your activity, how could Law Enforcement Agency X find out that Infringing Activity Y (which went through Relakks) was really for you and not for some other Relakks user?