VPN Help

What is a Virtual Private Network connection?

In a normal internet connection, all your traffic is routed from your computer through your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and out onto the internet and finally to its destinate (server). At every step of the way, your data is being recorded and is vulnerable to man-in-the-middle attacks, e.g. conducted by your ISP or network operators in your local country. When using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) your data will appear together with the IP address of the VPN server, and not your real IP address. VPN is an enhancement to your existing internet connection and does not replace your ISP. You will need an existing connection (DSL, dial up, etc) to be able to use VPN. Find a nice illustration of how a VPN works here. Unless you choose to sign into a certain site with your personal data, you will be anonymous for your entire web session.

How to install and use VPN?

We recommend the use of OpenVPN for Windows PCs. You can download the OpenVPN client for Windows here. If you have alraeady installed OpenVPN it could be a good idea to check here for the most recent version of the software. There are several pages that offer free access certificates, for example:

https://www.vpnbook.com/freevpn  VPNBOOK
https://www.freeopenvpn.org/en/   Free OpenVPN
http://freevpn.me/accounts   Free VPN me
For Linux or iPhone/iPad, you may directly use PPTP without any client installation. Some VPN services come with their own client software, in this case the client from the VPN service should be installed. Riseup has a new VPN service called RiseupVPN. This VPN client is super easy to use! You just install it and run it - no configuration, no account registration. Riseup offers Personal VPN service for censorship circumvention, location anonymization and traffic encryption. To make this possible, it sends all your internet traffic through an encrypted connection to riseup.net, where it then goes out onto the public internet. Unlike most other VPN providers, Riseup does not log your IP address.

You may select one of the free (commercial) VPN services from this list:

http://cyberghostvpn.com/  Cyberghost VPN [Windows and Mac]
http://hotspotshield.com/   Hotspot Shield [Windows and Mac]
https://www.vpnreactor.com/   VPN Reactor [7-day trial]
https://www.tunnelbear.com/  Tunnelbear VPN [Windows Mac Android iOS ]
https://hide.me/en/   Hide me VPN [Windows Mac Linux Android iOS ]

For some of these services it is necessary to first create an account for login. Storing the VPN service password on the windows client is not a good idea. Many VPN clients do not store the password securely. Try to keep your password in mind. In case you forget it, the password can be reset or you create a new account. Start OpenVPN or the selected client software, log into your account and connect to the VPN server. Now all internet activity, no matter if you're surfing in the browser or using Skype, ICQ, IRC, FTP or other protocols and programs, will be directed to the VPN server. Many VPN services use encryption (SSL), thus protecting the connection between your computer and the internet.

How to use VPN behind a firewall?

If your computer is behind the router and firewall provided by your ISP, it might be necessary to open ports to connect to the VPN service. Many VPN services use port 443, the common SSL port. Port 443 should already be open because it is commonly used by other services such as Skype. If you're connecting via PPTP VPN (such as on iPhone/iPad) you'll need to ensure that the router to which your mobile device is connected to has port 1723 (TCP) open and is allowing the GRE protocol.

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