AirVPN 'Kill Switch.'

[Guest]

Hi! - I've only been using AirVPN for 3 months but am pleased with it's overall performance, ease of setup and customer service. I now have to decide whether to renew or go with another of the numerous other VPN services. (I have tried 3 other services before this post.)

   I am a 70 yr old, pretty computer literate user, but my main areas of expertise are in graphic work and computer maintenance. I have minimal knowledge of programming or Network connection areas. I don't believe that I will be alone in having such a background. I frankly don't have the time, or perhaps enough grey cells left, to try to get up to speed with Networking.

   I want to use a VPN, not because of paranoia, but because I am old enough and experienced enough to understand that NO GOVERNMENT can be trusted completely.  The present controversy over the NSA and British Government obsession with spying on, and trying to control, their populations is a very retrograde step and highly obnoxious to free thinking people.

   I have attempted to wade through the volumes of material on this site, and many others, concerning the leakage of data to unwanted sources if, or likely when, you VPN connection fails. We all know this happens. To be honest, if you try to look objectively at the present situation, I find it both disquieting and frankly absurd that a great VPN company like AirVPN hasn't prioritised the inclusion of a simple 'ON' 'OFF' KillSwitch in its automatic setup GUI. Without this being available to the great mass of people like me who are not unwilling, but are unable to understand the attempts of even those Forum members who have gone to great lengths to try to simplify a DIY type of Kill Switch process, all your other precautions become pointless.

   Please! Please!- I very much want to continue to use AirVPN but, as I have indicated above, I feel extremely exposed to the very people that I wish to remain anonymous to. I am not a child molesting monster nor do I download vast amounts of illicit material. I simply want to browse the internet as freely as possible, and download an occasional file or two, without knowing that I may be spied upon by others.

   Is it technically possible to include an automatically set up Kill Switch, with the absolutely MINIMAL and foolproof input required by the many people like me? If so will you please do it a.s.a.p? Sorry for the length of this 'rant,' but it comes from the heart.

[S.O.A. 83]

When I first tried AirVPN I didn't like that they didn't have a killswitch. However, have you tried "VPNcheck" I have been using it for 6 months and it works great with AirVPN. When AirVPN has gone down (due to my ISP and NOT AirVPN) VPNcheck shuts down all the programs that I specified in the program. Also, AirVPN is planning an update that is supposed to come out in Alpha by the end of this month. This update includes a killswitch. 

 

Hope I helped! 

[Guest]

Thanks a lot for this information. I have actually got the free version of VPNCheck but have been reluctant to try it as I seem to have read on posts that AirVPN does not recommend using 3rd person programs like this. After your recommendation I'll certainly give it a try. Also thanks for the news that AirVPN is including a 'kill switch' in an upcoming update. This information helps me a lot. Many thanks.

[S.O.A. 83]

Were you able to get VPNcheck working?

[thirdworld 1]

.....I have actually got the free version of VPNCheck but have been reluctant to try it as I seem to have read on posts that AirVPN does not recommend using 3rd person programs like this. After your recommendation I'll certainly give it a try.....

 

I would recommend you to not use 3rd party programs such as VPNCheck. The latter could include spyware that logs the sites that you visit and/or forwards the sites to the NSA or "Five Eyes". VPNCheck is developed in New Zealand and a few months ago its Parliament voted to retain its national and international surveillance programme. New Zealand is a firm ally of the USA and collects massive amounts of data for the USA.

[An0nI 0]

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[bobber6 8]

I agree completely with the op ; Airvpn needs a "killswitch" i have been using air for some time now and am very satisfied with the service and the attitude of the owner.

I did go trough the process of installing and configuring  a firewall and some other settings ( hosts file etc. ) to make sure no dns leaks occur and the connection closes when Airvpn is disconnected.

Both a family member and a friend asked my advice regarding running a vpn ; these both are absolute computer illiterates, so i recomended they use [advertisement removed by Staff], (which i have used before ) which has a simple setup :button: " Block the internet on connection failure" and button: "Stop DNS leaks"

I do hope the mod doesn't treat this as spam ( using a competitors name ) it is to make the point: please , add these enhancements, i'm sure it will get you many new  customers !

[kvmjohan 4]

There is a point to be made that you have to be pretty computer litterate to us the AIR client and stop all leaks, I spent the better part of 10 hours plugging away at it.

 

Working with the firewall to plug anything there is extra time on top of that, i do have the feeling that airvpn offers the best product, but probably not the best product if you are not pretty well versed in computers (if that makes sence).

[Staff 9972]

Hello,

 

we will soon make an announcement about the release of Eddie, which will include leaks prevention features (including prevention of leaks in case of unexpected VPN disconnection).

 

In the meantime we remind you that if you have issues with a Windows firewall, in Windows you can prevent any leak with a single command which needs less than 10 seconds to be typed in.

 

For example if your computer gateway IP address in your home/office network is 192.168.1.1 (just an example) open a command a prompt with admin privileges and type:

 

route delete 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1

and that's all you need to prevent any leak.

 

You can immediately see the gateway IP address by typing "route print".

 

Please see here for some theory and more information:

 

https://airvpn.org/topic/9797-blocking-non-vpn-traffic-without-firewall-using-routing-router/?do=findComment&comment=11512

 

Kind regards

[dd79 15]

The router ip can also be found by typing

ipconfig

in cmd.

[PrecisionLotus 0]

Accessing the internet via an linux build solves a lot of potential issues. No third party can be trusted, the US government spent over 300 million dollars in a year creating backdoors to mainstream software, and though Linux drives me crazy coming from a non programming backyard Windows is one giant eyeball sucking up all your data and vpn's irrelevenat if anyone has interest in your activities.

[M-Z 0]

In the meantime we remind you that if you have issues with a Windows firewall, in Windows you can prevent any leak with a single command which needs less than 10 seconds to be typed in.

 

For example if your computer gateway IP address in your home/office network is 192.168.1.1 (just an example) open a command a prompt with admin privileges and type:

 

 

route delete 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1

and that's all you need to prevent any leak.

 

 

Perhaps it would be even easier (without having to look at what is the gateway IP address) to write down command:

route delete 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0

[SaveSnowden 5]

Which operating system are you using? If you are concerned about government spying, it shouldn't be anything except Linux. There is a good tutorial on setting up a Linux based kill switch on the Air forums, just search for it. I started using it myself a few days ago.

[NaDre 157]

..

 

Perhaps it would be even easier (without having to look at what is the gateway IP address) to write down command:

route delete 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0

 

For XP that did not work. So the posts I have written always said to look up the gateway IP and include that. But XP will be dead in a couple of weeks.

 

To restore the default gateway though you will nee the previous gateway IP. You can see what that is using "ipconfig /all" and looking for  the "Default Gateway .." entry for your real IP interface.

 

Or to restore the gateway you can try "ipconfig /renew". I believe I once saw this not work though when I was playing with this stuff.

 

Remember that the default gateway gets restored when the DHCP lease is renewed. See the "UPDATE" paragraph at the end of this post:

 

/topic/9797-blocking-non-vpn-traffic-without-firewall-using-routing-router/?do=findComment&comment=11512

 

Also, this does not ensure that DNS queries go out via the VPN. A bit more needs to be done for that.

[Lee47 23]

 

.....I have actually got the free version of VPNCheck but have been reluctant to try it as I seem to have read on posts that AirVPN does not recommend using 3rd person programs like this. After your recommendation I'll certainly give it a try.....

 

I would recommend you to not use 3rd party programs such as VPNCheck. The latter could include spyware that logs the sites that you visit and/or forwards the sites to the NSA or "Five Eyes". VPNCheck is developed in New Zealand and a few months ago its Parliament voted to retain its national and international surveillance programme. New Zealand is a firm ally of the USA and collects massive amounts of data for the USA.

 

that is most interesting information, any source on this ?

 

I would imagine most computer experts would have picked apart VPNcheck to see if it was indeed communicating anything back to a server or hiding malware or backdoor. I never saw VPncheck communicating out anyhow, but decided to still block it in case via the firewall for safety as one should do so with any program or software installed.

[Lee47 23]

Hi! - I've only been using AirVPN for 3 months but am pleased with it's overall performance, ease of setup and customer service. I now have to decide whether to renew or go with another of the numerous other VPN services. (I have tried 3 other services before this post.)

   I am a 70 yr old, pretty computer literate user, but my main areas of expertise are in graphic work and computer maintenance. I have minimal knowledge of programming or Network connection areas. I don't believe that I will be alone in having such a background. I frankly don't have the time, or perhaps enough grey cells left, to try to get up to speed with Networking.

   I want to use a VPN, not because of paranoia, but because I am old enough and experienced enough to understand that NO GOVERNMENT can be trusted completely.  The present controversy over the NSA and British Government obsession with spying on, and trying to control, their populations is a very retrograde step and highly obnoxious to free thinking people.

   I have attempted to wade through the volumes of material on this site, and many others, concerning the leakage of data to unwanted sources if, or likely when, you VPN connection fails. We all know this happens. To be honest, if you try to look objectively at the present situation, I find it both disquieting and frankly absurd that a great VPN company like AirVPN hasn't prioritised the inclusion of a simple 'ON' 'OFF' KillSwitch in its automatic setup GUI. Without this being available to the great mass of people like me who are not unwilling, but are unable to understand the attempts of even those Forum members who have gone to great lengths to try to simplify a DIY type of Kill Switch process, all your other precautions become pointless.

   Please! Please!- I very much want to continue to use AirVPN but, as I have indicated above, I feel extremely exposed to the very people that I wish to remain anonymous to. I am not a child molesting monster nor do I download vast amounts of illicit material. I simply want to browse the internet as freely as possible, and download an occasional file or two, without knowing that I may be spied upon by others.

   Is it technically possible to include an automatically set up Kill Switch, with the absolutely MINIMAL and foolproof input required by the many people like me? If so will you please do it a.s.a.p? Sorry for the length of this 'rant,' but it comes from the heart.

 

I agree with this, its a terrible world we live in where we are monitored and spied upon in fact I class it as illegal in my books, but then who is going to arrest the police and government ! I hope you got some security and privacy and plugged those IP/DNS leaks in the end.