quick questions from a new user about to start a 3-day trial

[~Daniel~ 11]

Greetings!

 

I have been combing the forums in an effort to get ready for my 3-day trial.  Learned lots about Eddie configuration (Win10 user with Comodo's CIS10 by the way) and look forward to the newer features of the next stable release being updated into the various posts talking about 2.10.

 

These are some lingering questions that I have, and hopefully the community is willing to help clarify some of them for me:

 

I am currently looking for a new VPN service provider and would like to see if AirVPN is right for me.  So that I can guage the trial appropriately, can provide me with some feedback or point me to relevant AirVPN forum posts to these (hopefully) quick questions:

• I understand the trial account has a bandwidth/speed limit.  Can you tell me what it is throttled too so that I can I know if the speeds I see are indeed my trial maximum, or if I need to tweak my Eddie settings?
• I use Comodo Firewall (latest CIS10 version on Win10) and I see many older posts talking about setting up CIS to basically be the "kill switch" (I'm guessing instead of Eddie's "Network Lock" feature).  I'm wondering if this is still the suggested path, or if the development path leading up to today's available 2.11.13 build and additional features like "Windows Filtering Platform support. Including new method for IPv6 block, DNS lock, network lock" make this an unrequired step?  Ensuring "Kill Switch" functionality is working and available is an important criterion to test in my trial.  Knowing if there is a more definitive/current post this topic would be greatly appreciated.
  • Somewhat related, are you aware of this post on Wilders, and do you know if there have been any (or are any) answers to the OP's claims?  It's quite an old post, so I'm sure a lot has changed over time... could have even predated "Network Lock".
  • I did a quick test (without touching CIS10) and clicking the "Activate Network Lock" button (without being logged in or on a VPN connection) did seem to stop my browser from loading a webpage, but browser succeeded after I closed Eddie without deactivating NL first.  Is it expected that Network Lock only functions when Eddie is running, and is lost if Eddie is closed or crashes?
  • In my online research, I've found a script (batch file) that can kill the gateway in the routing (of my NIC I think)... I think it requires me to switch to Static from DHCP so the NIC doesn't self repair.  Would an external script like this be useful in case Eddie crashed?  Actually Eddie has an advanced option to "Remove the gateway route", is that the same thing?  If Eddie crashed, would the route recover?  If not, that sounds good, but how would one recover from that?
• I think Port Forwarding is an interesting offering, but I recall reading online about this having a vulnerability that can expose one's real IP.  I think news broke out on this a year ago, but as my current VPN provider did not offer this service, it never impacted me, and I really didn't follow it.  I would appreciate hearing if you know if this vulnerability is still real today and more specifically if the threat is nonexistence for AirVPN today.
• I've always pointed my torrent client (Deluge) to places like Netherlands, so it's a bit scary to me to only see posts in the forums about "just don't P2P in the US".  Canada is watching now too, maybe just for uploaders... and I'm sure other country are or will be following.  I've set  my upload slots and upload bandwidth to 0 in Deluge hoping that helps me and my VPN provider... any thoughts/tips to share on this?
• I also just learned that Deluge can accept an IP for the interface that I want to bind it to, but it's a manual setting and doesn't update (no plugin for windows to do it).  I think I know the answer to my question, but is there a way to setup TAP or my PVN connection to always have the same IP for me?  I think not as DHCP is likely in use over the VPN, but I thought I'd ask.  It would make Deluge easier to manage for binding; an alternative to "kill switch"/NL (at least for one app/protocol).

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read and/or respond to my post!

[LZ1 672]

Hello!

 

Welcome to AirVPN! That's a long list of quick questions.

 

That post is from 2013 and so if you check the changelog you'll find that Network Lock first got implemented in 2014, in version 2.5. Network Lock modifies the firewall - which was what his post was complaining about. No issues there I should think. Likewise, if you read the ToS you'll find:

9) REIMBURSEMENTS. AirVPN strongly encourages to test the free Service before you pay any subscription to commercial plans. The free service differs from the commercial service only with respect to bandwidth limitations. In case you are not satisfied with the commercial Service, once you have subscribed you have the right to obtain a full reimbursement, given that your request is sent within 3 commercial days from the subscription payment. AirVPN accepts only written refund requests sent to the addresses given in the Privacy Notice. You have the right to request a reimbursement without giving explanations. The right to be refunded is invalid if You have violated the Terms of Service and/or if you send the request after having used the Service for more than 3 days and/or if you have used the Service for a global traffic volume exceeding 5 GigaBytes. Air warrants a reimbursement within 30 days from receipt of reimbursement request.

It's not a speed limit, it's an amount of download limit, in the case of reimbursements. But I don't think there's any other limits on free trials, much. But as you can see on the front page, Air does guarantee various minimums. Which isn't so common in VPNs I believe, as it's hard to live up to a minimum. But that just shows Airs confidence in their infrastructure I suppose.

 

Since you sound quite reliant on Comodo, I urge you to go for 2.11. instead, exactly because of WFP. The client is free to download regardless anyhow, in case one doesn't work over the other.

 

Torrent guides are already covered in my new user guide, likewise, you can find a good few posts talking about the security of port-forwarding elsewhere. It doesn't matter where you torrent to/from, as long as you check via things like ipleak.net there's no leak and have your client configured right, which isn't a huge deal luckily. I'm not sure about the Deluge binding, but in qBittorent you simply bind to a selected interface such as tun0, without needing an IP address. But in the Eddie client, you can enable a checkbox which forces re-connections to the same server, thus giving you the same IP address. Or use a black/white listing of servers. I'm not sure how you imagine P2P to work if you don't want to upload though. AirVPN fully allows P2P by the way and doesn't care about DMCA requests.

 

I also don't think you need to make CIS into a killswitch - but it's up to you. There's many around here who have alternative software setups, that act as killswitches and/or firewalls - such as pfSense. I think it's expected for NL to turn off when Eddie closes; Staff said so somewhere, I think. I just can't remember where. But if Eddie crashed, I think you'd still be safe, since it wouldn't have managed to restore the original firewall rules then. I also think most people would expect NL to go off, if they closed Eddie. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to get online and that's one of the most frequent topics to be created around here. As usual, the solution is to set everything to Obtain Automatically.

 

Give it a whirl - if anything, 3 more days costs 1 euro or 1 dollar lol. Which you could get reimbursed anyway, haha.

 

[~Daniel~ 11]

Good Evening LZ1, and thank you for your reply.

 

I learned many things from your https://airvpn.org/topic/18339-guide-to-getting-started-links-for-advanced-users/, thank you for compiling that

 

Hello!

 

Welcome to AirVPN! That's a long list of quick questions.

 

That post is from 2013 and so if you check the changelog you'll find that Network Lock first got implemented in 2014, in version 2.5. Network Lock modifies the firewall - which was what his post was complaining about. No issues there I should think.

 

I knew I was necro-threading when I reached for that one.  I figured it the issue was related to the Eddie build at that time, but I didn't dig deep enough to close the loop for myself.

 

My quick test with Eddie 2.11.12 (without a plan to log in linked to my account) blocked my browser from loading a page.  When I checked the logs, WFP was used, and I didn't have anything strange happen at that time.  I think what threw me was that some threads seemed to say that it would be like having competing firewalls (possibly an underlying older Eddie version issue thing as well)... not a good thing, so I wanted to ask to be sure.

 

Likewise, if you read the ToS you'll find:

9) REIMBURSEMENTS. AirVPN strongly encourages to test the free Service before you pay any subscription to commercial plans. The free service differs from the commercial service only with respect to bandwidth limitations. In case you are not satisfied with the commercial Service, once you have subscribed you have the right to obtain a full reimbursement, given that your request is sent within 3 commercial days from the subscription payment. AirVPN accepts only written refund requests sent to the addresses given in the Privacy Notice. You have the right to request a reimbursement without giving explanations. The right to be refunded is invalid if You have violated the Terms of Service and/or if you send the request after having used the Service for more than 3 days and/or if you have used the Service for a global traffic volume exceeding 5 GigaBytes. Air warrants a reimbursement within 30 days from receipt of reimbursement request.

It's not a speed limit, it's an amount of download limit, in the case of reimbursements. But I don't think there's any other limits on free trials, much. But as you can see on the front page, Air does guarantee various minimums. Which isn't so common in VPNs I believe, as it's hard to live up to a minimum. But that just shows Airs confidence in their infrastructure I suppose.

 

Oh? So I get full speed with a 5GB data cap?  Wow, that's awesome!  That's a heck of alot more transfer than it took me to write off all the previous VPN's I tested ... maybe even combined   

 

 

Since you sound quite reliant on Comodo, I urge you to go for 2.11. instead, exactly because of WFP. The client is free to download regardless anyhow, in case one doesn't work over the other.

 

I will be using CIS for as long as I use an MS OS.  I've tried many other security applications and uninstalled them all for many various reasons.  I enjoy playing things my Steam library way too much, and although Steam OS is Linux based, there is way too much of my library that is still Windows only.

 

 

Torrent guides are already covered in my new user guide, likewise, you can find a good few posts talking about the security of port-forwarding elsewhere. It doesn't matter where you torrent to/from, as long as you check via things like ipleak.net there's no leak and have your client configured right, which isn't a huge deal luckily. I'm not sure about the Deluge binding, but in qBittorent you simply bind to a selected interface such as tun0, without needing an IP address. But in the Eddie client, you can enable a checkbox which forces re-connections to the same server, thus giving you the same IP address. Or use a black/white listing of servers. I'm not sure how you imagine P2P to work if you don't want to upload though. AirVPN fully allows P2P by the way and doesn't care about DMCA requests.

 

Oh yes, IPLeak... I played with that... have to remember to turn off that firefox thing it mentioned to me.  I'll be sure to use IPLeak when I perform my port forwarding test.

 

I thought to give qbittorent a try, but there were way to many posts about the windows client coming bundled with bloatware and AV's finding goodie in it... so I walked away.  Deluge doesn't let me bind to an interface dirtectly, only to paste in interfaces IP.  There are Linux plugins to automate it, but doesn;t help me on windows.  So I figure it leaves me needing to validate the VPN IP each time I connect to AirVPN, as I doubt I'm going to win the DHCP lottery too many times; with or without force reconnect.

 

I would only need to worry about a DMCA if my real IP was somehow leaked.  Once I learn I am safe/secure and no leak is possible (or happens) due to correct configuration (etc..) then I am perfectly happy to remove my upload restrictions... CYOA (cover your own "butt")  

 

I also don't think you need to make CIS into a killswitch - but it's up to you. There's many around here who have alternative software setups, that act as killswitches and/or firewalls - such as pfSense. I think it's expected for NL to turn off when Eddie closes; Staff said so somewhere, I think. I just can't remember where. But if Eddie crashed, I think you'd still be safe, since it wouldn't have managed to restore the original firewall rules then. I also think most people would expect NL to go off, if they closed Eddie. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to get online and that's one of the most frequent topics to be created around here. As usual, the solution is to set everything to Obtain Automatically.

 

I'll be happy to leave CIS alone if I can. I also have a PC or two lying around that I could use to play around with pfSense... it may have less of a learning curve (thanks to the guides here) than digging out my old Sonicwall TZ190 and relearning it so that I could have it enforce my VPN... good to have options.  And I also think my Eddie 2.11.12 test (although small) points in a positive direction.

 

I'm off to setup my trial to give AirVPN a spin!

[LZ1 672]

You're welcome.

 

The regular NL uses Windows Firewall. The Beta version uses WFP, but can be changed back to Windows Firewall if needed. It's just crucial that whatever other software is running, isn't also trying to modify WFP while Eddie is. Otherwise it might not work . I don't know where you've been downloading qBittorent from, as it has never come with any such bloat for me.

 

Good day and welcome to AirVPN, I hope you like it .

[~Daniel~ 11]

Even though I still had one day left on my trial, I just had to sign up for one year!

 

To wrap up my own post:

• Eddie's NL(WFP) and Comodo CIS_10 seem to be getting along great
• Port forwarding is going well now that I switched my bt client to Tixati (windows version of Transmission was failing for me) and IPLeak shows that all is well
• Binding was restricted to IP address in Transmission, Tixati let me bind right to TAP interface!
• AirVPN + Tixati + LZ1's informative posts/collections = one happy chappy!

[eyes878 43]

I would like to clarify that it is not a 5GB data cap, you are free to use unlimited data at full speed in the 3-day trial. However, refunds are only available if you have used less than 5GB, as it is obvious you did not have a major problem using the service.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong.

[~Daniel~ 11]

I can confirm I was able to download more than 5GB of data in 3 days, and did not appear to be throttled in any way.

 

Any issues I had were more related to my bt client at the time; Eddie/NL and AirVPN servers have been great.

[LZ1 672]

 

Even though I still had one day left on my trial, I just had to sign up for one year!

 

To wrap up my own post:

• Eddie's NL(WFP) and Comodo CIS_10 seem to be getting along great
• Port forwarding is going well now that I switched my bt client to Tixati (windows version of Transmission was failing for me) and IPLeak shows that all is well
• Binding was restricted to IP address in Transmission, Tixati let me bind right to TAP interface!
• AirVPN + Tixati + LZ1's informative posts/collections = one happy chappy!

Good, I hope you enjoy. Come November/December there will likely be a 25-35% sale and then you can keep the ball rolling!

[~Daniel~ 11]

Good, I hope you enjoy. Come November/December there will likely be a 25-35% sale and then you can keep the ball rolling!

 

Oh yes, I've been thinking about that already!  I do love the fact that AirVPN rolls purchased subscriptions into a running/cumulative premium expiration date.

 

I might be mistaken, but I think I also saw evidence of a Birthday sale which would role around sooner than Christmas (I think it was an "M" month... like May or March?)

 

So depending if the discounts are equally as good at the Birthday sale, I'll flip a coin between a sending Air VPN a Birthday or Christmas present (that we both can use ).

[LZ1 672]

It's all in my guide. Black Friday is the biggest sale.