qBittorrent is a fast. easy to use torrent client that uses as few of your PC's resources as possible for improved speeds.

Unlike most free clients, qBittorrent is completely open source, meaning there are no ads and you don't have to pay extra for extensions and add-ons. Anyone can develop their own new features and fix bugs, and you’ll benefit from regular updates.

If you’re fully immersed in the Google ecosystem, using Chrome makes perfect sense. It ties in with your Google account, allowing you to sync settings and bookmarks between computers – and even different devices thanks to mobile versions of the browser. Available for Mac, Windows and Linux, as well as iOS and Android, Chrome's cross-platform support gives it access to a large number of users, and it's little wonder that it proves so enduringly popular.

he current version of Chrome complies with more web standards than any other browser, and a frequent update cycle means that security issues and other bugs are knocked on the head quickly.

If you find that there's a feature missing from Chrome, or you like the idea of adding extra functions to websites you use frequently, you have the option of using extensions to do just that, and there's a huge selection available in the Chrome Web Store. If you like the idea of trying new tools first, there’s also a beta channel available that provides early access to new builds of the browser.

Chrome also does a superb job of managing tabs. As well as intelligently resizing tabs – and providing a pinning option for easy access – the browser also stores individual tabs in memory separately, so if one crashes, it shouldn't take the rest with it.

In terms of its basic look, Chrome offers few surprises. This is, after all, a piece of software designed to display web pages, and those web pages should be the focus of things rather than the browser itself. With this in mind, Chrome does a great job of fading into the background – it is beautifully minimalist.

There are few settings that you will need to concern yourself with on a day-to-day basis, but it's easy to change the default search engine, show or hide the bookmarks toolbar, and control the storage of browsing history and cookies. With support for multiple users, and even parental controls, Chrome is a browser for all the family, and the browser of the future.

If you're not worried by the privacy concerns associated with Google, this is the best web browser on the market.

Any Video Converter Free is an amazing downloading and conversion toolkit so comprehensive, it's hard to believe it's free. You can rip files from discs, download them from YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Dailymotion and more, apply filters and effects, then save or burn them to DVD in virtually any format.

Free YouTube Download isn’t quite as convenient as software that lets you search for videos without opening your web browser, but it’s straightforward, uncluttered, and very simple to use.

Unfortunately, Free YouTube Download has one major drawback: you can’t download videos longer than three minutes unless you pay for a premium subscription. This is currently discounted to a modest $9 (about £7, AU$12) annually, or US$19 (about £15, AU$25) for a lifetime, and includes all of DVDVideoSoft’s other media software, but  if you’re looking after the pennies then you’ll be better off with a tool like aTube Catcher.

Bear in mind that you should only download videos if you have the copyright holder’s permission. Here we’re using Free YouTube Download to make a handy archive of our own YouTube channel for posterity.

When you install Free YouTube Download, an addition icon labelled Free Studio will appear on your desktop. Don’t be alarmed – this isn’t an extra program that’s been sneakily installed without your permission, it’s just a link that gives you quick access to all the DVDVideoSoft applications you have installed. If you don’t want it, just delete it.

Provided your chosen video is short enough, you can take your pick from a variety of video format and quality settings, or you can choose to just download the audio if you prefer. This is a welcome touch; some desktop programs and most online video downloaders only let you save standard resolution MP4 files. 

You can queue multiple videos before saving them in a batch – just use the green 'Paste' button to add each URL before clicking 'Download'. 

Take a peek into the Options menu and you’ll find a surprisingly comprehensive list of settings. You can specify the output folder (it’s your Videos directory by default), set a naming convention, shut down your PC when it’s finished (ideal if you’re grabbing lots of files at once), and paste URLs from the clipboard automatically to save time.

Free YouTube Download is a great tool for grabbing and converting clips from the world’s biggest video hosting site, but the three-minute limit is a real shame. If you really like how the software looks and works, consider upgrading to the premium version now while the price is deeply discounted.

Free YouTube Download doesn't have many flaws – it's well designed, with an excellent choice of export options – but the time limit on downloaded videos is a major drawback.

aTube Catcher is one of a growing number of tools that download videos from the likes of YouTube, Dailymotion and Metacafe. While it's often easy to browse the web on your phone will you travel, there are times when there's no connection available. This is when it pays to have downloaded videos in advance.

The videos you download can be converted to a number of popular formats, suitable for playback on a variety of devices. So whether you're looking for the best possible quality to view on a high resolution monitor, or the emphasis is on smaller file size to fit on your smartphone, aTube Catcher can do the job for you.

There's also a screen recorder that can be used to capture video from your screen, and a disc burning option.

You might not expect it from what many people would not consider 'serious' software, but aTube Catcher includes an automatic updater that ensures you're always using the most recent, most secure, and most feature-packed version of the program.

For hardcore users, there is the option of batch processing files so you can download multiple videos at once. This is a somewhat hands-on task that requires the creation of a text files to tell the software what to do. It's a little inelegant and long-winded, but it works.

It's nice to see the option to not only convert videos between formats, but also to create VCDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs from the content you record or download.

As with many free tools these days, you need to take care when installing aTube Catcher to ensure that you aren't accidentally duped into also installing a browser toolbar. Thankfully, this is not selected by default, but it's worth keeping an eye out for.

After firing up the program, a neat splash screen provides an inviting introduction to what aTube Catcher has to offer. Rather than forcing you to hunt through endless menus to find what you're looking for, a series of clear buttons provide instant access so you can get to work without delay.

The initial interface is pleasingly unintimidating, and downloading videos from any of the supported sites – of which there are many – is a simple matter of copying and pasting the URL, choosing the format you'd like to save the video in, and clicking 'Download'. There are several formats to choose from, and in many cases there's a variety of preset resolutions to choose from.

Note that you should only download videos if you have the copyright owner's permission. YouTube's terms of service prohibit unauthorized downloading.

The screen recorder feature is very nice too, and can be used in a number of ways. You could use it to record whatever you're doing on your computer, but it is also possible to use to capture live streaming video that you would not otherwise be able to download. Just draw a selection box around the video you want and you're good to go.

Even if you don't download videos very often, this is a great piece of software to keep to hand for occasions when you do. Its built-in screen and sound recorders complete the package.

Freemake Video Downloader is much more than a simple YouTube downloader. It supports more than 500 audio and video formats, which helps explain why it has so many users (93 million and counting). 

Unlike some video downloaders, MP4 isn't your only option – WebM and 3GP are also available.

It's extremely convenient, able to grab and convert videos from any of the major video hosting sites, but sadly the latest release has one major flaw: you can no longer download videos longer than three minutes without upgrading to the Freemake Premium Pack.

VPN services have become an important tool to counter the growing threat of Internet surveillance. Encrypting one's traffic through a VPN connection helps to keep online communications private, but is your VPN truly anonymous? We take a look at the logging policies of dozens of top VPN providers.

Millions of Internet users around the world use a VPN to protect their privacy online.

Unfortunately, however, not all VPN services are as private as you might think. In fact, some are known to keep extensive logs that can easily identify specific users on their network.

This is the main reason why we have launched a yearly VPN review, asking providers about their respective logging policies as well as other security and privacy aspects. This year’s questions are as follows:

1. Do you keep ANY logs which would allow you to match an IP-address and a time stamp to a user/users of your service? If so, what information do you hold and for how long?

2. What is the registered name of the company and under what jurisdiction(s) does it operate?

3. Do you use any external visitor tracking, email providers or support tools that hold information about your users/visitors?

4. In the event you receive a takedown notice (DMCA or other), how are these handled?

5. What steps are taken when a valid court order or subpoena requires your company to identify an active user of your service? Has this ever happened?

6. Is BitTorrent and other file-sharing traffic allowed (and treated equally to other traffic) on all servers? If not, why?

7. Which payment systems do you use and how are these linked to individual user accounts?

8. What is the most secure VPN connection and encryption algorithm you would recommend to your users?

9. How do you currently handle IPv6 connections and potential IPv6 leaks? Do you provide DNS leak protection and tools such as “kill switches” if a connection drops?

10. Do you offer a custom VPN application to your users? If so, for which platforms?

11. Do you have physical control over your VPN servers and network or are they hosted by/accessible to a third party? Do you use your own DNS servers?

12. What countries are your servers located in?

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Below is the list of responses from the VPN services in their own words. Providers who didn’t answer our questions directly or failed by logging extensively were excluded. We specifically chose to leave room for detailed answers where needed. The order of the list holds no value.

1. As stated in our terms of service, we do not monitor, record or store any VPN user logs. We do not store connection time stamps, used bandwidth, traffic logs, or IP addresses.

2. The registered company name is Tefincom co S.A., and it operates under the jurisdiction of Panama.

3. We use Google Analytics and a third-party ticket/live chat tools (Zendesk/Zopim). Google Analytics is used to improve our website and provide our users with the most relevant information. The ticket/live chat tool is used to provide the best support in the industry (available 24/7), but not tracking our users by any means.

4. We operate under Panama’s jurisdiction, where DMCA and similar orders have no legal bearing. Therefore, they do not apply to us.

5. If the order or subpoena is issued by a Panamanian court, we would have to provide the information if we had any. However, our zero-log policy means that we don’t have any information about our users’ online activity. So far, we haven’t had any such cases.

6. Yes, we allow P2P traffic. We have optimized a number of our servers specifically for file-sharing; ensuring other servers, which are meant for streaming and other purposes, have uninterrupted speeds. In any case, we do not engage in bandwidth throttling for P2P users.

7. Our customers can pay via credit card, PayPal and Bitcoin. We do store the standard billing information for refund purposes, but it can not be related to any Internet activity of a particular customer. Bitcoin is the most anonymous option, as we do not link the payment details with the user identity or other personal information.

8. NordVPN uses NGE (Next Generation Encryption) in IKEv2/IPsec. The ciphers used to generate Phase1 keys are AES-256-GCM for encryption, coupled with SHA2-384 to ensure integrity, combined with PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy) using 3072-bit Diffie Hellmann keys. IKEv2 protocol is used by default in our OS X and iOS apps, and it can be manually setup on Windows and Android OS. We are also exploring possibilities to develop IKEv2 based apps for Android and Windows. At the moment, Windows and Android apps are using AES-256-CBC encryption with 2048-bit key.

9. Yes, we do provide both an automatic app-level kill switch and a feature for DNS leak protection. Our OS X, Windows, iOS and Android apps have IPv6 leak protection implemented. NordVPN service will not leak IPv6 address.

10. We have custom VPN applications for Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS. All NordVPN apps are very easy to install and use, even with no previous experience with VPN services.

11. We use a hybrid model, whereby we control some of our servers but also partner with premium data centers with strong security practices. Furthermore, due to our special server configuration, no one can retain or collect any data. All servers have been set up with a zero logs policy. We do have specific requirements for network providers to ensure highest service quality for our customers. We do have our own DNS servers, and all DNS requests go through those.

12. At the moment, we have 741 servers in 58 countries.

1. We do not store any logs relating to traffic, session, DNS or metadata. There are no logs for any person or entity to match an IP address and a timestamp to a user of our service. In other words, we do not log, period. Privacy is our policy.

2. Private Internet Access is operated by London Trust Media, Inc., with branches in the US and Iceland, which are a few of the countries that still respect privacy and do not have a mandatory data retention policy. Additionally, since we operate from the countries with the strongest of consumer protection laws, our beloved customers are able to purchase with confidence.

3. All of our VPN systems and tools are proprietary and maintained in house. We utilize some third-party tools in order to provide a better customer experience. By Q3 2017, all of these third party tools will be transitioned to in-house solutions.

4. We do not monitor our users, and we keep no logs, period. That said, we have an active, proprietary system in place to help mitigate abuse.

5. Every subpoena is scrutinized to the highest extent for compliance with both the “spirit” and “letter of the law.” While we have not received valid court orders, we periodically receive subpoenas from law enforcement agencies that we scrutinize for compliance and respond accordingly. This is all driven based upon our commitment to privacy. All this being said, we do not log and do not have any data on our customers other than their signup e-mail and account username.

6. BitTorrent and file-sharing traffic are allowed and treated equally to all other traffic (although it’s routed through a second VPN in some cases). We do not censor our traffic, period.

7. We utilize a variety of payment systems, including, but not limited to: PayPal, Credit Card (with Stripe), Amazon, Google, Bitcoin, CashU, and any major store-bought gift card and OKPay. Payment data is not linked nor linkable to user activity.

8. Currently, the most secure and practical encryption algorithm that we recommend to our users would be our cipher suite of AES-256 + RSA4096 + SHA256.

9. Yes, our users gain a plethora of additional protections, including but not limited to:

(a) Kill Switch: Ensures that traffic is routed through the VPN such that if the VPN connection is unexpectedly terminated, the traffic will not route.

(b) IPv6 Leak Protection: Protects clients from websites which may include IPv6 embeds, which could lead to IPv6 IP information coming out.

(c) DNS Leak Protection: This is built-in and ensures that DNS requests are made through the VPN on a safe, private, no-log DNS daemon.

(d) Shared IP System: We mix clients’ traffic with many other clients’ traffic through the use of an anonymous shared-IP system ensuring that our users blend in with the crowd.

(e) MACE™: Protects users from malware, trackers, and ads

10. We have custom applications to which our users have left amazing reviews. PIA has clients for the following platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android, iOS and a Chrome Extension (Coming soon). Additionally, users of other operating systems can connect with other protocols including OpenVPN, SOCKS5 (unencrypted), and IPSec, among others.

11. We utilize our own bare metal servers in third-party datacenters that are operated by trusted friends and, now, business partners whom we have met and on which we have completed serious due diligence. Our servers are located in facilities including 100TB, Choopa, Leaseweb, among others.

We also operate our own DNS servers on our high throughput network. These servers are private and do not log.

12. As of the beginning of 2017, We operate 3283 servers across 37 locations in 25 countries.

1. ExpressVPN is an anonymous, offshore, zero-log VPN service provider. We are in the business of keeping our customers private and secure.

We do not possess information that would enable us to identify a user by an IP and timestamp produced as part of an investigation. ExpressVPN IPs are shared among customers, and we don’t have the ability to match a customer to an IP address. We designed our network to maximize privacy protection for our customers.

2. Express VPN International Ltd. is a BVI (British Virgin Islands) company. The BVI is a small, independent nation in the Caribbean renowned as an offshore jurisdiction with strict privacy regulations and no data retention laws.

3. We use 3rd party website analytics tools such as Google Analytics. We use Zendesk for support tickets and Snapengage for live chat. We believe that these are secure platforms.

Information about how you use the VPN itself (such as browsing history, traffic data or DNS queries) is never revealed to 3rd parties and is never logged or stored by ExpressVPN.

4. As we are a network service provider rather than a content host, there is nothing to take down. We also do not attempt to identify an ExpressVPN user in this case, report the user, or otherwise restrict service. Our customers should rest assured that their anonymity is protected.

5. VPN companies receive subpoenas and other legal requests as a matter of regular occurrence. This is one of the most significant advantages of our BVI jurisdiction. A court order would need to take place in the BVI for it to be legally valid. If we receive a request from another jurisdiction, we let them know that we don’t maintain logs that would enable us to match an IP address to an ExpressVPN user.

6. ExpressVPN allows all traffic including BitTorrent from all VPN servers and does not impose restrictions based on the type of traffic our users send.

7. ExpressVPN accepts all major credit cards including VISA, MasterCard and American Express. We also accept PayPal and a large number of local payment options. For users who want maximum privacy and don’t want to send us personally identifying payment information, we recommend bitcoin. In fact, we’ve written a complete guide to protecting your financial privacy with bitcoin.

8. In most cases we recommend (and default to) OpenVPN UDP. Our apps use a 4096-bit CA, AES-256-CBC encryption, TLSv1.2, and SHA512 signatures to authenticate our servers.

9. Yes, we call this leak protection feature “Network Lock”, and it is turned on by default. Network Lock prevents all types of traffic including IPv4, IPv6, and DNS from leaking outside of the VPN, such as when your Internet connection drops or in various additional scenarios where other VPNs might leak.

10. ExpressVPN has award-winning apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and routers. Our apps are designed to make it easy for users to choose a VPN location and get connected. They also offer much better security and privacy protection than manually configuring a VPN. With the ExpressVPN App for Routers, we make it easy to protect every device in your home using a VPN that is always connected.

11. Our VPN servers are hosted by trusted data centers with strong security practices. The data center employees do not have server credentials, and the server disks are fully encrypted to mitigate any risks from physical seizure. We run our own zero-knowledge DNS on every server (no 3rd party DNS).

12. ExpressVPN has thousands of high speed servers in 145 locations across 94 countries.

1. No logs or time stamps are kept whatsoever. TorGuard does not store any traffic logs or user session data on our network. In addition to a strict no logging policy we run a shared IP configuration across all servers. Because there are no logs kept and multiple users sharing a single IP address, it is not possible to match any user with an IP and time stamp.

2. TorGuard is owned and operated by VPNetworks LLC under US jurisdiction, with our parent company VPNetworks LTD, LLC based in Nevis.

3. We use anonymized Google Analytics data to optimize our website and Sendgrid for transactional email. TorGuard’s 24/7 live chat services are provided through Livechatinc’s platform. Customer support desk requests are maintained by TorGuard’s own private ticketing system.

4. In the event a valid DMCA notice is received it is immediately processed by our abuse team. Due to our no log and no time stamp policy and shared IP network – we are unable to forward any requests to a single user.

5. If a court order is received, it is first handled by our legal team and examined for validity in our jurisdiction. Should it be deemed valid, our legal representation would be forced to further explain the nature of our network and shared IP configuration and the fact that we do not hold any identifying logs or time stamps to pinpoint any specific user. We have never been able to identify any active user from an IP and time stamp.

6. Yes, BitTorrent and all P2P traffic is allowed. By default we do not block or limit any types of traffic across our network.

7. We currently offer over 200 different payment options. This includes all forms of credit card, PayPal, Bitcoin, altcoins (e.g. Ether, litecoin + more), Alipay, UnionPay, CashU, 100+ Gift Card brands, and many other methods local payment options. No user can be linked back to a billing account because we maintain zero logs across our network.

8. For best security, we advise clients to use OpenVPN and select the cipher option AES-256-CBC, with 4096bit RSA and SHA512 HMAC. We use TLS 1.2 on all servers with perfect forward secrecy enabled. For faster speeds and “obfuscated” Stealth VPN access, we suggest using OpenConnect SSL VPN with cipher option AES-256-GCM. TorGuard offers a wide range of VPN protocols, including OpenVPN, L2TP, IPsec, SSTP, OpenConnect/AnyConnect (SSL VPN), and iKEV2 – we still offer PPTP for those of you who need it, but we don’t recommend it.

9. TorGuard’s VPN software provides strict security features by automatically disabling IPv6 and blocking any potential DNS or WebRTC leaks. We offer a full connection kill switch that safeguards your VPN traffic against accidental disconnects and can hard kill your interfaces if needed, and an application kill switch that can terminate specific apps if the VPN connection is interrupted for additional safety. All recommended security features are enabled the moment you install TorGuard to ensure by default you have max security while tunneling through our network.

10. TorGuard’s popular VPN client is available for all versions of Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, Android, and iOS. We also offer easy DDWRT and Tomato setup tools for VPN routers, and a Firefox/Chrome SSL proxy app. To stay up to date with current security threats, our VPN software is actively developed and constantly evolving.

11. We retain full physical control over all hardware and only seek partnerships with data centers who can meet our strict security criteria. All servers are deployed and managed exclusively by TorGuard staff. Because there are no logs kept on any TorGuard VPN and Proxy servers, there is no risk of data theft should a machine become seized.

TorGuard VPN apps default to using internal secure no-log DNS servers that run on each VPN endpoint. We suggest this configuration for highest levels of privacy, however, clients can customize their DNS settings and choose from zero log TorGuard public DNS, Google DNS, Level3, or a customized DNS entry of their choosing.

12. TorGuard currently maintains thousands of servers in over 53 countries around the world, and we continue to expand the network every month. All customers get full access to our network.

1. Anonymizer does not log ANY traffic that traverses our system, ever. We do not maintain any logs that would allow you to match an IP-address and time stamp to a user of our service.

2. Our company is registered as Anonymizer Inc. Anonymizer Inc. operates under U.S. jurisdiction where there are no data retention laws.

3. Anonymizer uses a ticketing system for support but does not request user verification unless it is needed specifically in support of a ticket. Anonymizer uses a bulk email service for email marketing but does not store any details on the individual email address that would connect them to being an existing customer.

Anonymizer uses Google Analytics and Google AdWords to support general marketing to new customers. Both of these tools do not store identifiable information on any unique customer or any way to identify a specific individual as a user of our service. We also actively ensure no link is created from the data in either system to any specific customer following a trial or purchase of our product.

4. Since Anonymizer does not log any traffic that comes over our system, we have nothing to provide in response to DMCA requests. None of our users have ever been issued a DMCA takedown notice or the European equivalent. We’ve been around for over two decades – making us one of the oldest services out there – and we’ve never turned over information of that kind.

5. Anonymizer Inc. is required by law to respond to all valid court orders and subpoenas. Since we do not log any traffic that comes over our system, we have nothing to provide in response to requests associated with service use. If a user paid by credit card we can only confirm that they purchased access to our service.

There is, and would be, no way to connect a specific user to specific traffic ever. There have been instances where we did receive valid court orders and followed the procedures above. In our 20 years of service, we have never identified details about a customer’s traffic or activities.

6. All traffic is allowed on all of our servers, so long as it complies with our EULA and Terms of Service.

7. Anonymizer Inc. uses a payment processor for our credit card payments. There is a record of the payment for the service and the billing information associated with the credit card confirming the service has been paid for. We also offer a cash payment option. Cash payment options do not store any details.

8. We would recommend OpenVPN for a user that is looking for the most secure connection. We feel it is the most reliable and stable connection protocol currently. Our OpenVPN implementation uses AES-256. We also offer L2TP/IPSEC.

9. Anonymizer’s client software does not support IPv6 connections. All customers are asked to disable IPv6 connections for the application to function. Our client software does have the option to enable a kill switch that prevents any web traffic from exiting your machine without going through the VPN.

10. We offer a custom VPN application for MacOS and Windows. Our default application log only logs fatal errors that occur within the application which prevents the application from running.

11. We own ALL of our hardware and have full physical control of our servers. No third party has access to our environment. We operate our own DNS servers.

12. We have servers in the United States and Netherlands.

1. No logs are retained that would allow the correlation of a user’s IP address to a VPN address. The session database does not include the origin IP address of the user. Once a connection has been terminated the session information is deleted from the session database.

2. The name of the company is PrivActually Ltd. which operates out of Cyprus.

3. We do not use any visitor tracking mechanism, not even passive ones analyzing the webserver logs. We run our own mail infrastructure and do not use 3rd party products like Gmail. Neither do we use data hogs like a ticket system to manage support requests. We stick to a simple mail system and delete old data after three months from our mail boxes.

4. The staff forwards DMCA notices to the BOFH Notices sent via paper are usually converted into energy by combustion … to power the data center in the basement where the BOFH lives. Digital SPAM^WDMCA notices are looped back into the kernel to increase the VPNs /dev/random devices entropy.

5. We evaluate the request according to the legal frameworks set forth in the jurisdictions we operate in and react accordingly. We had multiple cases where somebody tried but did not succeed to identify active users on the system.

6. Besides filtering SMTP on port 25 we do not impose any restrictions on protocols our users can use on the VPN, quite the contrary. We believe our role is to provide a net-neutral internet access. Every user is free to share his/her/its files. We are conservative people and firmly believe in the heritage of our society, which was built upon the free exchange of cultural knowledge. This new age patent system, and the idea that we need companies who milk creators are simply alien to us.

7. We offer PayPal, Bitcoins, Payza, and Payson fully integrated. OkPay, Transferwise, WU, PerfectMoney, Webmoney, Amazon Giftcards, Cash and Credit Cards on request. An internal transaction ID is used to line payments to their payment processors. We do not store any other data about payments associated with the user’s account.

8. We provide up to date config files and enforce TLS1.2 for the control channel on all supported systems. For further protection, we provide detailed setup instructions for our users. Besides the public and VPN internal DNS servers we also support DNSCrypt as a means to encrypt DNS requests. Howto’s for kill switches are available as well. We do not enforce a particular client.

9. Users can connect to a dual stack VPN pool that provides IPv4 as well as IPv6 connectivity. Unfortunately enabling IPv6 for all clients still breaks quite a few setups. Hopefully broader adoption of the OpenVPN 2.4 branch will allow us to work properly. Users can use this page to check for a number of leaks.

Kill switches that provide protection from connection drops are part of the client installation. There is not much we can do against that on the server side. If the user’s client of choice has built-in support for kill switches, he/she can just use that. If people use the vanilla OpenVPN client, the up/down script hooks provide everything needed to handle custom configs to terminate applications when the VPN connection drops.

DNS and IPv6 leaks are just two issues among many that users face in their quest for online privacy. Most privacy issues cannot be easily fixed by the VPN provider itself, but require knowledge and diligence of the users themselves. We therefore ask our users to go through our interactive checklist to improve their online piracy.

10. No, we do not offer a custom VPN application to our users. Users are free to choose which client they want to use. We think that giving users a closed source client is against our core principles.

Since there is no good cross platform client we thought to give it a try and build one of our own making-called Netsplice. PGP signed binary packages for Windows, OSX, Linux along with the

current sources can be downloaded from our site. Please note that Netsplice is still alpha software.

11. We own our complete setup, network, and data center with everything in it – no 3rd parties are allowed access. We do not trust in 3rd parties operating our core infrastructure.

There are dedicated DNS servers that are given to clients for resolving DNS queries from within the VPN. Furthermore, we encourage users to use DNScrypt or similar technologies. Ideally splitting their DNS queries over multiple DNScrypt instances and running a local resolver to minimize DNS requests in the first place.

12. They are in Sweden due to the laws that allow us to run our service in a privacy-protecting manner. In times where basically everyone in the VPN market is advertising with servers in a gazillion countries, this might seem like a disadvantage. We see this very differently.

The core for any privacy service is trust in the integrity of the underlying infrastructure. Everything else has to build upon that. There is no way we could run such a tight ship and controlled environment with servers all over the world, and we will not compromise on the quality of our setup.

1. SlickVPN does not log any traffic nor session data of any kind.

2. Slick Networks, Inc. is our recognized corporate name. We operate a complex business structure with multiple layers of Offshore Holding Companies, Subsidiary Holding Companies, and finally some Operating Companies to help protect our interests. The main marketing entity for our business is based in the United States of America and an operational entity is based out of Nevis.

3. We utilize third party email systems to contact clients who opt in for our newsletters and Google Analytics for basic website traffic monitoring and troubleshooting.

4. If a valid DMCA complaint is received while the offending connection is still active, we stop the session and notify the active user of that session. Otherwise, we are unable to act on any complaint as we have no way of tracking down the user. It is important to note that we ALMOST NEVER receive a VALID DMCA complaint while a user is still in an active session.

5. This has never happened in the history of our company. Our customer’s privacy is of top most importance to us. We are required to comply with all valid court orders. We would proceed with the court order with complete transparency, but we have no data to provide any court in any jurisdiction. We would not rule out relocating our businesses to a new jurisdiction if required.

6. Yes, all traffic is allowed.

7. We accept PayPal, Credit Cards, Bitcoin, Cash, and Money Orders. We keep user authentication and billing information on independent platforms. One platform is operated out of the United States of America and the other platform is operated out of Nevis. We offer the ability for the customer to permanently delete their payment information from our servers at any point. All customer data is automatically removed from our records shortly after the customer ceases being a paying member.

8. We recommend using OpenVPN if at all possible (available for Windows, Apple, Linux, iOS, Android) and it uses the AES-256-CBC algorithm for encryption.

9. Our Windows and Mac client disable IPv6 as part of our IP and DNS leak protection. Our IP leak protection proactively keeps your IPv4 and IPv6 traffic from leaking to untrusted networks. Your network will be disabled if you lose the connection to our servers and the only way to restore the network is manual intervention by the user.

10. Yes. Our users are provided with a custom client, designed by our in-house engineers. Currently, the client works with Windows and Mac products. Our client does NOT store logs on customer computers by default. We also provide guides for every other platform.

11. We run a mix. We physically control some of our server locations where we have a heavier load. Other locations are hosted with third parties unless there is enough demand in that location to justify racking our own server setup. To ensure redundancy, we host with multiple providers in each location. We have server locations in over forty countries.

In all cases, our network nodes load over our encrypted network stack and run from ramdisk. Anyone taking control of the server would have no usable data on the disk. We run an algorithm to randomly reboot each server on a regular basis so we can clear the ramdisk. DNS is assigned by the server when a user logs in.

12. At SlickVPN we actually go through the expense of putting a physical server in each country that we list. SlickVPN offers service in 40 countries around the world

1. No.

2. Amagicom AB, Sweden.

3. We have no external elements at all on our website. We do use external email and encourage people who send us email to use PGP encryption, which is the only effective way to keep email somewhat private. The decrypted content is only available to us.

4. There is no such Swedish law that applies to us.

5. We get requests from governments from time to time. They never get any information about our users. We make sure not to store sensitive information that can be tied to publicly available information so that we have nothing to give out. We believe it is not possible in Swedish law to construct a court order that would compel us to actually give out information about our users. Not that we would anyway. We started this service for political reasons and would rather discontinue it than having it work against its purpose.

6. We do not block or throttle BitTorrent or other file-sharing protocols. All traffic is treated equally.

7. We explain that in more detail here, but we offer Bank Wire, Swish, PayPal (CreditCards), Bitcoin and cash. Cash and Bitcoin are the most anonymous. We run our own full Bitcoin node and don’t use third parties for any step in the bitcoin payment process, from the generation of QR codes to adding time to accounts.

8. OpenVPN, AES256, handshake encryption RSA-2048.

9. We offer the option to tunnel or not tunnel IPv6 (if not – IPv6 is blocked), and the kill-switch and DNS leak protection works the same for IPv6 as IPv4. There is both a kill switch in our client and a SOCK5 proxy that is only accessible via our VPN (i.e. if you set your browser to use it, the browser will not work if the VPN is down).

10. Yes: Windows, Mac, Linux

11. We have physical control at four sites. Three in Sweden and one in Amsterdam (I.e. all servers in Sweden and Amsterdam). The rest is hosted by carefully selected providers. Yes, we use our own DNS servers.

12. Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Rep., Denmark, Germany, Lithuania, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, USA

An up to date list is available here.

1. No. We purge all this information when the user disconnects from the VPN.

2. The name of the company is BLACKVPN LIMITED and is registered in Hong Kong and operates under the jurisdiction of Hong Kong.

3. We run our own email server plus support and live chat systems using open source tools. We use StreamSend for sending generic welcome and renewal reminder emails, as well as for the occasional news updates. We have Twitter widgets on our frontpage that may track visitors. We use Google Analytics as well as our own website analytics (Piwik).

4. We block the port on the server listed in the notice.

5. If we received a valid court order from a Hong Kong court, then we would be legally obliged to obey it. So far this has never happened.

6. Bittorrent traffic is not restricted in our Privacy VPN locations, but due to stricter enforcement of DMA notices in the USA and UK we restrict most BitTorrent traffic and only whitelist torrents of open source software.

7. PayPal, Bitcoin and PaymentWall (for Credit Cards and Bank Transfers). The transaction details (ID, time, amount, etc) are linked to each user account.

8. We recommend to use OpenVPN 2.4 and we support the new GCM cipher mode (AES-256-GCM) together with 4096 bit RSA and Diffie Hellman keys. With OpenVPN, we also enforce DHE/ECDHE enabled cipher suites and key exchange is done with Diffie-Hellman, providing forward secrecy.

9. For OpenVPN, we stop IPv6 leaks with the OpenVPN config, and we also disable and blackhole all IPv6 traffic server side. The open source OpenVPN client has DNS leak prevention built in and in most cases will not leak data during reconnections. Our upcoming custom VPN app will be able to provide 100% IPV6 and DNS leak protection client side and will also have a “kill switch”.

10. We have a custom open source Android app and we are working on custom Windows/MacOS app aswell. For the moment we build pre-configured versions of the open source OpenVPN clients for Windows and MacOS.

11. We use dedicated servers which are hosted in 3rd party data centers, but they do not have access to login or manage the server. We run our own DNS servers which do not save any logs.

12. USA, UK, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and Ukraine.

1. We do not keep or record any logs. We’re therefore not able to match an IP-address and a time stamp to a user of our service. We also do not keep or record any usage logs.

2. The registered name of our company is “Offshore Security EOOD” (spelled “ОФШОР СЕКЮРИТИ ЕООД” in Bulgarian). We’re a VAT registered business. We operate under the jurisdiction of Bulgaria.

3. The only external tool we use is Zopim LiveChat. Our email system is hosted on our own servers in Switzerland. We use Email and OsTickets for support which are hosted on our own servers in Switzerland. We also offer Skype as a support option.

4. DMCA notices are not forwarded to our members as we’re unable to identify a responsible user due to not having any logs. We would reply to the DMCA notices explaining that we do not host or hold any copyrighted content ourselves and we’re not able to identify or penalize a user of our service.

5. This has not happened yet. Shall it happen our attorney will examine the validity of the court order in accordance with our jurisdiction, we will then delegate our no logs policy to the appropriate party pointing out that we’re not able to match a user to an IP or timestamp due to not keeping or recording any logs.

6. BitTorrent/P2P is allowed on most of our servers but not all of them. Why not? Some servers that we use are not tolerant to DMCA notices, but some of our members utilize them for other activities not related to Torrenting. That is why we keep them in our network despite the inability to use P2P/torrents on them. Most of our VPN servers and locations do allow torrents and P2P.

7. We accept PayPal, Credit/Debit cards and Webmoney via 3rd party payment processor, Bitcoin, Payza. We do not require personal details to register an account with us. In the case of Bitcoin payments, we do not link users to transactions. In the case of PayPal/Payza/Card payments we link usernames to their transactions so we can process a refund. We do not have recurring payments system.

8. We use AES-256-CBC + RSA2048 + SHA256 cipher on all our VPN servers without exception. We also have Double VPN servers, where for example the traffic goes through Russia and Israel before reaching the final destination.

9. In both our Windows and Mac software we have the optional setting to disable IPv6 connectivity on the computer to prevent IPv6 leaks. We have DNS leak protection as an optional setting in our Windows, Mac and Android apps. We have Killswitch in our Windows and Mac software.

10. We do have custom VPN applications for Windows, Mac, Android. We’ve custom app for iOS too, which servers as a helper tool for “OpenVPN Connect”.

11. We work with reliable and established data centers. Nobody but us has virtual access to our servers. The entire logs directories are wiped out and disabled, rendering possible physical brute force access to the servers useless in terms of identifying users.

12. We currently have servers in 65 countries.

1. IPVanish is a no log VPN.

2. Mudhook Marketing, Inc. The State of Florida

3. We use basic inbound marketing tools like Google Analytics, but we do not track or store personally identifiable information (PII) from these tools. We also do not track the browsing activities of users who are logged into our VPN service.

4. We do not store, host, stream or provide any content, media, images or files that would be subject to a properly formed takedown notice.

5. First, any request has to be a valid and lawful request before we will even acknowledge the request. If the request is for user data or identification of a subscriber based on an IP address, we inform the agency making the request that we do not keep any logs and we operate in a Jurisdiction that does not require mandatory data retention.

Sometimes, legal agencies or authorities may not be happy with this response. We politely remind them that IPVanish operates within the letter of the law and is a valid and needed service to protect the privacy of its subscribers.

6. Yes, BitTorrent and other file-sharing traffic is allowed.

7. Bitcoin, PayPal, and all major credit cards are accepted. Payments and service use are in no way linked.

8. We recommend OpenVPN with 256 bit AES as the most secure VPN connection and encryption algorithm.

9. IPVanish has a Kill Switch feature that terminates all network traffic to prevent any DNS leaks in the event your VPN connection drops. We also have a user-enabled option that automatically changes your IP address randomly at selected time intervals. We currently do not support IPv6. This will be rolled in with an upcoming update. All traffic is forced over IPv4 to prevent IP leaks.

10. We offer a custom VPN application for iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac. IPVanish is also configurable with DD-WRT and Tomato routers (pre-configured routers available), gaming consoles, Ubuntu and Chromebook.

11. We own and have physical control over our entire operational infrastructure, including the servers. Unlike other VPN services, we actually own and operate a global IP network backbone optimized for VPN delivery which insures the fastest speeds of any VPN provider.

12. We have servers in over 60 countries including the US, Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and more. You can view the complete list on our VPN servers page.

1. No, not doing so is fundamental to any privacy service regardless of the security or policies implemented to protect the log data. In addition, it is not within our interest to do so as it would increase our liability and is not required by the laws of any jurisdiction that IVPN operates in.

2. Privatus Limited, Gibraltar.

3. No. We made a strategic decision from day one that no company or customer data would ever be stored on 3rd party systems. Our customer support software, email, web analytics (Piwik), issue tracker, monitoring servers, code repos, configuration management servers etc all run on our own dedicated servers that we setup, configure and manage. No 3rd parties have access to our servers or data.

4. Our legal department sends a reply stating that we do not store content on our servers and that our VPN servers act only as a conduit for data. In addition, we inform them that we never store the IP addresses of customers connected to our network nor are we legally required to do so.

5. Firstly, this has never happened. However, if asked to identify a customer based on a timestamp and/or IP address then we would reply factually that we do not store this information, so we are unable to provide it. If they provide us with an email address and we are asked for the customer’s identity, then we would reply that we do not store any personal data.

If the company is served with a valid court order that did not breach the Data Protection Act 2004, we could only confirm that an email address was or was not associated with an active account at the time in question.

6. Yes, all file sharing traffic is permitted and treated equally on all servers. We do encourage customers to use non-USA based exit servers for P2P as any company receiving a large number of DMCA notices is exposing themselves to legal action and our upstream providers have threatened to disconnect our servers in the past.

7. We accept Bitcoin, Cash, PayPal and credit cards. When using cash, there is no link to a user account within our system. When using Bitcoin, we store the Bitcoin transaction ID in our system. If you wish to remain anonymous to IVPN you should take the necessary precautions when purchasing Bitcoin. When paying with PayPal or a credit card a token is stored that is used to process recurring payments. This information is deleted immediately when an account is terminated.

8. We provide RSA-4096 / AES-256 with OpenVPN, which we believe is more than secure enough for our customers’ needs. If you are the target of a state level adversary or other such well-funded body you should be far more concerned with increasing your general opsec (e.g. $5 wrench – https://xkcd.com/538/) than worrying about 2048 vs 4096 bit keys.

9. This is a huge problem for most VPN providers as shown by the comprehensive tests undertaken at VPNtesting.info.

The IVPN client offers an advanced VPN firewall that blocks every type of IP leak possible including IPv6, DNS, network failures, WebRTC STUN etc.). It is impossible to any data to leak if a connection drops as the firewall will not deactivate until explicitly instructed to do so. It also has an ‘always on’ mode that will be activated on boot before any process on the computer starts to ensure than no packets are ever able to leak outside of the VPN tunnel, regardless of the connection state of the VPN.

10. Yes, we offer a custom OpenVPN client for Windows and MacOS which includes our advanced VPN firewall that blocks every type of possible IP leak. We have also recently released an iOS app and plan to release an Android version later this year.

11. We use bare metal dedicated servers leased from 3rd party data centers in each country where we have a presence. We install each server using our own custom images and employ full disk encryption to ensure that if a server is ever seized the data is worthless.

We also operate an exclusive multi-hop network allowing customers to choose an entry and exit server in different jurisdictions which would make the task of legally gaining access to servers at the same time significantly more difficult. We run our own network of log free DNS servers that are only accessible to our customers.

12. A full list is available here.

1. No we do not store any logs that could be used to match an IP address and timestamp back to a LiquidVPN user.

2. LiquidVPN INC. Cheyenne, Wyoming

3. We use Google Analytics on our front end web site. Everything else is self-hosted.

4. If the data center requires us to answer DMCA complaints, then we let them know that these files are not hosted locally and that because we do not keep logs on user activity it is impossible for us to investigate the DMCA complaint further.

5. No we have not received any court orders. We would have to explain to law enforcement that the only way we could provide information about a user on our network was if they were able to provide us with enough information to identify the user in our system. Basically they would need to provide billing information or the users registered email address.

If they were able to provide this information we would be required to hand over the user’s email address, registered first name and transactional information. There is no other way to identify a user on our system. We would publish any correspondence from law enforcement to our transparency section on the website and if we were not allowed to do that we would stop updating our Warrant Canary.

6. All file sharing traffic is allowed and given equal priority on any server within our network.

7. For anonymity, we recommend bitcoin which requires a first name and email address only. We accept PayPal which requires a first name and email address. Finally, when a user pays via credit card their address, first name and email address is required.

8. I would recommend users connect to any of our OpenVPN servers because they use 256 Bit AES / Camellia, 4096 Bit RSA keys, they use TLS-DHE-RSA-AES-256-CBC-SHA, SHA2 HMAC digest (SHA512) if they want added privacy we would recommend using IP Modulation which randomly modifies the source public IP address per packet on all of a user’s traffic.

9. IPv6 support is on the roadmap for this year. Until its fully supported IPv6 leaks are blocked via our client. We do provide DNS leak protection and a full on VPN firewall that goes well beyond the protection from a standard VPN killswitch.

10. Our custom applications work for Windows, Mac and Android.

11. All of our VPN servers are bare metal servers that we control. Our servers are not accessible by anyone except us. We do provide private DNS servers and SmartDNS for free. Users can access USA and UK content from any server on our network.

12. We have servers in 17 data centers and 11 countries in North America, Europe and Asia.

1. We don’t have enough space on our servers PoPs to keep logs (True story).

2. The company name is Anonymous SARL and operates under the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Morocco.

3. We use Google Analytics and Tawk live support.

4. What about ignoring them? Since there is nothing to takedown.

5. This has never happened before, but we won’t be able to cater to their demand as we can’t identify that user within our system.

6. BitTorrent and other P2P protocols are allowed on all our servers.

7. We use BitPay (BitCoins) and PayPal

8. We recommend OpenVPN for Desktop and IKEv2 for Mobile devices. For encryption we use the AES-256-CBC algorithm. DNS leak protection is already enabled however “kill switches” will be available soon.

9. We don’t provide IPv6 support as of now.

10. We provide a custom VPN application for Mac and Windows-based on OpenVPN, and Mobile apps (Android and iOS) based on IKEv2.

11. We have a mix. Physical control over most of our infrastructure and some exotic locations are hosted by 3rd party partners.

12. A full list is available here.

1. We do not keep ANY logs that allow us or a third party to match an IP address and a time stamp to a user of our service. We highly value the privacy of our customers.

2. Privat Kommunikation Sverige AB and we operate under Swedish jurisdiction.

3. We use a service from Provide Support (ToS) for live support. They do not hold any information about the chat session. From Provide support: Chat conversation transcripts are not stored on Provide Support chat servers. They remain on the chat server for the duration of the chat session, then optionally sent by email according to the user account settings, and then destroyed.

We’re also using Google Analytics and Statcounter for collecting static of how many visitors we have, popular pages and conversion of all ads. This data is used for optimization of the website and advertising.

4. We’ll say that we don’t store any logs of our customers’ activity. Privacy and anonymity of our customers are something we really value and due to our non-logging policy, DMCA notices will be ignored.

5. Due to our policy of NOT keeping any logs, there is nothing to provide about users of our service. To clarify, we do not log or have any data on our customer’s activities. We have never received any court order.

6. Yes, we allow Torrent traffic on all servers. All traffic is treated equally and we do not, under any circumstances, throttle our traffic. We buy high-capacity internet traffic so we can meet the demands. On some locations, we use Tier1 IP transit providers for best speed and routing to other peers.

7. PayPal, Stripe and Bitcoin. Every payment has an order number, which is always linked to a user. Otherwise, we would not know who has made a payment. To be clear, no one can link a payment to an IP address you get from our service or online user activity.

8. OpenVPN TUN with AES-256. On top is a 2048-bit DH key

9. For our Windows VPN client, we have a feature called “Connection guard”, which will close a selected program(s) if the connection drops. We have no tools yet for DNS leaks but the best way, which is always 100%, is to change the local DNS on the device to DNS servers we provide. Right now, our developers are working on a new feature that will protect from DNS leaks and a new version of the kill switch. Protection against IPv6 leaks will also be implemented in new VPN application.

10. Yes, we’re offering our own customized VPN application for Windows, iOS (iPhone/iPad), Android and MacOS(OS X) with features that help to protect our customers.

11. We have physical control over our servers and network in Sweden. We’re only using trusted data centers with strong security. Our providers have no access to PrivateVPN’s servers and most importantly, there are no customer data/activities stored on the VPN servers or on any other system we have.

12. See here and here.

1. Nope, no logs. We use OpenVPN with logs set to /dev/null, and we’ve even gone the extra mile by preventing client IPs from appearing in the temporary “status” logs using our patch available at https://cryptostorm.is/noip.diff.

2. We’re a decentralized project, with intentional separation of loosely-integrated project components. We own no intellectual property, patents, trademarks, or other such things that would require a corporate entity in which ownership could be enforced by the implied threat of State-backed violence; all our code is published and licensed opensource.

3. No, we don’t use any external visitor tracking or email providers.

4. Our choice is to reply to any such messages that are not obviously generated by automated (and quite likely illegal) spambots. In our replies, we ask for sufficient forensic data to ascertain whether the allegation has enough merit to warrant any further consideration. We have yet to receive such forensic data in response to such queries, despite many hundreds of such replies over the years.

5. See above. We have never received any valid court orders requesting the identity of a user, but if we ever did receive such a request, it would be impossible for us to comply as we keep no such information.

6. Yes, all traffic is allowed.

7. We accept PayPal and payments using Stripe (includes Bitcoin), although we will manually process any other altcoin if a customer wishes. We don’t have financial information connected in any way to the real-life identity of our network members; our token-based authentication system removes this systemic connection, and thus obviates any temptation to “squeeze” us for private data about network membership.

We quite simply know nothing about anyone using our network, save for the fact that they have a non-expired (SHA512 hash of a) token when they connect. Also, we now process Stripe orders instantly in-browser.

8. We only support one cipher suite on-net. Offering “musical chairs” style cipher suite roulette is bad opsec, bad cryptography, and bad administrative practice. There is no need to support deprecated, weak, or known-broken suites in these network security models; unlike browser-based https/tls, there are no legacy client-side software suites that must be supported. As such, any excuse for deploying weak cipher suites is untenable.

Everyone on Cryptostorm receives equal and full security attention, including those using our free/capped service “Cryptofree.”

There are no “kill switch” tools available today that actually work. We have tested them, and until we have developed tools that pass intensive forensic scrutiny at the NIC level, we will not claim to have such. Several in-house projects are in the works, but none are ready yet for public testing.

We take standard steps to encourage client-side computing environments to route DNS queries through our sessions when connected. However, we cannot control things such as router-based DNS queries, Teredo-based queries that slip out via IPv6, or unscrupulous application-layer queries to DNS resolvers that, while sent in-tunnel, nevertheless may be using arbitrary resolver addressing. Our Windows client attempts to prevent some of this, but it’s currently impossible to do so completely.

We are saddened to see others who claim they have such “magical” tools; getting a “pass” from a handful of “DNS leak” websites is not the same as protecting all DNS query traffic. Those who fail to understand that are in need of remedial work on network architecture.

As we run our own mesh-based system of DNS resolvers, “deepDNS”, we have full and arbitrary control over all levels of DNS resolution presentation to third parties.

9. We only handle IPv4 connections, we are currently looking into IPv6, but that’s work in progress. Our widget prevents against IPv6 leaks, and we advise our customers on how to prevent leaks on other platforms.

10. We offer an open source application written in Perl (dubbed the “CS widget”), source code available at GitHub. Currently only for Windows, but we are working on porting it to Linux. The application is essentially an OpenVPN GUI with some tweaks here and there to prevent different types of leaks (DNS, IPv6, etc.) and to make connecting as easy as possible. Output from the back end OpenVPN process is shown in the GUI. When you exit the program, that data is forgotten.

11. We deploy nodes in commodity data centers that are themselves stripped of all customer data and thus disposable in the face of any potential attacks that may compromise integrity. We have in the past taken down such nodes based on an alert from onboard systems and offsite, independently maintained remote logs that confirmed a violation was taking place.

It is important to note that such events do not explicitly require us to have physical control of the machine in question: we push nameserver updates, via our HAF (Hostname Assignment Framework) out via redundant, parallel channels to all connected members and by doing so we can take down any node on the network within less than 10 minutes of initial commit.

We have constructed a mesh-topology system of redundant, self-administered secure DNS resolvers which has been collected under the label of “deepDNS”. deepDNS is a full in-house mechanism that prevents any DNS related metadata from being tied to any particular customer. It also allows us to provide other useful features such as transparent .onion, .i2p, .p2p, etc. access. There is also DNSCrypt support on all deepDNS servers to help protect pre-connect DNS queries.

12. Our server list is available here.

1. We keep some connection logs for troubleshooting purposes but don’t store any information that would allow us to match an IP and timestamp to a specific user. We don’t log the user’s IP-address either.

2. Buffered Ltd., Gibraltar.

3. Yes.

4. We don’t encourage violating copyrights and we do discourage this sort of behavior. As a Gibraltar company we acknowledge every DMCA or abuse communication we get and direct them to our terms of service. Other than this we do not monitor what our customers are doing.

5. This has never happened so far, but we have to be in compliance with the laws while also trying to fully protect our users.

6. Yes and yes.

7. Credit cards and paypal, we plan on adding btc soon.

8. We currently use blowfish which is very fast and no known attacks exist, we will transition to AES later because these days it is mostly hardware accelerated and is a stronger encryption (albeit slower).

9. We do not support ipv6 and we recommend disabling it, so no leaks. No, kill switch either. The concept of the kill switch is inherently flawed and can never be 100% foolproof.

10. Mac and Windows, standard openvpn clients on all other platforms (including mobiles). We are in the process of developing our mobile clients, they’ll be released Q1 ‘17.

11. No, we rent our servers from reputable providers. Every buffered vpn server is a DNS server which the clients can use.

12. On our homepage you’ll find the list of server countries.

1. We do not keep any logs on our VPN servers that would allow us to do this.

2. BV Internet Services Limited, Seychelles

3. We use Zendesk to deal with support queries and do track referrals from affiliates. We however provide the option to send us PGP encrypted messages via e-mail and also Zendesk. We also do not use Cloudflare. We also have an opt-in only education/blog list that uses Hubspot. For announcements we use our own e-mail system.

4. We generally find providers that are friendly towards such DMCA notices or where it cannot be avoided, we just keep them as Surfing/Streaming servers with P2P disabled. These servers are more for geo-location or general purpose surfing rather than P2P. We at no times give out customer information to handle this.

5. There has been a German police request for certain information in relation to a blackmail incident. Despite it appearing legitimate, we could not assist as we did not have any user logs. We maintain a warrant canary at https://www.bolehvpn.net/canary.txt which we do update once a month or when there is a request for information (even if we have not complied with it).

6. Most servers support P2P except those marked as Surfing-Streaming which are with providers with strict DMCA requirements. All other servers support P2P and are not treated differently from any other traffic.

7. Paypal, Paymentwall, Coinpayments, Paydollar, MolPay and we also accept direct Bitcoin/Dash payments.

8. We recommend OpenVPN and our cloak servers that use AES-256 bit encryption and a XOR patch that obfuscates your traffic as being VPN traffic.

9. We provide IPv6 leakage protection.

10. We have a custom application for Windows and Mac and also a slightly modified version for Android.

11. They are bare metal boxes hosted in various providers. We do use our own DNS servers.

12. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and USA.

1. No, we don’t! No traffic logs are recorded. We monitor only the number of simultaneous user connections on our network as a whole, and do not link the user to a particular server. This helps us avoid infinite simultaneous connections from a single user.

2. Our registered legal name is Hexville SRL. We’re under Romanian jurisdiction, inside of the European Union. EU takes privacy issues more seriously than the US, as many already know.

3. For our sales site analytics, we rely on Google Analytics. Other than that, all our systems and support tools belong to us and are hosted in-house.

4. None of our users ever received a DMCA notice while connected to our service, being unable to detect the source user, due to our no traffic logging policy. On our end, we have an internal procedure of dealing with the DMCA claim that goes unnoticed by our users and of the users’ privacy is not affected.

5. No subpoena has been received by our company. If it will happen, we’ll be sure to assist as much as we’re legally obliged. Keep in mind that we don’t have any information stored about our users, except their login credentials.

6. Yes, it is allowed. We don’t restrict traffic in any way. Net neutrality is king.

7. We use Bitcoins (and many other kinds of virtual currencies), PayPal and Credit Cards. The lack of traffic logs does not allow any linkage between the individual accounts.

8. We take security very seriously at VPNBaron. We use only OpenVPN protocol, one of the most secure and hard to crack protocols, with AES-256-CBC cipher, TLSv1/SSLv3 DHE-RSA-AES512-SHA, 2048 bit RSA.

On top of the OpenVPN, you can also choose one of the two anti DPI (Deep Package Inspection) protocols: “TOR’s OBFSPROXY Scamblesuit” and “SSL” that mask your VPN connection from your ISP. These protocols come handy in places that actively block VPN connections, like China, Egypt or university campuses.

9. There is no difference in user experience regardless of the users’ IP type. Using the OpenVPN protocol, we do not have IPv6 leaks as these issues have been addressed in the latest OpenVPN versions. The same goes for DNS Leaks. OpenVPN has added a setting that deals with DNS leaks.

On top of that, we also provide another DNS Leak protection system that we developed before the protocol was updated and a killswitch feature that disables the network card if there is any risk of the users’ privacy being breached, temporarily disconnected the device from the internet. These settings can be activated or deactivated as the user wishes.

10. We offer a light and easy to use app for windows. For the other platforms we offer automation scripts and visual guides that get the user up and running in no time, regardless of the users’ tech savviness.

11. Our VPN servers have minimal data and do not store any private information. We do not have physical control of the servers, but we have unlimited access. This allows us to offer locations from all over the world.

12. We offer more than 30 servers in 18 countries and we’re expanding fast. You can find the full list here.

1. We do not log, period. We respect our users’ privacy. IPs are shared amongst users and our configuration makes it extremely difficult to single out any user.

2. We are registered in the USA and operate as Acevpn.com and the name of the company is Securenet.

3. We use Google Analytics on www.acevpn.com (marketing site). For emails, we use Google cloud and these are regularly purged.

4. We block the port mentioned in the complaint. IPs are shared by other users and our configuration makes it extremely difficult to single out any user. We do not share or sell any information to 3rd parties.

5. To date, we have not received a court order or subpoena. Our users cannot be identified based on IP address.

6. We have special servers for P2P and are in data centers that allow such traffic. These servers also have additional security to protect privacy when P2P programs are running.

7. We accept Bitcoin, PayPal, and Credit cards for payments. We store billing information on a secure server separate from VPN servers.

8. For higher security needs we suggest using our IPSEC IKEv2 VPN or our OpenVPN with Elliptic Curve Encryption which we are rolling out as we speak. Both these protocols use next gen cryptographic algorithms and AES 256 bit data encryption suitable for top secret communication. Read about our IKEv2 implementation.

9. We provide kill switches if a connection drops. Our servers are tested for DNS leaks. Our service is currently IPv4 only, so no ipv6 leaks.

10. We use an unmodified OpenVPN client that is signed by the developers. Our users are encouraged to use a VPN client of their choice. We do not offer custom applications at this time.

11. We have full control over our servers. Servers are housed in reputed data centers. Many of them are ISO certified and are designed to the highest specifications for performance, reliability, and security. We operate our own DNS servers (Smart DNS) for streaming videos. For VPN, we use Google and Level3 DNS.

12. We have servers in 26+ countries and over 50+ locations.

1. No. Our gateway servers operate out of an encrypted RAM Disk volume that loads remotely on boot. When they are powered down, the RAM Disk is lost.

2. We operate as two separate companies. Octane Networks is a US registered company and handles customer-facing communications. The infrastructure company is a Nevis-based company and manages all the network infrastructure.

3. We use Google Analytics for general website trends. We use Hotjar occasionally for A/B and user experience testing. Support is internal.

4. If we receive a DMCA notice or its equivalent based on activity that occurred in the past, we respond that we do not host any content and have no logs. If we receive a realtime DMCA notice where the customer VPN session is still active when the DMCA notice is processed, we notify the customer if we have sufficient information to do so. No customer data is used to respond to DMCA notices.

5. This has not happened. Our customers’ privacy is a top priority for us. We would handle a court order with complete transparency.

A court order would likely be based on an issue traced to a gateway server IP address and would, therefore, be received by our network operations company which is Nevis based. The validity of court orders from other countries would be difficult to enforce. The network company has no customer data and no log data, so if it were compelled to respond to a court order, our response would likely lack the type of information requested.

Our marketing company is US-based and would respond to an order issued by a court of competent jurisdiction. The marketing company does not have access to any data related to network operations or user activity, so there is not much information that a court order could reveal.

6. P2P is allowed. We operate with net neutrality with the exception of restricting outgoing SMTP to prevent spammers from abusing the service.

7. Bitcoin, Credit/Debit Card, and PayPal. If complete payment anonymity is desired, we suggest using Bitcoin or a gift/disposable credit card. Methods such as PayPal or Credit/Debit card are connected to an account token so that future renewal payments can be properly processed and credited. We allow customers to edit their account information. With our US/Nevis operating structure, customer payment systems information is separate from network operations.

8. We recommend using the AES-256-CBC cipher with OpenVPN, which is used with our client. IPSec is available for native Apple device support and PPTP is offered for other legacy devices, but OpenVPN offers the best security and speed and is our recommended protocol

9. Our client disables IPv6 completely as part of our DNS and IP leak protection in our Windows and Mac OS X OctaneVPN clients. Our OpenVPN based client’s IP leak protection works by removing all routes except the VPN route from the device when the client has an active VPN connection. This a better option than a ‘kill switch’ because our client ensures the VPN is active before it allows any data to leave the device, whereas a ‘kill switch’ typically monitors the connection periodically, and, if it detects a drop in the VPN connection, reacts.

With a ‘kill switch’, data sent during the time between checks is potentially vulnerable to a dropped connection. Our system is proactive vs a reactive kill switch.

Customers should be vigilant as other software such as JavaScript, Flash, Java and WebRTC can leak IP independently of their VPN connection. Customers might want to consider creating a profile in their web browser specifically tailored toward web browsing privacy by disabling 3rd party plugins/extensions.

10. Yes, for Windows and Mac OS X. We support a number of protocols and software configurations.

11. In our more active gateway locations, we colocate. In locations with lower utilization, we normally host. All of our network infrastructure is set up so that each gateway boots, creates an encrypted RAM Disk, and authenticates with a central server before loading its configuration over our encrypted network remotely. The individual gateways only have a boot script – no data or config information is on the individual gateways. If we lost access to a gateway due to a third party action, the encrypted RAM Disk would vanish upon powering down.

12. We have gateways in 45 countries and 92 cities.

1. We do not log any information about IP usage, in fact in most locations we NAT everything so it is not even possible to be able identify a requester and a user account and a source IP.

2. proXPN B.V. out of the Netherlands

3. We utilize a tracking cookie for affiliate sales that expires in 30 days. We use SendGrid for email which sends out the welcome and support emails, but email information is never shared with another 3rd party.

4. We respond and have internal processes that deal with these requests that do not include or disclose any customer information.

5. We keep no record of how users are mapped to IPs so we have nothing to give.

6. We don’t block, filter or throttle any BitTorrent or file-sharing traffic.

7. Visa, MasterCard, American Express, PayPal and Bitcoin.

8. We currently support IP SEC, OpenVPN and PPTP. IP SEC tends to be the fastest and most reliable, however as it is UDP some locations may restrict access. Open VPN over TCP is also reliable but slower than Open VPN over UDP.

9. We provide DNS leak protection. “VPN Guard” is a kill switch on our desktop application. We force ipv4, all interfaces to use VPN network so ipv6 doesn’t work. All dynamic routing is turned off to use static routing. Our Windows app also explicitly turns off ipv6 in Windows registry after VPN is connected.

10. Yes, we have clients for Windows XP and up, MacOS 10.6 and up, Linux Debian but also works on other flavors such as Ubuntu, and on mobile we support iOS and Android.

11. We run and maintain our own core servers and we also serve our own DNS.

12. USA, Canada, Costa Rica, UK, Iceland, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, China, Romania, Singapore, Australia, France and Japan.

HIDE.ME

1. No, we don’t keep any logs. We have developed our system with an eye on our customers’ privacy, so we created a distributed VPN cluster with independent public nodes that do not store any customer data or logs at all. We have also been audited by one of the finest independent security experts, Leon Juranic, who has certified us to be completely log free.

2. Hide.me VPN is operated by eVenture Limited and based in Malaysia with no legal obligation to store any user logs at all.

3. Our landing pages, which are solely used for advertising purposes, include a limited amount of third-party tracking scripts, namely Google Analytics. However, no personal information that could be linked with VPN usage is shared with these providers. We do not send information that could compromise someone’s security over email.

4. Since we don’t store any logs and/or host copyright infringing material on our services, we’ll reply to these notices accordingly.

5. It has never happened but in such a scenario, we won’t be able to entertain the court orders because our infrastructure is built in a way that it does not store any logs and there is no way we could link any particular cyber activity to any particular user. In case we are forced to store user logs, we would prefer to close down rather than putting our users at risk who have put their trust in us.

6. There is no effective way of blocking file-sharing traffic without monitoring our customers which is against our principles and would be even illegal. Usually we only recommend our customers to avoid the US & UK locations for file-sharing but it is on a self-regulatory basis since these countries have strong anti-copyright laws in place.

7. We support over 200+ international payment methods, including Bitcoin, Paypal, Credit Cards, Bank transfer and UKash. All payments are handled by external payment providers and are linked to a temporary payment ID. This temporary payment ID can not be connected to the user’s VPN account/activity. After the payment is completed, the temporary payment ID will be permanently removed from the database.

8. After all, modern VPN protocols that we all support – like IKEv2, OpenVPN and SSTP, are considered secure even after the NSA leaks. We follow cryptographic standards and configured our VPN servers accordingly in order to support a secure key exchange with 8192-bit keys and a strong symmetric encryption (AES-256) for the data transfer.

9. Our users’ privacy is of utmost concern to us. Our Windows client has the features such as kill switch, Auto Connect, Auto Reconnect etc which makes sure that the user is always encrypted and anonymous. Even if one of our customers decides not to use the client, in our community there is a big variety of tutorials to help our customers to protect themselves against any sort of leaks.

Above all, we have put in some additional layers of security which include default protection against IP and DNS leaks. To ensure IP leak protection, as soon as the VPN connection is established, our application deletes the default gateway of the user’s’ Internet Connection so their local network becomes inaccessible. In such an instance you enforce the VPN usage adding another layer of security making IP leaks impossible and that’s not it.

Our Windows app also blocks outgoing IPv6 connections automatically to prevent IP leaks. It won’t affect a user’s overall Internet connectivity if your ISP assigns you an IPv6 address.

10. We have our own VPN application for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS

11. We operate our own non-logging DNS-servers to protect our customers from DNS hijacking and similar attacks. We operate 32 server locations in 27 different countries. However we do not own physical hardware, there is an intrusion detection and other various security measures in place to ensure the integrity and security of all our single servers.

We choose all third party hosting providers very carefully, so we can assure that there are certain security standards in place (ISO 27001) and no unauthorized person could access our servers. Among our reputable partners are Leaseweb, NFOrce, Equinix and Softlayer.

12. Our servers are located in countries all over the world, among the most popular ones are Canada, Netherlands, Singapore, Germany, Brazil, Mexico and Australia. Below is the complete list of countries, alternatively you can view all available locations here.