- Jan 19, 2015
- 230
Hi everyone,
So I am currently deciding between F-Secure's Freedome VPN & SurfEasy VPN. Both are from companies I believe to be trustworthy (now that Opera owns SurfEasy). Both companies say they are dedicated to privacy.
My issue with F-Secure's VPN is that I've had reliability problems with their anti-virus offerings. I.E. shortly after installing, the realtime protection doesn't work properly for about 15 minutes (no matter how many times the system was restarted). I assume this has something to do with F-Secure updating itself after being installed. But if their anti-virus has realtime protection issues, how can I trust that the VPN is actually encrypting my traffic like it says? Also, the counters for how many "bad websites" Freedome has blocked is linked to my specific system on their servers. I found this out because I had a backup image of my system in which the blocked website count was 43. I then managed to up the count to 62; when I completely wiped the hard drive & then restored the system to the old image & booted up, Freedome promptly updated the blocked website number to 62. Clearly then, the counter isn't stored locally but on a server somewhere, linked to my specific device with a unique identifier. Doesn't this kind of go against the whole philosophy of a VPN?
I haven't used SurfEasy much, but here are my issues with it: 1) it doesn't have a real interface. The only "interface" is the right click menue on the tray icon. 2) The only settings are "launch at start-up". The interface isn't too big of an issue, although I would like to have more settings available. 3) Their mobile app for iOS has a bit of an issue. Upon installing the app you have the option to sign in with a free account for 500 MB of free tunneling, or, you can choose to use the app without signing in & only get 250 MB. I chose to only use the 250 MB without signing in. The VPN started & the VPN icon was at the top of my screen. I was not required to sign in. However, the next time I opened the app, the VPN shut off & the app showed a login screen. This time however, there was NOT an option to use the app without singing in/up & no way to turn the VPN back up. I closed & re-opened the app & it still insisted I sign in & would not allow me to continue using the 250 MB service. This is a bit of a problem for me, simply because it doesn't allow me to use it without an account anymore, when it did at first & says it should let me. I haven't been able to see if this issue exists in the android version.
Feel free to chime in with your opinion(s).
So I am currently deciding between F-Secure's Freedome VPN & SurfEasy VPN. Both are from companies I believe to be trustworthy (now that Opera owns SurfEasy). Both companies say they are dedicated to privacy.
My issue with F-Secure's VPN is that I've had reliability problems with their anti-virus offerings. I.E. shortly after installing, the realtime protection doesn't work properly for about 15 minutes (no matter how many times the system was restarted). I assume this has something to do with F-Secure updating itself after being installed. But if their anti-virus has realtime protection issues, how can I trust that the VPN is actually encrypting my traffic like it says? Also, the counters for how many "bad websites" Freedome has blocked is linked to my specific system on their servers. I found this out because I had a backup image of my system in which the blocked website count was 43. I then managed to up the count to 62; when I completely wiped the hard drive & then restored the system to the old image & booted up, Freedome promptly updated the blocked website number to 62. Clearly then, the counter isn't stored locally but on a server somewhere, linked to my specific device with a unique identifier. Doesn't this kind of go against the whole philosophy of a VPN?
I haven't used SurfEasy much, but here are my issues with it: 1) it doesn't have a real interface. The only "interface" is the right click menue on the tray icon. 2) The only settings are "launch at start-up". The interface isn't too big of an issue, although I would like to have more settings available. 3) Their mobile app for iOS has a bit of an issue. Upon installing the app you have the option to sign in with a free account for 500 MB of free tunneling, or, you can choose to use the app without signing in & only get 250 MB. I chose to only use the 250 MB without signing in. The VPN started & the VPN icon was at the top of my screen. I was not required to sign in. However, the next time I opened the app, the VPN shut off & the app showed a login screen. This time however, there was NOT an option to use the app without singing in/up & no way to turn the VPN back up. I closed & re-opened the app & it still insisted I sign in & would not allow me to continue using the 250 MB service. This is a bit of a problem for me, simply because it doesn't allow me to use it without an account anymore, when it did at first & says it should let me. I haven't been able to see if this issue exists in the android version.
Feel free to chime in with your opinion(s).