Battle VPN battle: Freedome vs SurfEasy

[Shran]

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).

 

[DoxThis]

Well thats freaking stupid they should get a license generator in the web client also why not just manually disable ipv6?

 

[Koroke San]

Coz Freedome not let me connect if i disable IPv6 & shows me stupid error plus there support is poor.

 

[DoxThis]

Wow that is total bs also they obviously manipulate traffic because they block malicious domains etc.

 

[Oxygen]

If there are companies I slightly trust they are from this list
http://prntscr.com/7fzf73
PIA is still kinda fishy to me

PIA is one of the most trusted VPNS.

There are some other great premium alternatives to it though.

 

[DoxThis]

Yeah I mean as far as everyone says on HF etc. they dont log but still I dont have 100%
My 100% proof is when someone is doing something very bad on a vpn and the company doesn't do anything
I dont doing these things I just want to know 100% they have my back

 

[Oxygen]

Yeah I mean as far as everyone says on HF etc. they dont log but still I dont have 100%
My 100% proof is when someone is doing something very bad on a vpn and the company doesn't do anything
I dont doing these things I just want to know 100% they have my back

The best way to see if they would do anything would be to do something "very bad" and wait and see what happens, but as you know that isn't very smart.

I have seen that some vpns do log the times, so that if any abuse is on their service they would know who done something.

 

[Shran]

Cyberghost logs? Their privacy statements states otherwise, and they are HQed in Romania which helps a lot being out of reach from the NSA and the other agencies. Also there have not been any cases that stated that Cyberghost has aided any government body in identifying individuals through logs? Would love to see your source

Well im not trying to be rude but are you STUPID? Its kinda foolish to believe in companies' statements nowadays.
They all lie etc.
Also you seem really confident lol I dont trust them at all

CyberGhost have a statement that they were once approached for logs but since they didn't have any then there wasn't anything to turn over & therefore the authorities' search came up empty.

Again, I know we cannot blindly trust a VPN provider but we also cannot say that all of them lie, log, etc. Without proof one way or another I find it a bit difficult to believe that every VPN you say logs does actually log. If we are so happy to say "they log, they log" then we cannot even consider a single provider can we? I suppose the only way to see which ones actually log would be to use an open source VPN & the company show us their servers so we can see for sure, but then how could it be secure being totally open source? Yes it works for linux but for something as a VPN letting us see for ourselves so to speak would open up the door to anybody being able to possibly find a weakness in said VPN & exploit it. We have solid proof that HMA logs, or at least has in the past, but that's enough to not trust them not to log anymore. We don't have proof of CG, F-Secure, SurfEasy etc, logging. Yes I am suspicious too of any VPN but to say they all log without proof, just isn't a good approach I believe.

Anyway, CyberGhost is a bit out of my price range & they don't have such good customer service, not to mention that the mobile service is spotty at best.

 

[Shran]

PIA I have looked into but I don't like that I cannot try before purchasing, even if just a one month at a time. It would have been nice to be able to try it. I have my concerns about Freedome simply because other F-Secure software I've used has had some rather, umm how do I say this politely, "stupid" bugs that it shouldn't have. I.E. their antivirus offerings don't prevent themselves from being terminated! Also the AV doesn't actually work properly for a while after installation. I know this isn't an AV discussion but if I would have a hard time relying on F-Secure fpr AV it does make me wonder if I can rely on their product for VPN too.

Wow that is total bs also they obviously manipulate traffic because they block malicious domains etc.

Agreed, that is a bit concerning to be honest, even if the traffic is scanned locally I would have preferred a VPN that just encrypts my traffic and keeps its nose out of it. Plus see my OP regarding that they link the number of blocked websites to your unique device, a form of tracking eyh?

 

[Oxygen]

PIA I have looked into but I don't like that I cannot try before purchasing, even if just a one month at a time. It would have been nice to be able to try it. I have my concerns about Freedome simply because other F-Secure software I've used has had some rather, umm how do I say this politely, "stupid" bugs that it shouldn't have. I.E. their antivirus offerings don't prevent themselves from being terminated! Also the AV doesn't actually work properly for a while after installation. I know this isn't an AV discussion but if I would have a hard time relying on F-Secure from av it does make me wonder if I can rely on their product for VPN too.

They do offer a 100% refund if you are not satisfied in the first 7 days.

TorGuard uses the same method, but you can only use 10GB of data. If you go over then you get no refund.

 

[Shran]

They do offer a 100% refund if you are not satisfied in the first 7 days.

TorGuard does this in the same way, but you can only use 10GB of data.

I know, but maybe I'm a bit old school, I prefer to try a product before I give a company my money & payment information. I'm still considering PIA but cannot try it right now. As with any service I see other reviewers saying that their support is terrible, that they have bad connections, that it drops, etc... cannot speak for it myself just yet.

Something I can say about F-Secure though, the support for Freedome is forum based, they have no official support team. Also every once in a while Freedome stops websites from loading completely. One time on the East Coast US server outlook.com would not load, I switched to another server & it worked. At times it slows ALL websites to a crawl, just like people are saying about PIA so its common to a lot of VPNs, of course I expect that it cannot always be perfect.

EDIT: I have added PIA, TorGuard & CG to the poll options list

 

[Oxygen]

I know, but maybe I'm a bit old school, I prefer to try a product before I give a company my money & payment information. I'm still considering PIA but cannot try it right now. As with any service I see other reviewers saying that their support is terrible, that they have bad connections, that it drops, etc... cannot speak for it myself just yet.

You'll have to try it for yourself if you want a real opinion on it. The speed of the server depends on how far it is away from you.

The service is pretty reliable on Windows 7, but with Windows 8.1+ you have to apply some tweaks to get it working properly.

They have decent support (Live Chat 24/7, Email) - If you want speed, disable the encryption on the vpn (I don't recommend this) but encryption is what will slow vpns down.

 

[jackuars]

Well, I didn't vote for either as when you are not paying for something then you are the product. I wouldn't trust a VPN that is free because all of my data goes through their servers and they could sell all of my data. I prefer premium versions like IPVAnish or ExpressVPN. You should give it a try or you could even go for TOR.

A paid product could do the same, not just a free product. Each product is bound by their privacy policies so you can read them if it concerns you. Don't believe the marketing tactics of the so-called people that this is how free products withstand themselves.

 

[Koroke San]

After running cyberghost, F secure freedome was not working. It was showing connected but webpage was not loading like it as doing yesterday. AFter restart when i tried to connect VPN it says IPV6 is disabled. So i enabled it & put IPV6 address & subnet prefix length which comes default in tap adapter when u installed Freedome & it's now working again..

 

[Oxygen]

After running cyberghost, F secure freedome was not working. It was showing connected but webpage was not loading like it as doing yesterday. AFter restart when i tried to connect VPN it says IPV6 is disabled. So i enabled it & put IPV6 address & subnet prefix length which comes default in tap adapter when u installed Freedome & it's now working again..

You're likely to get that issue when you have multiple VPNs installed. Most of the time it has something to do with the TAP Driver. (I can't confirm this as I don't have 2 VPNs installed, but it is certainly one of the many causes)

 

[upnorth]

No matter what VPN you use I do hope you blocked WebRTC.

Check here: IP/DNS Detect