Astrill as a VPN?

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Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Astrill as a VPN?

gmball

236 posts

Master Geek

Topic # 87784 7-Aug-2011 09:43
Any recommendations for a VPN provider? Have looked at Astrill as they offer Australian servers which should be faster, also Strongvpn but no Australian servers.. Have purchased a apple tv, and want access to Hulu so a VPN with a decent connection speed is preferred. Plus with the new 3 strikes law coming into effect in NZ we want to be more vigilant as to who is watching our connection. Anyone connected thru Astrill via their Australian VPN?

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1682 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Reply # 502937 7-Aug-2011 11:13
I didn't like strongVPN as they limit the changes you can make, so you are either in the USA or in the UK and have a limit on changing between the two. So I you want to hear some pandora then watch some bbc you have to do a change. I have been using the free tunnelbear.com and find it pretty good and might change to the pay version. They only have UK and USA tunnels. Still I would like to know of others, would like to tunnel into the Netherlands.

billgates

2555 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Reply # 502946 7-Aug-2011 11:45
I use Astrill via US and UK connection and there are no issues. Never tried the Australian connetion as there is nothing there that is hosted on demand that I like. Microsoft\|Outlook\|Skydrive\|Windows Live Admin Center\|Skype\|Office Web Apps\|Office 365\| Windows Phone\|Windows 8\|Xbox\|Hyper-V\|Office2013\|Bing\|Security Essentials\|Server 2012

irangejuice

17 posts

Geek

Reply # 503295 8-Aug-2011 12:57
Is it good enough to stream HD content from US/UK?

1080p

984 posts

Ultimate Geek

Reply # 503301 8-Aug-2011 13:16
Is Hulu available in Australia? Workstation: Intel DH67CL ~ i5-2500 ~ 4GB Corsair RAM (x2) ~ Intel X25-M 80GB SSD Laptop: Dell Inspiron 1564 ~ i5-520M ~ 4.00GB RAM ~ 500GB SATA HDD ~ Win7 Home Premium x64 Common misconceptions.

billgates

2555 posts

Uber Geek

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Reply # 503309 8-Aug-2011 13:23
irangejuice: Is it good enough to stream HD content from US/UK? Yes. Netflix on HD worked fine. Never tried iPlayer on HD. Microsoft\|Outlook\|Skydrive\|Windows Live Admin Center\|Skype\|Office Web Apps\|Office 365\| Windows Phone\|Windows 8\|Xbox\|Hyper-V\|Office2013\|Bing\|Security Essentials\|Server 2012

irangejuice

17 posts

Geek

Reply # 503330 8-Aug-2011 14:05
Hmm might give this a shot then. cheers.

hellonearthisman

1682 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Reply # 503493 8-Aug-2011 18:52
I signed up with Astrill, did a google before signing and got a little extra discount. I'm like Astrill more than TunnelBear.

gmball

236 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 503975 9-Aug-2011 17:23
Happy to advise after signing up for Astrill, I am able to max out my Telecom ADSL2 connection with basically every download, 1.9MB/s. In some respects, I actually think that my connection is faster, or certainly seems that way. I am connecting via Astrill's Australian VPN Server.

bbunnys

91 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 504696 10-Aug-2011 22:11
Might be a dump question but what is best/difference, Open VPN or L2TP. Im running Win 7.

hellonearthisman

1682 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Reply # 504958 11-Aug-2011 13:01
I had a small problem of the plug-in play astrill apps exposing me when my connection went down as they currently don't support auto reconnect. I have found a solution to this by using OpenVPN with astrill servers. Which was simple and auto reconnects. https://members.astrill.com/knowledgebase/37/OpenVPN---Manual-configuration-with-OpenVPN-client-on-W... Slingshot seem to limit VPN speeds to 80kBps from 1am, but outside the free data periods they go full speed. NB that was torrenting and not watching a streaming service (will test if there is a difference tonight).

richms

8811 posts

Uber Geek

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Subscriber

Reply # 504981 11-Aug-2011 14:01
I have put an invalid default gateway on the downloading machines (virtual and real), and a persistant route for the VPN host to my default gateway, Had to put a bogus default gateway otherwise openVPN wasnt creating a new default gateway after connection. Only have routed the IP that my seedbox is on to the default gateway, so no risk of leakage when it is down. Unfortunately my seedbox only allows one VPN established on my account at one time. Im going to try one connection from each of my connections tonight and see if its a limit on source IP or something. Richard rich.ms

sti2envy

6 posts

Wannabe Geek

Reply # 505530 12-Aug-2011 14:09
I'm using vpnv6.com to max out my downloads every night. I actually feel safe using a VPN now..and ready for Sept Also watching lots of hulu and netflix with their US server. Their US server ping time from my Slingshot is pretty decent 200ms so streaming is very smooth.

bbunnys

91 posts

Master Geek

Reply # 505943 13-Aug-2011 11:24
I see Astrill now have a New Zealand server. I presume that will be best one to connect to for everyday stuff as should be fastest?

hellonearthisman

1682 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Reply # 506014 13-Aug-2011 15:57
Via Astrill: Pinging geekzone.co.nz [202.175.128.164] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 202.175.128.164: bytes=32 time=47ms TTL=120 Reply from 202.175.128.164: bytes=32 time=35ms TTL=120 Reply from 202.175.128.164: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=120 Reply from 202.175.128.164: bytes=32 time=37ms TTL=120 Ping statistics for 202.175.128.164: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 35ms, Maximum = 47ms, Average = 39ms Via Slingshot: Pinging geekzone.co.nz [202.175.128.164] with 32 bytes of data: Reply from 202.175.128.164: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=121 Reply from 202.175.128.164: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=121 Reply from 202.175.128.164: bytes=32 time=31ms TTL=121 Reply from 202.175.128.164: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=121 Ping statistics for 202.175.128.164: Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss), Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 31ms, Maximum = 33ms, Average = 32ms The NZ connection doesn't support torrents.

tigercorp

404 posts

Ultimate Geek

Subscriber

Reply # 513244 28-Aug-2011 23:46
hellonearthisman: I had a small problem of the plug-in play astrill apps exposing me when my connection went down as they currently don't support auto reconnect. I have found a solution to this by using OpenVPN with astrill servers. Which was simple and auto reconnects. https://members.astrill.com/knowledgebase/37/OpenVPN---Manual-configuration-with-OpenVPN-client-on-W... ... Just stumbled across this thread so thought I'd add to it... The current Astrill (2.5) version supports auto-reconnects. Also, there's this handy tutorial on how to tie a port specific app to the vpn. They use uTorrent in the example. If you do that and add a (Windows) firewall rule to block that port, then you can guarantee no exposure on your local IP.

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