FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Its not hard at all. We take care of getting it up and running and handling things like updates and such for you.
Your server account screen will have all the links you need to shutdown, move or restart your server as well as for creating users and getting your secure configuration files.
The hardest part of the process is setting up your configuration on your machine(s). But, we have great tutorials for iOS, Android and Windows 10.
All you have to do on each platform is
- Download the OpenVPN client app and
- Add a secure configuration file to the OpenVPN app - we make this available for you inside your account screen (its unique to your server)
iOS is the hardest to configure because it takes a couple of extra steps to get the OpenVPN configuration file into the iOS file system.
You can see our extensive help documents here.
Yes. We spin up a virtual private server and install the OPENVPN software stack on it. Then, we generate the keys and provide you with them along with instructions for installation on the most popular platforms including iOS, Android and Windows 10.
Here are three key areas of differentiation:
1. Speed
Regular VPN services such as mulvad, nordvpn, torguard etc. all use servers shared by many users. The more users on a server, the slower the server and the slower the bandwidth.
Because of the shared nature of the servers, with most low-cost VPN services you get inconsistent speeds. The more users that can be packed onto a single server, the lower the VPN provider's costs.
If you did an internet search for "buy vpn", you'll see ridiculously low prices like $3.95/month for 3 years. The only way to maintain a price that low is to jam servers with as many users as possible and throttle bandwidth (since bandwidth cost money).
With your own VPN running in its own VPS, you get your own dedicated resources running traffic to you as fast as our hosting company will allow.
2. Security
A single server with traffic from that many users is a target for hackers. Compromise one server and you have compromised dozens, if not hundreds of users immediately.
With your own server, a hacker would need to target you and your server directly - which is a lot more costly when the end result is just one person's data. For most hackers, its better if they target a more "data rich" server - i.e.: not your server.
3. Flexibility
With your own server you can add multiple users. With a regular VPN, each user requires their own subscription. Thus, even with a low price such as $4.00 / month, it costs more than your own server to service 5 users.
More Information
They're located at our hosting providers - by default it is Digital Ocean.
You can choose from data centers in the following locations:
- New York
- San Francisco
- Amsterdam
- Singapore
- London
- Frankfurt
- Toronto
- Bangalore
No.
You get the full speed possible from your server at our hosting providers.
OpenVPN is the world's most popular open-source VPN software stack. It is an enterprise level product in use on hundreds of thousands of servers.
But you don't have to worry about managing it - we take care of all that for you including all server maintenance.
All you see is faster speeds and a more stable connection since you're not competing with other VPN users.
We provide generous bandwidth allowances - the smallest servers include up to 1 TB of bandwidth. Larger servers offer more.
We will send you an email asking you to upgrade once you exceed your bandwidth - we will not shut down your server, slow your connection or prevent you from using your VPN without giving you ample time to upgrade.
Why Do You Have A Limit? Other VPN Providers Do Not!
Other providers will slow down your connection after a certain amount of bandwidth has been consumed as part of their 'fair use' policy. Except they don't tell you what that limit is. We bet that its a lot less than 1 terabyte though! We believe in being transparent about what we do and how we do it.
We know it doesn't feel good to be constrained but 1 TB is plenty of bandwidth for most users, especially mobile users, even if you consume a lot of videos.
If we find most users going over 1 TB we will then adjust our limits as necessary - we really don't want most of our users bumping into this restriction. So far though, most users don't use anywhere near 1 TB of bandwidth.
A VPS is a Virtual Private SERVER. Its where things like your Windows or the Linux Operating System runs. A VPS is an isolated "partition" running on a machine with other VPSes. As far as Windows, Linux or any other software running on the VPS knows, its the only thing on the machine.
A VPN is the software that runs on the VPS (virtual private server) to establish the secure connection between your device and the server.
We automatically create the VPS and VPN for you so you don't have to worry about handling those tasks.
Our privacy practices are split into two components:
- When you are browsing this website (and our related websites such as those associated with our help-desk or documentation), we may collect personal information about you as well as anonymous information to help with our sales and marketing.
- When you are connecting to and using your VPN servers we do NOT collect personal data such as your browsing and connection data. We only track the amount of bandwidth you are using and the number of users you have created on the server so that we can bill you appropriately if you go over your plan limits. Section 5.1 of our privacy statement governs this.
We do encourage you to read our full privacy statement.
We would like to be clear about this: We do not collect and aggregate the logs from your servers. The OPENVPN software can create logs but we have turned those off. There are no web servers running so there are no logs to be worried about there.
Basically we keep just the information necessary to run the business and collect payments for our services and most of that comes from this website, not from your servers.
Yes, you can. But there is no trial period and you need to pay for one full year up-front. We ask for one full year up front so we don't need to keep collecting cash every month or inadvertently turn off your server because a monthly cash payment wasn't made on time.
Small VPN Server - 1 Year Subscription - Cash or Cheque
After you checkout you will receive receive instructions on where to send your payment - cash, cheque or bitcoin. Your server will not be available for use until payment is received.
Obviously, if you send cash, you are doing so at your own risk - there is no guarantee that we will receive it.
We do. You don't have to worry about taking time out of your busy day to manage a server. You get the benefits of a dedicated VPN server without all the hassle!