BolehVPN News/Status/Fun

Lucky kid

Took the time this Sunday afternoon to distil down the most common questions and make into a fancy schmancy expandable FAQ.

You can check it out by heading over here. Comments appreciated!

One of the Swiss servers has been added to the PrivateTracker configuration. We are debating on adding the 2nd Swiss server to the BolehRoute configuration and will update you when we have decided.

The easiest way to update this is to browse to your OpenVPN config folder (usually in C:\Program Files\OpenVPN\config) and double click on PrivateTracker.ovpn.

Locate the line that says

remote avatar.bolehvpn.net 443

and below that paste the following lines:

# Swiss1 (Switzerland)
remote swiss1.bolehvpn.net 443

As such the whole server list will look like this:

# Server List
# Handhaven (Netherlands)
remote handhaven.bolehvpn.net 443
# Crysis (UK)
remote crysis.bolehvpn.net 443
# Avatar (Netherlands)
remote avatar.bolehvpn.net 443
# Swiss1 (Switzerland)
remote swiss1.bolehvpn.net 443

Save the file and you’re done!

Bolehroute 4′s maintenance is complete and is back online.

BolehRoute 4 is undergoing maintenance.

Gusta aka Handhaven on the PrivateTracker configuration will be undergoing maintenance to improve its performance. We expect this maintenance to last not more than a day. Till then, the PrivateTracker configuration may be slightly more congested than usual.

Update:

Gustav maintenance has been completed and is back online

We have managed to acquire two Swiss servers for testing. We’ll set them up and add them to the configuration when we’re done setting it up.

Btw, the picture is not where our servers are located but of the Pionen White Mountains data center hosted in an underground nuclear bunker used by Wikileaks . Why do I put it up? Cause it’s cool and it’s Swiss.

File services such as Hotfile, Dropbox, Rapidshare and Megaupload have gained increasing popularity and thus far have more or less stayed untouched by law suits.

Recently however, it appears the MPAA have set their sights on such sites by suing Hotfile claiming that it profits directly from the reproduction and distribution of copyright content. One of the key arguments is that Hotfile offers cash rewards to users whose files are downloaded frequently and therefore its business model is based on infringement.

The outcome of this case will have far-reaching consequences for cloud-based storage services.

For further reading:

Reuters: Hollywood studios sues Hotfile over copyright

Gigaom: Will the MPAA Target RapidShare, Megaupload or Dropbox?

After testing we can now recommend uTorrent 2.2.1 beta as our torrent client of choice for Windows user. Our installation guide has been updated with much more simplified settings.

uTorrent 2.2.1 has some improved features including Privacy features which prevents connections from going through if you are disconnected from the VPN. Previous verions of uTorrent had sometimes leaked information where the data did not pass through our SOCKS proxy. As such we highly recommend the use of uTorrent 2.2.1 Beta until the final is released.

uTorrent has released a new Beta (Build 24567) which one of our users, Traith is reporting that it is working properly with Socks proxies now.

It is recommended that you uninstall your previous utorrent version first and delete all settings before you install this one and then redo your proxy settings as per our installation instructions to ensure compatibility and security.

You can download the new beta here.

Changelog:

– 2011-02-07: Version 2.2.1 beta (build 24567)
- Fix: balloon notifications didn’t display
- Fix: tray tooltip showed 0 for everything
- Fix: fixed issue causing uTP to break
- Fix: fixed bug causing .!ut extensions to break and any operation that moved files
- Fix: uTP fast-resend bug

– 2011-02-03: Version 2.2.1 beta (build 24512)
- Change: improve logging for pex flood events and average over more messages
- Feature: enable disk congestion logic when disk cache is turned off
- Fix: socks5 proxy error handling would sometimes cause a freeze and infinite loop
- Fix: don’t fall back on browser to download RSS torrents when proxy is used and non proxied connections are disabled
- Fix: episode numbers are no longer limited to 2 digits in torrent list
- Fix: fix copy bug in list views (would sometimes fail to copy certain fields)
- Fix: crash when deleting a torrent file that was added via magnet link
- Change: don’t update RSS feeds just by opening the edit window
- Fix: UDP tracker fix for tracker returning incorrect scrape responses

– 2011-01-21: Version 2.2.1 beta (build 24266)
- Fix: frequent crash when opening the containing folder of a torrent
- Change: Run apps in standard mode (not IE7 compatibility mode)
- Fix: Remove erroneous scam MessageBox

– 2011-01-19: Version 2.2.1 beta (build 24217)
- Fix: fixed gui.graph_overhead
- Change: limit cache size to 2000 MB (for 32 bit builds)
- Fix: attempt at fixing disappearing systray icon
- Fix: Copy and paste in File list view fixed. (ctrl-A, ctrl-C, ctrl-V)
- Fix: don’t attempt to open a file if it doesn’t exist (caused association dialog to appear)
- Change: only apply the port > 1023 for outgoing connection restriction for peers only hear about through the DHT
- Fix: back-ported proper support for disabling udp trackers from 3.0
- Fix: fix bug in UDP socks5 support which would cause infinite loops
- Fix: Use system call to open containing folder instead of launching explorer.exe (when available)
- Fix: Don’t connect to ports < 1024 when no-connect-to-services is enabled (which it is by default)
- Fix: privacy checkbox in general settings would have multiline text
- Change: add port 80 and 443 to the default port block list