HMA is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month, but they have not used this as an excuse to take a break. They have in fact added more servers to their network and posted tips for their users who are having trouble because of certain ISP restrictions. IPVanish also has some new servers, and ExpressVPN launched an Android app upgrade. iVPN has been working on port forwarding and users can now make reservations. IAPS Security has also been upgrading their network with new residential ISP partners and IPv6 compatibility. Finally, Golden Frog has been especially busy preparing to host an AMA on Reddit, adding support for VyprVPN on Android TV and phasing out their Dump Truck tool.
New HMA Servers Plus Bypassing ISP Restrictions
Hide My Ass is proud to celebrate 10 years in the VPN business, and they have honored their decade of service by continuing to provide their users with new servers that offer fresh IP addresses. This month, HMA has added servers in the US that mark another milestone for HMA – the provider now has VPN servers in all of the US states. These servers are in Providence, Rhode Island; Omaha, Nebraska; Louisville, Mississippi; and Magnolia, Arkansas. HMA has also expanded their server numbers in Bath, Maine; Bedford, New Hampshire; Cheyenne, Wyoming; Grand Forks, North Dakota; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Philippi, West Virginia; Rutland, Vermont; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Wilmington, Delaware. Aside from the expansion in the US, HMA has also added servers in three new countries around the world – Andorra la Vella, Andorra; Monaco, Monaco; and Vatican City, Vatican – and expanded their reach in Zagreb, Croatia and Istanbul, Turkey.
Some HMA users have been having some trouble lately because of new restrictions that their ISPs have been adding. There is no need to worry, though, because HMA has a solution that will allow these users to regain access to their private and secure VPN. Local ISPs may be using network filters that interfere with your VPN connections.
If you have properly downloaded and run HMA and still can’t establish a VPN connection, first try using OpenVPN. After selecting this protocol, find a server in the Country Selection menu that shows availability and fast speeds rather than those that time out. This information is available after you conduct Ping Tests under on the individual servers in the Speed Guide. Make sure also that you are making connections through Auto-path so that you can get the best ports and paths to use for your connection. You can check this in the Settings menu which is readily accessible from the Dashboard. Don’t worry if your connection is taking a bit longer than usual because it just means that HMA is looking for the best connection.
You can also try using HMA proxies via the Auto-path option. You will need to find some IP:port proxies from HMA and test them by entering the IP and port into the Proxy settings area. If you find that they are blocked, you can try using some other web proxies. Note however that proxies do not provide the same security features that VPNs do and they also will not give you the same level of quality you are used to with VPN connections. Don’t forget to use OpenVPN. You can also try other OpenVPN connection methods like OpenVPN GUI.
If this is still not working for you, switch to the L2TP protocol. Please refer to HMA support and documentation to set up your system for L2TP. If you are running your VPN over your router, make sure that it supports OpenVPN and/or L2TP or that it has been properly flashed to use these with the UDP protocol. DD-WRT is best, and Tomato firmware can also work if you change the port to random higher port numbers so you can override firewall restrictions.
IPVanish New Servers
IPVanish has been continually updating their server list over the past few weeks, and they can now boast a total of 40,000 IP addresses from their latest server updates. In the US, IPVanish has added five new servers each to the cities of San Jose, California; Atlanta, Georgia; and Dallas, Texas. They also added five servers to their location in Singapore and two for London, United Kingdom. There are three new countries recently added to the list as well. Prague, Czech Republic got three servers. Lisbon, Portugal got two new servers. Finally, Liverpool, UK got one new server. IPVanish now serves more than 60 countries worldwide with more than 325 tier-1 VPN servers.
ExpressVPN Android App Upgrade
ExpressVPN has launched their app for Android version 4.7 and users can download and install it anytime. ExpressVPN 4.7 for Android fixes some issues with the previous app version and also has a few cool additional features. The app has been redesigned to follow Google’s Material Design guidelines and also proudly shows off the new company logo.
The new app is most notable for its convenience. It is so easy to use with the new server browsing, selection and connection feature. This is aided by the new look which makes everything on the app more easily accessible. There is also an automatic connection feature that users can set to get on the fastest servers without having to go through the selection and connection process. But even without this, getting the fastest server is so easy because the app shows users the fastest servers first. The algorithm used to sort the servers has also been improved in this version, so users can trust that they are really seeing the best of the best.
Want to go it on your own and find your own personal best servers? This is not a problem because the new ExpressVPN app offers a much better search feature. You can easily search for available servers in the country or even city of your choice and make quick connections. You can then take advantage of the new Favorites which allows you to star and store your server preferences so you can get back to them easily and quickly the next time you want to make a connection.
iVPN Port Forwarding Reservations Open
iVPN has just completed a major network upgrade for port forwarding. This is reservation-based port forwarding, a very advanced feature that some users who operate servers at the same time as being on a VPN will find very useful. Port forwarding used to require users to log in on the website separately to get the needed port number, and this process had to be repeated every time the user disconnected from the VPN. The new system gets rid of all of this hassle and requires a user to log in only once at the client area where a permanent port number is assigned.
IAPS Security Moving Fast
IAPS Security has just completed their IPv6 testing for users on remote desktops and for their VPN servers as well. Everything went very well and the team is ready to move on to the next project and keep enlisting new residential ISP partners. The newest addition to the family is Telecom Italia with their Windows 10 remote desktop systems. Users who are on Telecom Italia Internet connections are getting download speeds of almost 400Mbps and upload speeds of over 100 Mbps.
