Let us begin our StrongVPN review, a San Francisco based company by saying that they have been providing VPN service for about eleven years. This makes then one of the pioneers in the industry. What is more, their core support group has been together for about twenty years and understands that customer support is key to good service. Their VPN network consists of about 600 servers. These are strategically placed in 47 cities across 22 different countries which allows them to provide VPN service from almost anywhere in the world. They have custom software for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, and Android. This makes it easy to connect to their VPN servers regardless of the device you are using to connect to it.
Pricing and Special Offers
StongVPN used to offer a variety of VPN packages but we are glad to say they have recently started to offer their VPN service as a single package. It is sold in two term length plans. These plans are monthly, and twelve months. The monthly plan is $10.00 per month. Like other providers, they offer discounts on longer term plans. Just being a VPNFan reader, you can save even more off your StrongVPN subscription. We’re very excited to share an exclusive 50% discount for StrongVPN. If you sign up for 12 months of their VPN for $59.49, this works out to just $4.95 per month. That’s a savings of over 50% off the regular monthly price.
So, what do you get for your $4.95 per month? StrongVPN offers the following benefits for all of their subscribers:
Free custom VPN Software for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, and Android
Absolutely no logging of their users activity while connected to VPN
2 Simultaneous connections
Unlimited VPN bandwidth and usage
Worldwide virtual IPs from more than 600 servers in 22 different countries
Shared IP addresses among subscribers for better privacy
Choice of VPN protocols: OpenVPN, SSTP, L2TP, IPsec, IKEv2, and PPTP
Granular encryption choice – manual selection of encryption strength
Proxy access
Firewall protection against malware while using their VPN
The ability to bypass censorship and geo-restrictions
Wi-Fi hotspot protection against hackers and identity theft
VoIP support to save on long distance costs
5-day money back guarantee
StrongVPN offers a few different ways to pay for their VPN service. They accept the following credit cards: VISA, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover. You can also pay using PayPal if you like to centralize all of your online payments into one site. You can also pay by Bitcoin if you want to be more anonymous. If you pay by either PayPal or Bitcoin, all that is necessary to establish an account is a username, password, and an email address.
Risk-Free Trial Period
StrongVPN does not offer a free trial. However, they know that you would like to try out their service for yourself before you decide to buy it so they offer new subscribers a 5-day, 100% money back guarantee. This should be enough time for you to completely test out their VPN service and support. If for any reason, you are not completely satisfied with it, they will refund your full purchase price. You must fill out and submit a cancel request form within five days of the purchase date. The cancel request form can be found in the customer area on their website under the “VPN Accounts” menu. Requests made later than five days from purchase date will are not eligible for a refund.
StrongVPN Network and Server Locations
The StrongVPN network of servers has grown in size and performance over the years as technology has advanced. Their network now has about 600 VPN servers in 22 different countries with access to over 87,000 IP addresses. They have servers on nearly every major continent including Asia, Europe, North America, and South America.
The best coverage is in United States (14 cities – 360+ servers), United Kingdom (7 cities – 90+ servers), Canada (3 cities – 22 servers), The Netherlands (1 city – 18 servers), and Germany (3 cities – 13 servers). Here is a list of the number of cities in each region, sorted by country:
Asia – 6 cities (25+ servers)
Hong Kong, Hong Kong; Israel, Tel Aviv; Japan, Tokyo; Singapore, Singapore; Malasia, Kuala Lumpur; Turkey, Istanbul
Europe – 23 cities (170+ servers)
Czech Republic, Prague; France, Roubaix
Germany, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich
Italy, Milan; Latvia, Riga;
Luxembourg, Contem, Steinsel
Netherlands, Amsterdam; Norway, Oslo; Romania, Ifov; Russian Federation, Moscow; Sweden, Molkom;
Switzerland, Basel, Zurich
United Kingdom, Caterbury, Livingston, London, Maidenhead, Manchester, Nottingham, Rugby
North America – 17 cities (380+ servers)
Canada – Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver
United States – Atlanta, Buffalo, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, Phoenix,, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Washington D.C.
South America – 1 city (2 servers)
Mexico, Mexico City
It is easy to see from this list that StrongVPN has servers all over the world and multiple servers in more popular locations as we saw above. Their network defaults primarily to the OpenVPN UDP protocol but also supports SSTP, L2TP, IPsec, IKEv2, and PPTP.
Privacy and Security
StongVPN does not log any traffic of users on their VPN network. They have an extensive privacy policy that spells out exactly what personal information they do keep on their users and how it is handled. Here are some excerpts of their policy:
StrongVPN does not collect or log any traffic or use of its Virtual Private Network service.
We will only comply with all valid subpoena request that follow the letter of the law. We cannot provide information that we do not have.
…, nor do we track the browsing activities of users who are logged into our VPN service
StrongVPN is located in the United States – San Francisco, California and subject to all US and California laws and jurisdictional procedures. They feel the US is a good place for a VPN service since they have no mandatory data retention policy, as many places in the world now do. They would have to comply with all official judicial orders and hand over all the information about their users traffic. However, since they do not keep logs of their users traffic or VPN use, they would comply with any such orders by turning over nothing as they cannot furnish information they don’t have.
What kind of encryption does StrongVPN offer to users of their VPN service? They implement OpenVPN as their primary default protocol in their Windows, Mac OS X, and Android clients. TLSv1.2 is used for server authentication and control. By default, it uses 2048 bit key exchange and 2048 bit RSA certificate for verification that the key actually came from a StongVPN server. By default, all data is encrypted and decrypted using a AES-128-CBC cipher initialized with a 128 bit key and HMAC authentication is enabled. Their iOS app recommends the IKEv2 protocol which is considered to be just as secure as OpenVPN but is good for mobile devices because it reconnects easily and maintains the VPN session when the connection is lost or changes. This is due to its support of MOBIKE. This means that regardless of your operating system, you can always be assured that all of your Internet traffic is securely encrypted with a reliable connection when accessing a StongVPN server.
StrongVPN Support
StongVPN is one of the few services that has a 24/7 live chat to answer any light technical, sales, or billing questions you might have. In our dealings with the staff behind the live chat, we found them fast, courteous, and on point in answering the question we had about the service. Sometimes they would direct us to FAQs and support pages to help with our questions. For more technical problems, they provide a 365/24/7 email ticket support system with a quick response time so you can be assured there is someone working on your issue.
The support form for email tickets is very basic and is shown above. You must fill in “Full name”, “Email address”, “Subject”, and a “Description” of your problem. Choose your “Department” from the following: Abuse, Billing/Accounting/Orders, Sales, Technical support. Optional choices are available for the OS and VPN connection type. Once all of these have been filled in, check “I’m not a robot”, and click on the green “Submit” button. Once you subscribe to their service, you can login to your customer area on their website and get access to a priority ticket which allows you to attach log files and screenshots.
Hands-On Testing of the StrongVPN Network
StongVPN has custom software for Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, and Android. You can download these custom clients from the StrongVPN setup page of their website which can be accessed from clicking on the “Setup” in the main site menu.
Once the setup page opens, click on the operating system button as is shown in the next image to download their client installer to your computer or transfer to iTunes Store to download the iOS app or Google Play for the Android app.
They also have manual setups here to configure their VPN using a variety of protocols including OpenVPN, L2TP/IPsec, and PPTP on Android, iOS, Linux, Tomato routers, DD-WRT routers, and Chrome OS. Once you sign up for an account, they will send you a welcoming email with your username and password so that you can connect to their VPN network of servers using your chosen client software.
Connecting with the Windows VPN Client
As we said before, you can download the StrongVPN software from the setup page of their website by selecting “Setup” from the site main menu as we have shown at the beginning of the hands on section. Once you get on this page, click on the “StrongVPN for Windows” button (shown inset left). This will bring up a dialog window that will let you save the Windows client installation file to your computer. The client requires Windows XP or above. The client setup page also has manual setup guides to configure Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 to use their service with OpenVPN, IPSec, SSTP, L2TP, and PPTP.
Once the client is downloaded to your computer, right-click on the file and choose “Run as Administrator”. The setup will first have you choose your language and accept the StrongVPN TOS. You will then need to choose a destination location, start menu folder, and check to create a desktop icon. This will result in an install window like the one below-left. Clicking the “Install” button will start the installation which will finish by creating a desktop icon like the one shown on the right. After this completes, you will be prompted to install the TAP driver. After the TAP driver is installed, you will see a screen like the one shown below-right. Click on the “Finish” button to launch the StrongVPN client for the first time.
The first time you open the client, you will see a verification and login page similar to the one shown on the left below. There are options to create an account or reset your password if you have forgotten it. It you have the information from your welcoming email, enter in your “Email” and “Password” from it. These have been entered and redacted from the image on the right below.
Once you have entered your credentials, check “Save Login” so that the client will remember your login information and you will not have to reenter it. Next, click on the “Log In” button. This will bring up the main client connection screen as is shown below-left. This screen shows the following:
Your current IP address which we have redacted.
VPN Status: Disconnected followed by a red StrongVPN logo
The StrongVPN Client Logo
Options Menu
Change Location – This allows you to manually choose an individual server to connect to which we discuss later in this review.
Advanced – The advanced options available to those who want greater control over their VPN connections which we will also discuss later.
Help – This will take you to the StrongVPN website support page.
Log Out – This will log you out of the client and minimize it to the tray. it will not close the client. If you log out, you will have to re-enter you “email” and “password” when you connect to another location. This could be useful if you are using a shared computer.
Exit – This will close out the StrongVPN Windows client.
Your last connected location – In this case Oslo, Norway.
Your currently chosen location to connect to which was selected from the drop down list as we have shown exploded on the right in the image below.
The protocol that will be used for the connection
OpenVPN TCP – This is the OpenVPN Transport Control Protocol and includes error detection and correction for dropped packets and packet order. Because of this it can be a little slower, but it can also be more reliable in rural areas or over long distances.
OpenVPN UDP – This is the OpenVPN User Datagram Protocol and does not include the overhead of TCP and thus is faster and is the StrongVPN client default.
OpenVPN Proxy – This is useful to hide your IP address and will let you choose which applications run through the VPN.
The “Connect ” button which will connect you to your chosen VPN server.
The last component of the screen is the “More Info” link which will take you to the StrongVPN blog. Now that we have examined the components of the main connection screen, click on the “Connect” button to complete your connection to the Los Angeles location. This will bring up a screen like the one shown below. Notice the following changes between the connected screen and the disconnected one:
Your home IP address has been replaced with a virtual one from The LA VPN server which has been redacted from the image.
VPN Status: is now “Connected” and the StrongVPN icon is now green.
The previous connection has been replaced with your current one in Los Angeles.
The “Connect” button has now been replaced by the “Disconnect” button.
As you can see if you accept the defaults offered by the client, then connecting to the StrongVPN network takes just a few clicks of the mouse and requires no special technical knowledge. By default, it will connect you to the fastest server in your chosen city from your current location. Now let us take a look at how you change locations in the StrongVPN client. In order to change locations, you must first disconnect from the network. The image below shows the system tray messages that indicate that you are first connected to the LA server and then disconnected. Note the icon changes from the connected color (green) to the disconnected one (red).
For those of you who want more control over your VPN connection, StrongVPN has a “Change Location” menu item which will let you change your protocol as well as your location. When you click on the “Change Location” menu item you will see a screen like the one shown below.
This screen has two options on it: “By country” and “By server”. These two selections are illustrated in the image below. The first shows the selection by country and the second by server.
The first screenshot below illustrates how, by country, the recommended option works. First, choose a country from the dropdown list. Next choose a protocol type. PPTP was chosen in the example below. You must then click on the “Test All Servers” button and wait. Be aware, it can take up to 20 minutes for this test to complete depending on the number of VPN servers it checks for a particular country. Once this completes the best server will be shown just under the “Test All Servers” button. We have redacted the server names from this review. You would then click the “Next” button to start the server switch.
The second image above shows a sample of the by server selection. First you will need to select a country and a city from their respective dropdown lists. Next, choose a protocol type. PPTP was chosen in this example. You can then choose to test a particular server or all of the servers by clicking either the “Test Selected Server” button or the “Test All” button. You can then sort the results by ping time (ms) and throughput (KB/s). Examining the above example, you might want to choose the second server which has a slightly higher ping time but much better throughput than the other servers. Once you highlight your server choice, click on the “Next” button to show the switch screen.
The switch screen which is shown below-left is the same regardless of which method you choose to change VPN servers. Click the “Switch” button on this screen to initiate the server switch procedure and change to your chosen server. This procedure is illustrated in the image below right. The server names have been redacted. The last image says “Changing account ###### from server1 to server2 as an example prototype.
Once the account server change process has completed, you will see a message telling you that the server change was successful and then the main client connection screen will be shown as below. The server automatically chosen using the by country selection is now shown as the server you will connect to when you click on the “Connect” button. By default the client will connect using the SSTP protocol, but you can change it to PPTP or L2TP if you want by using the drop down list as is shown below. Once you have settled on the protocol you want to use, then click on the “Connect” button to complete your connection to the new server.
Now let us take a look at the Advanced menu item. Clicking on “Advanced” will open the Options menu which has five tabs as is shown below. The five tabs are as follows:
Information – This contains account, system and session information for the current session.
Options – This has all of the connections options for the client.
Log – This is a log of the connection procedural steps and can be useful to help diagnose connection issues. A copy of it should be included in tickets that you create for connection problems to help the StrongVPN staff diagnose and resolve your problem faster.
Port List – This is a listing of all the ports that the client can use with the ability to add your own. Having access to multiple ports allows the VPN service to bypass blocked or restricted ports and still transfer all of its traffic.
Port 53 – The default Domain Name Service (DNS) port.
Port 123 – The Network Time Protocol (NTP) port which is used for time synchronization
Port 268 – This the the port assigned to Tobit David Replica.
Port 443 – This is the default port for HTTPS, secure Internet.
Port 500 – Port 500 is used by the Internet key exchange (IKE) that occurs during the establishment of secure VPN tunnels.
Port 518 – This is the Ntalk or New Talk port which makes possible the transmission of a datagram message from one computer to an application running on another computer.
Port 547 – This is the DHCP server port for IPv6 and it allows a datagram message (UDP) to be transmitted from one computer to another.
Port 812 – This is an unassigned port.
Port 1029 – This port is designated for dynamic allocation by Windows.
Port 1289 – This is the JWalkServer port.
Port 2672 – This is the nhserver port which when used with UDP allows transmitting of Datagram messages between computers.
Port 8181 – This is mainly a port used by the TCP protocol for bi-directional messages once a connection has been established between devices.
Port 8292 – This is a registered port by Bloomberg Professional.
Port 5522 – This is an unassigned port.
Port 3306 – This is the port used by MySQL and uses TCP.
Licenses – This contains the StrongVPN End User License Agreement and other licenses used by the client.
Now let us examine the Options tab in greater detail. The image above shows what the options tab looks like depending on the protocol preference you have chosen. The first shows the options when PPTP/L2TP/SSTP is the chosen protocol. Notice, it treats it as if no OpenVPN account exists. The second image shows the Options that are available if OpenVPN is your protocol preference. The options are devided into five sections as follows:
General – This contains general startup preferences and your protocol preference.
Show notifications in taskbar – This is what allowed you to see the connect and disconnect messages that we saw earlier in this section.
Check for updates automatically – this can make sure you always have the latest version of the client.
Start when Windows starts – Launch the client when you log into Windows.
Connect on launch – If start when Windows starts is set then this allows you to automatically connect to you last connection or no connection. This will attempt to always be connected to the VPN when using the Internet unless the connection drops.
Protocol preference – This allows you to manually choose the VPN connection protocol. Note you must first apply and then save these new settings. They will be applied the next time you use the client to make a connection.
Package Tier – This will default to OpenVPN now with the new single tier.
OpenVPN – This will allow you to choose between these three connection settings.
OpenVPN TCP – This is the Transfer Control Protocol and is good for high latency connections and those which cannot tolerate packet loss. It provides error checking for packet order and loss and resends packets to correct. This is usually slower because of the extra overhead involved in this process. Would not be ideal for streaming.
OpenVPN UDP – This is the User Datagram Protocol which is used with low latency connections and loss tolerating ones. This is the default OpenVPN protocol for the client and best for most users. It does not have to check for packet order or loss.
OpenVPN Proxy – This is primarily used for users in China and Iran but could also provide faster streaming speeds depending on other OpenVPN settings.
PPTP/L2TP/SSTP – This will allow you to use these other protocols to connect to the StrongVPN network using the client.
PPTP – Not as secure as OpenVPN but can be faster and might be a good choice for streaming media.
L2TP – This provides a good alternate choice to OpenVPN if SSTP does not work but can be slower due to double encapsulation.
SSTP – A proprietary Microsoft protocol designed primarily for Windows. It is fast, secure, and reliable. This is the default client protocol if your preference is PPTP/L2TP/SSTP.
OpenVPN (Global) – This contains global OpenVPN parameters. We recommend that you do not change Max MSS, Timeout, Compression, or Log Verbosity settings unless asked to by StrongVPN technical support personnel.
Allow direct traffic while reconnecting –
If this is checked, it will allow normal Internet traffic if the VPN connection drops. This can be convenient but remember this will expose your true IP address to the Internet.
Disabling it will kill normal Internet traffic if the OpenVPN connection drops. This is StrongVPN’s implementation of an Internet kill switch for the OpenVPN protocol.
OpenVPN (Account-specific) – This contains OpenVPN preferences for your specific account number. We recommend that you do not change your account number, Fragment, Mssfix, or MTU unless directed to by StrongVPN technical support personnel. These later parameters have to do with packet fragmentation which can slow the VPN connection.
Scramble – The scramble option adds an additional layer of complexity to the VPN connection between the OpenVPN client and OpenVPN server, making it more likely for the VPN to pass through the network unimpeded. This can help stop deep packet inspection techniques used for censorship.
Disabled – Do not scramble.
Password – A string (word) will be used to perform a simple XOR operation on the packet payload.
Xorptrpos – This performs an XOR operation, using the current position in the packet payload.
Reverse – This reverses all the packet data.
Obfuscate – This uses a blend of all three methods above and is the most secure.
Protocol – This allows you to choose between either TCP or UDP as your default IP transport protocol which we discussed above in protocol preferences.
Encryption – This will let you choose the algorithm and strength of the encryption used for your VPN connections.
Disabled – No encryption which could be good for streaming media where speed and not security is your main concern.
BF CBC – This uses Blowfish Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) as an alternate to AES. This is a secure algorithm and was one of the runner-ups in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) competition.
AES-128 CBC – Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is the NIST chosen encryption protocol and the one used by the United States government for secret documents. This one uses a AES-128 CBC with a 128 bit key and will provide the best performance for most uses.
AES-192 CBC – This one uses a AES-192 CBC with a 192 bit key to provide greater security.
AES-256 CBC – This one uses a AES-256 CBC with a 256 bit key to provide the greatest security but at the expense of speed.
PPTP/L2TP/SSTP (Global) – This contains global settings for this protocol preference.
Allow direct traffic while reconnecting –
If this is checked, it will allow normal Internet traffic if the VPN connection drops. This can be convenient but remember this will expose your true IP address to the Internet.
Disabling it will kill normal Internet traffic if the OpenVPN connection drops. This is StrongVPN’s implementation of a VPN kill switch for these connection protocols.
HMAC authentication (TSL-auth) – Enabling this will keep you protected from active attacks like the so-called Man-in-the-Middle (MitM) attacks because it ensures that you are actually talking to a StrongVPN server and not an imposter. We recommend that you keep this enabled.
Diagnostics
“Reinstall Tap Driver” button – This will let you fix corrupted Tap drivers which occasionally occurs when using VPNs.
“Force Update Check” button – This allows you to check for updates immediately.
The final components of the Options tab are the buttons to apply, cancel or save your new preferences
Here are some endpoint encryption settings along with some comments about them.
Maximum Protection – AES-256/HMAC enabled: This is for those who want the maximum security for their data and can accept the extra speed loss.
Default Recommended Protection – AES-128/HMAC enabled: This provides the best balance of speed and protection and thus the desired setting for most users.
Risky – AES-128/HMAC disabled: This configuration is suceptible to active MitM attacks.
All Speed No Safety – None/HMAC disabled: This is suceptible to both active and passive attacks from outside third parties (hackers). You might as well not have a VPN as only your IP is hidden. This should only be used to bypass geo-restrictions.
The StrongVPN Windows client has a built in kill switch for those who want to guard against their true IP appearing on the Internet if the VPN connection drops. This is a nice feature and not included in software from most providers. It is easy to install for those who have less technical knowledge. StrongVPN connection defaults will allow you to use their VPN network of servers with just a couple of mouse clicks. Those who want greater control over their VPN connections will also be happy because they have manual options for general client startup, connection protocols, and encryption algorithms and strength. For those who want even greater control, you can even modify VPN packets to guard against packet fragmentation which can slow down your connection. All that is necessary to connect to one of their VPN servers is to select its location from the dropdown list and click on the connect button.
Connecting with the Mac OS X VPN Client
As we said before, you can download the StrongVPN software from the setup page of their website by selecting “Setup” from the site main menu as we have shown at the beginning of the hands on section. Once you get on this page, click on the “StrongVPN for Macintosh” button (shown inset left). This will bring up a dialog window that will let you save the Mac client installation file to your computer. The client is compatible with Yosemite or El Capitan. This page also includes a link to a legacy client for Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks users. The client setup page also has manual setup guides to configure various Mac OS X versions to use their service with L2T and PPTP.
Once the client is downloaded to your computer, click on the StrongVPN application icon to open it. If you receive a warning, click on the “Open” button to show that you trust this app. Depending on where you downloaded the app, you may be prompted to move it to the applications folder. If you are so prompted, click on the “Move too applications folder” button.
You will now be presented with a login and verification page . Enter in your email address and password that you used when you created your account. These should also be found in your welcoming email from StrongVPN. Once you have correctly entered these, then click on the “Login” button. At this point, depending on your computer settings, you may have to enter your Mac credentials to allow the app to install its helper tools. If this is the case, then enter your credentials and click on the “Install helper” button. You will now see the StrongVPN client Window like the one shown in the images below.
The first screenshot below shows the client in its disconnected state. The screen consists of the following components:
Blue”Connect” button – Click on this to connect to your chosen VPN location.
Location selection icon – Clicking on this will bring up the server switching window. (pin over globe icon)
Location – The currently selected location to connect to (Atlanta, United States)
Status of connection – Disconnected
Current IP – Your current IP address (Redacted)
Time elapsed – The time since the session started (Not Connected)
Account # – Legacy
VPN server and protocol – The currently selected VPN server name (redacted) and the protocol used to connect to it (OpenVPN UDP)
Diagnostics – Connection log file
The second screenshot above shows the client when it is connecting. Notice the blue “Connect” button has been replaced by a red “Cancel” button, the location selection icon is gone, and the status and time elapsed now both say “Connecting”. The last screen above shows the client once it is connected to the StrongVPN network. The red “Cancel” button has been replaced by a red “Disconnect” button, the status now says, “Connected”, the Current IP has been changed to the one assigned by the VPN server, and the session time is now shown. Also, the icon in the launch menu will turn green.
Pressing the “Disconnect” button will return you to the first screen where you can select another server to switch to. Clicking on the server switch icon (pin over globe beside the “Connect” button) in the first image below will bring up a screen like that shown in the second image. This is the StrongVPN Server Switcher screen.
This is where you can switch from your current server and to a new one. It can be ordered alphabetically by country or city and numerically by ping time (ms) or download speed (KB/s). Generally if you choose a low ping server with good download speed, you will have the performance you want. But you want to change from the Atlanta server to another one. Looking at the list and comparing ping and download speeds, the Miami server seems to be your best choice. Highlight the Miami server line and click on the “Switch” button. This will change your current server to the Miami one and return you to the main StrongVPN client screen where you can complete the connection.
Clicking on the “VPN Server and Protocol ” line in the first image above will open the preferences screen with the advanced tab selected. This tab has the sever protocols which you can select from for your VPN connections. The server protocols that you can choose from are as follows:
PPTP – This protocol may be slightly faster than some of the other protocols but not as secure. If speed is your primary goal then this would be a good choice for you. Streaming media is a good example use for this protocol.
L2TP – This is a more secure protocol that PPTP. It might be a bit slower than some of the other protocols because of the double encapsulation that it uses.
SSTP – This is a Microsoft designed protocol which was originally for Windows only but now has been ported to other operating systems. It provides excellent security and is useful for scaling firewalls used by some countries like China and Iran to censor their Internet traffic.
IPsec – This provides a good balance between speed and security and may be faster than VPN.
OpenVPN – This is the default protocol for the StrongVPN client and provides the best security. It is also good for bypassing firewall rules.
TCP – This is the Transfer Control Protocol and is good for high latency connections and those which cannot tolerate packet loss. It provides error checking for packet order and loss and resends packets to correct. This is usually slower because of the extra overhead involved in this process. Would not be ideal for streaming.
UDP – This is the User Datagram Protocol which is used with low latency connection and loss tolerating ones. This is the default OpenVPN protocol for the client and best for most users. Does not have to check for packet order or loss. OpenVPN (UDP) is the default client protocol.
There are three other preferences tabs which include general, accounts, and OpenVPN. The accounts tab is for legacy StrongVPN accounts. The first tab, the general tab which is shown in the image above top-right contains a few setting that control the general behavior of the client. The settings are a as follows:
Show Notifications – This will show connection, disconnection, and other messages in the launch menu near the icon.
Log to Console – This will log diagnostics to the console so that they can be used to solve connection problems.
Automatically Update – This will ensure that you will always have the most up-to-date version of the StrongVPN Mac OS X client.
The last thing on the general tab is a button to for a check for an immediate update instead of waiting till you restart the client.
The last tab on the preferences menu is the OpenVPN tab. This tab contains the ports that the OpenVPN client uses. The default ports used by OpenVPN is the Mac client are as follows:
Port 443 – This is the default port for HTTPS, secure Internet an as such is almost never blocked as this will disrupt commerce.
Port 500 – This is the port used by the Internet key exchange (IKE) that occurs during the establishment of secure VPN tunnels.
Port 550 – This is the port designated as being used by the new rwho Unix daemon.
Port 1289 – This is the JWalkServer port.
Port 2207 – This is the port used by HP status and services.
Port 3155 – This is the Jpeg/Mpeg and port used by some games.
You can add other ports to this list if necessary. Also you can remove ports if you need them available for other uses.
As you can see the StrongVPN Mac OS X client is simple to install. It makes it easy for Mac users to quickly connect and disconnect from the StrongVPN network. All that is necessary to connect to a VPN server is to select the location and click on the “Connect” Button. The client defaults to OpenVPN (UDP) which is the best protocol for both speed and security for most users. This means little technical knowledge is necessary to use their service.
Connecting with the Android App
As we said before, you can download the StrongVPN software from the setup page of their website by selecting “Setup” from the site main menu as we have shown at the beginning of the hands on section. Once you get on this page, click on the “StrongVPN for Android” button (shown inset left). This will take you to the Google Play store where you can download the app and install it. The client setup page also has manual setup guides to configure various Android versions to use their service with L2TP, PPTP, and OpenVPN.
The procedure for installing the app on your Android device is illustrated above. Once you are at the Google Play store, tap on the “Install” button to begin the process. Accept the access message which appears by tapping the “Accept” button and wait. The client is compatible with Android 6 and below. Once the client is downloaded to your device, the normal procedure to open it will be to tap on the StrongVPN application icon. However, the first time you open it, just tap on the “Open” button like that shown in the first screen of the image below. This will then bring up the client authentication screen which is shown in the middle image.
On the authentication screen, enter in your email address and password that you used when you created your account. These can also be found in your welcoming email that you received from StrongVPN when you subscribed. Tap the “Save Credentials” toggle so that the app will store your information, else you will have to type it in every time you connect to the StrongVPN network. Once you have correctly completed the aforementioned steps, then tap on the “Login” button. You will now see the StrongVPN client window like the one shown in the images below.
The first screen shows the client in its disconnected state. The main client screen has the following components in this state:
StrongVPN Logo – Comapany branding.
Server Name and Number – These have been redacted from this review.
Optional settings icon – This is the horizontal lines in a circle icon to the right of the server name. Tapping this will display the main settings screen which will then show screens for the individual settings. We will examine these later in this section.
The connection switch – This is currently dark indicating that it is off.
Location – The currently chosen connection location (Atlanta, United States), followed by a red warning light.
Connection status – This says “Disconnected” in red to warn you that your Internet is not secure.
Social Media Links – Tapping these icons will connect to the Facebook and Twitter page for StrongVPN respectively.
The Get Support Link – Tapping this will load the StrongVPN support page from their website. This page has their support and billing FAQs, links to their VPN setup guides, and you can also fill out and send a support ticket from here.
Titles – Titles of StrongVPN’s latest blogs.
Tapping on the switch will start the connection process to the Atlanta server. This is shown in the middle image below where the switch now has a yellow warning tint and the status is shown as “Connecting” in yellow. During this time, you will see messages at the top of your Android device saying authenticating, configuring the VPN server, a dark StrongVPN logo, and others. Also note, the optional settings icon does not appear on this screen.
The last screen in the image above shows the client when it is connected to the Atlanta VPN server. The optional settings icon is back. The light next to the location is now green, the switch has a green tint, and the status now says “Protected” in green. Also the StrongVPN logo in the messaging menu is shaded blue with the word “Connected” by it. Connected is then replaced by a key indicating that we are secure. By color coding the screen components, StrongVPN has made it easy to see the status of your connection with just a glance.
Everytime you connect to the StrongVPN network after you login, you will see a warning message like that shown in the second image below. This is what happened before you received the connection screen in the image above. This is normal. Android is just letting you know that you are connecting to a VPN service and making sure that you trust the source. To continue, you must trust StrongVPN and tap “OK” as we have done in the last image below.
This will then allow you to complete your connection to the Atlanta server as is shown in the first screen of the image below. Tapping on either the location near the top center of this connection screen or the settings icon (horizontal lines with dots within a circle) will bring up the connection settings which is shown in the second screen below. Tapping on location on this screen will bring up a list of locations that you can connect to using OpenVPN.
Scrolling down the list and tapping on New York, United States will start the process to switch between the Atlanta and New York servers. This is illustrated in the images below. As you can see the app updates the location in the connection settings as is shown in the last two screens below.
Once the location has been updated, then press the back button on your device which will return you to the main connection screen shown in the first image below. Notice that the app is automatically trying to connect to the new server since it was connected to the Atlanta one before you started your switch to New York. The last image below shows that you have successfully switched between the two servers. Changing servers in this way shortens the time you are not on the VPN while switching servers. Alternately, you could disconnect from your current server, select a different city, and then connect to the new location.
We have looked at how to connect and switch servers using the StrongVPN Android app. Now let us see how to disconnect. Disconnecting is easy, simply tap the connection switch. You will then be prompted with a cancel confirmation message like the one shown in the first screen in the image below. Tap “OK” and you will be disconnected from your current VPN server.
It you have trouble disconnecting, want to cancel a connection before it finishes, or need another way to disconnect, you can tap and drag down on the StrongVPN shield icon in the running apps messaging area at the top of your device screen. Once this screen is opened as shown in the second image below, tap on the “VPN is activated by StrongVPN” area which will bring up the session information screen shown below on the right. Tap disconnect on this screen to complete the process.
The last thing we want to examine in the Android app is the settings that you can change. You have already learned how to use the location menu to change VPN servers. The first screen in the image below shows the settings menu so you can see some of the other connection options that you can control. These include the following:
Account – This shows your account IDs and is mainly for legacy accounts.
Location – As you have already learned, this will let you switch servers.
Protocol – OpenVPN is the only VPN protocol supported by the Android app but you can change how it is implemented as is shown in the second image below.
UDP – This is the OpenVPN User Datagram Protocol and does not include the overhead of TCP and thus is faster and is the StrongVPN Android app default.
TCP – This is the Transfer Control Protocol and is good for high latency connections and those which cannot tolerate packet loss. It provides error checking for packet order and lo