Ok for starters they offer a 7 day free trial so try it for yourself. And their tech support
is quite good and helpful. However thats where the goodness ends for me.

After playing with it for 1 day the following is what was my results.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10318089

UK(HK) Server closed connect without sending any data.
UK 4 ERROR CONTENT DOES NOT SEEM TO BE WORKING
UK 3 WONT EVEN BRING UP WEB PAGE
UK 1 WONT EVEN BRING UP WEB PAGE


youtube.com:

LA1: wont even bring up website
LA2: same
WEST COAST: same

All 3 connections sit spinning and time out.

bbc.co.uk/news (steaming news)

LA1: bbc error message :This content does not seem to be working"
LA2: bbc error message :This content does not seem to be working"
West Coast: bbc error message :This content does not seem to be working"
Seattle/UK: inbound speed 2K also get bbc error message :This content does not seem to be working"

Almost all the EU servers were slow/unresponsive and completely useless for surfing and with some resets and timeouts from the astral server.

LA1 was the only server that worked reasonable well, but still could not view streaming TV from UK and youtube was stuttering and inconsistent and frustrating to use.

VERDICT: Try if you like since its free. But for me its a huge FAIL. They are kind people, and i would say its worth a try to see if they work for you. But Its a HUGE UTTER FAIL FOR ME.

Oh well back to the QUEST for a witopia replacement. (ps. witopia sent me email after 19 days, templete email no help)

UPDATE: after speaking 14+ times with their tech support over 8 hours, and getting a few template responses such as clear out cache, reboot, reinstall, generic defaults, its a hit and miss for this vpn provider for me. (MAC OSX 10.6.7) ipad/iphone via l2tp connected and worked sometimes. My winblows box was pretty much complaining about the connection resets etc etc. That was my sunday gone. I need a beer.

Feedback Welcome (flames > /dev/null>)

..have you tried the US servers? you don't have to use the UK servers to visit UK sites...

so far so good with Astrill...

I just converted from skydur to astrill.. and i like how i can choose which browser i need the VPN network with.

^ Keep talking what kind of vpn is populair right now.

works well for me on a couple of machines ( windows). I assume your DNS settings are other than what china telecom has given you.

mine works a treat...had it for 2 months..use US ,australian and korean servers....getting it on my router soon...will post on how that goes.

ok good to see that some people are having good luck with it. it was a pita for me. and yes i was using customized dns settings.

ftg888 wrote:ok good to see that some people are having good luck with it. it was a pita for me. and yes i was using customized dns settings.

Hello,

If you have a problems to use any Astrill server, then the problem must be on your computer. Also if you are on Macintosh, due to some Apple updates, Flash player dosn't work correctly and this can be fixed easily by visiting Adobe web site. You can also try to switch to OpenVPN mode. All our servers are interconnected into a cloud thus most popular UK content is available through our USA servers as well. For China users, we recommend servers on the USA west coast (Los Angeles, Fremont, Seattle, Portland).

You can contact Astrill support and someone from Level 2 support will look into your problem over remote desktop.

Alex,
Astrill Public Relations

Wow answer from Astrill!

This VPN sometimes works very good, means 220 Ko/sec and everything is fast as back home. And sometimes it's just super slow and gets me mad.

The best choice is LA 1, the first server, Holland 1 and France 2 seem to work quite well. All the others are completely useless.

Surfing is totally fine but streaming can be a pain in the ass, especially when surfing some pr0n sites and the video stops on the face of the guy when in action.

Conclusion: I will try to find a better one when the membership is over.

I sometimes get very very slow connection through the Australian servers. Any way to resolve this?

Forget them. Just change to american ones, french and Holland ones are quite OK as well. Don't ask me why.

Forget them?

I do use the Australian ones for a reason, and it is THE reason that i signed up to Astrill. No others seem to have Australian servers (I suspect because Australian internet is expensive).

sometimes they are perfectly fine, other times, useless.

OK but there is something I don't understand.

Are we supposed to choose australian servers to go on australian websites? french servers to go on french websites and so on?

If so, I used Astrill like this in the beginning but it doesn't work that way at all.

Just my 2 cents

NO.

Some sites in Australia require an Australian IP address to access them. Sports streaming usually, as said sites are only authorised to stream within certain countries.

D.ORiGiNAL wrote:Wow answer from Astrill!


The best choice is LA 1, the first server, Holland 1 and France 2 seem to work quite well. All the others are completely useless.

Yea, and I wonder why . It feels bad that I'm given lots of empty choices.

I wish they'd fix the Aussie ones. That's the reason i signed up.

Yes, some websites require VPN from the same country, specially sports streaming as mat said. Some of the servers in Astrill are really slow or don't work at all, but overall it is the best VPN I've used so far (and I've been using it in iPhone, Mac and PC for over a year)

I am not familiar with this service but there are factors on your computer, their network and your network that can play into things.

One thing is that PPTP often does not work well from China and in some areas seems to be blocked. Further, it depends on your router or your location, some routers are not configured to passthrough all the PPTP/GRE packets and that's where issues occur. Failing that, you also need to make sure you don't have an active firewall on your PC which may block packets.

If all servers display the same symptoms it could be a network problem on their end if you are certain your ISP/connection/computer are not the culprit (usually only IT people would be able to determine this and only ones familiar with PPTP issues). Some of these providers have too many users and cannot accomodate the bandwidth demands of their users in some cases and this can also be a reason for speed and reliability issues.

why dont you go to the help site...I had all sorts of probs at first....then I got them to configure it on remote desktop?I also am from Oz ,and use their server...but so far ,no probs...other than the ones that are china based...ie for some reason EVERY NIGHT on EVERY SERVER at 10ish pm..i get throttled right down..this continues until around 1 am.I find that for non-aussie sites Chicago 2 ,portland ,LA1 and seattle 2 are best.I watch a lot of stuff from the U.S(glee ,conan ,supernatural) and I watch the cricket on willow.I will however say that I have so far had no success with the config of my new expensive router.I went to the trouble of sourcing the 1 they recommended in the site and sunny computers are still working on it 3 weeks later!Will update you all on it -if and when it happens.

I just paid for Astrill (my first paid VPN in 4 years of living in Shanghai, now that Puff has gone to being completely unusable) and I have to say I'm extremely happy with it. Facebook, Youtube, ability to watch IP limited Canadian programming on the net, and it has allowed me to start watching my Slingbox again (simply could not connect for the last month)! Definitely worth the money, and a great value too! I'd highly recommend it.

If you just paid for ASTRILL and your getting throughput so slow its CRAP.. HAHAHAHAHA.. I did warn everyone a month ago it was crap. their service is generally quite good. tech support is there. however i spend 7 days changing servers and all offered almost no better throughput. please don't my computer is borked as it works just find with ANOTHER vpn provider I do get 3.0mb incoming on them. WITOPIA/ASTRILL/STRONGVPN/ all feed you some kind of crap. its why i only sub for 1 month at a time now.

ONLY subscribe to a vpn provider 1 month at a time. otherwise 6 weeks in when GFW blocks you, tough cookies...

hmmmm.. your Enslish is crap, you have no idea how to use a Capital letter. Chinese baiter?

well ok whatever dude....

I use strong vpn and I've given the passkey to at least 30 people. No issues of getting logged off when someone else signs on. Best 80 bucks ever spent. Fast too.

Over the years I have tried Witopia, Strong VPN, 12 VPN and Astrill.

Currently I have 12 VPN and Astrill. Sometimes (in the past) they have worked well and most of the time they are slow, which means they are good enough to view blocked sites though not quick enough for streaming.

It seems there are too many variables that will affect your VPN needs and performance ranging from OS, hardware-cable-router combo, DNS config, time of day and contention ratio in your compound.

Recently, I have had best performance using a 12VPN openvpn server, but that could easily change in the blink of an eye especially as the Firewall appears to have been "upgraded" to target VPNs.

Ok So i managed to get a full refund from ASTRILL. they are at least honest and respond to tech support requests in a round about manor. so ill give them 5/10 for effort. unfortunately speeds are quite dire still and their UK connections are so slow as to be unusable. Im sure it could be a localized reason. but i know from 20+ others is a china GFW issue. Still I'm not happy with the service so i cancelled and shall keep searching.

Strangely enough witopia live tech support is back. not sure how useful it is...

Hello,

We are aware that some users have slow speed, however this is not a problem on our side. If it is on our side, we would have fixed it. We have more than 65 servers all around the world. If all servers appear slow for you, this is why:

1. your ISP (China Telecom, Unicom) is struggling to pay Internet bills for international bandwidth, thus they will throttle your speed to international destinations (typically to 20-50 KB/sec). We do not have a solution for this problem. Please complain to your ISP and blame them, not us. However, we will add a few new servers in Hong Kong this week which can help.

2. GFW gets overloaded especially during evening, when 400 millions of Chinese are online. There is a few options:
(a) Switch to OpenWeb VPN mode as it's usually faster than OpenVPN or PPTP.
(b) Try to switch to another server. Good locations are Los Angeles, West Coast, Seattle, Portland. Some users have good results with Scranton, Chicago and Atlanta although they are so far away. If you want to watch UK TV and if it is so slow, try to use USA LA 1,2,3, Seattle, West Coast servers - they can stream UK TV as well.
(c) Reboot your ADSL modem so your ISP will assign you a new IP address. Although this sounds stupid, it can sometimes fix the speed when slowdown is caused by GFW overload.

Still, Astrill is one of the fastest VPNs in Asia and fastest VPN in Europe, Canada, USA and South America. We have tons of servers and so much unused bandwidth. Our average usage is below 30%. We use powerful servers (typically 4-16 cores with 8-16 GB of RAM) and on gigabit links with Tier-1 ISPs (Hurricane Electric, Cogent, Global Crossing, nLayer, SoftLayer, Peer1, Level3, Tiscali, Telia, Tata, PCCW, Deutsche Telecom, China Telecom,...)

We offer OpenWeb, OpenVPN, PPTP VPNs on more than 65 servers in 33 countries around the world. We are also working to deploy L2TP/IPSec and Cisco IPSec to all our servers. This should be finished within 7 days. L2TP/IPSec is already available on a few servers.

This week we are adding a few new servers:
(1) USA - New York
(2) Hong Kong - 3 servers
(3) Australia - Brisbane

We still have an open competition - find a VPN provider which is faster than Astrill in Asia, we will get servers from the same ISP, and reward you with 1-year of free Astrill service.

If you want to try out Astrill for free, don't hesitate to contact our support for a free 7-days trial.

Alex,
Astrill Public Relations

Alex, I just wanted to let you know that IN CHINA the GFW does DNS poisoing for ANY un-encrypted standard DNS on the standard RFC port 53/udp. You guys in your VPN software if not already needs to push ALL THE TRAFFIC from the machine INCLUDING DNS (very important) THROUGH THE VPN so the user gets accurate un-filtered DNS replies.

The packet shaping on the international border routers by CT/CU what-have-you makes sense.

anyone with OSX - does it work ? fast/slow? any probs? I dont care about servers location

minyanville wrote:anyone with OSX - does it work ? fast/slow? any probs? I dont care about servers location

yes and yes. mostly fast. no probs.

Anyone having problems with Astrill on iPhone? It works ok on Mac and PC tho