While you are on the Internet, there are many things happening that you don’t know. There are people and companies tracking you to know your interests. There are agencies collecting data about you and your computers. There may be hackers trying to access the data you are sending or receiving over the Internet.
SpotFlux review
Earlier, we talked about how TOR stops hackers from following you. This article is a review of SpotFlux, a free VPN software that creates an encrypted connection to SpotFlux cloud and allows you to transfer your data safely using the connection. Not only it saves your data from being accessed by hackers, but it also keeps ad networks at bay too. This means fewer annoying ads and hence less bandwidth consumption. SpotFlux also prevents Internet agencies from tracking you on the Internet.
All this is achieved by creating an encrypted connection where your IP address and DNS is changed so that people do not know who you are and where you are located. The encrypted connection also provides for security of data and protection from targeted adverts. Another advantage of using SpotFlux is that it keeps on scanning the incoming traffic for malware and destroys them if found.
In the next few paragraphs, I will be talking about my experience with SpotFlux. Before that, I sum up the benefits of using SpotFlux in four points:
- Encrypted, Secure Connection To Internet via SpotFlux Cloud
- Scan and Remove Malware in Incoming Connections
- Random IP and DNS addresses prevent you from being tracked
- Prevention of targeted advertising makes your browsing experience better.
After downloading and installing SpotFlux, it added a new component to my computer. It was a virtual Network Adapter and was listed under Network Adaptors in Device Manager (Windows Key + Prnt Scr).
You can also see a new network connection in your list of networks. To view the connection details in Windows 7, click on the network icon in the System Tray and select Open Networking and Sharing Center. In the window that appears, click Manage Network Adaptors.
However, to my surprise, Windows did not detect any active Internet connection on this new network (See image below). I opened up the properties of this new network and everything was set to Automatic Configuration under both IPv4 and IPv6.
When I turned off SpotFlux, the new connection showed “Network Cable Unplugged”. This confirmed that the new connection will be operational only when SpotFlux is turned on, and an encrypted connection is created between your computer and SpotFlux servers.
Upon proper installation of SpotFlux, you will be asked if you wish to run the program. Confirm that and you will see a dialog that takes around a minute to establish a secure connection between your computer and the SpotFlux servers. You can see the SpotFlux icon in Windows System Tray. The only options you get upon clicking the icon are: Disconnect, Open Main Window and Quit.
- Disconnect will disable the secure connection but will not quit SpotFlux.
- Open Main Window will open the window where you can enable or disable the secure connection and change the settings (run at startup, warn before closing and stuff like that).
- Quit will first disable the secure connection and then quit SpotFlux.
Get A New Identity
Upon installing SpotFlux, I was skeptical about if it is really working. I checked out Internet Explorer and Google Chrome for add-ons and extensions. There were none. Then it occurred to me that I should check out the IP address and DNS. I used whatismyipaddress.com to check my IP address. Following are images of my location before and after enabling SpotFlux. You can see my location set to be US when SpotFlux was enabled and reverted back to Hyderabad upon turning off SpotFlux.
NOTE: You can use IPCONFIG /ALL command in the Command Window to view the DNS. To open the Command Window, press Windows Key + R. In the Run dialog box that appears, type CMD and press Enter. You will get the Command window where you can type IPCONFIG /ALL to view your current DNS.
This means that you can bypass any restrictions in place by your ISP. Also, your ISP and other agencies cannot track you on the Internet as you belong to a different country altogether. Now the only thing that needs to be seen is ad-blocking.
For the websites I visited earlier, I had to close popup windows manually. With SpotFlux enabled, the same websites failed to produce any popup window or popup banner – especially Flash-based. The common kinds of popups are blocked by the latest browsers themselves. To confirm if it is the SpotFlux that is blocking popups, visit one of those websites that run Flash ads. Most of the blogs on blogspot.com run such popups. Also, the B-grade websites offering free music and movies (not torrents) present you with such popup ads.
There are some websites such as popupcheck.com and popuptest.com that run popup blocker tests but in my case, I found my browsers (without SpotFlux) to be capable of blocking them. You may want to try them out as well.
SpotFlux – Drawbacks
Since your DNS is changed, your Google, Facebook, and certain other services will say they don’t recognize the computer you are using and may ask you to perform additional steps for login. Some sites, such as Facebook, give you the option to save the ‘new device’ while others will keep on asking you to perform additional info every time you log in.
The other drawback is session timeouts. Browsing with SpotFlux enabled may cause delays due to which, timeouts may happen. However, this is a rare condition and given the type of security you enjoy with SpotFlux, it is bearable.
If you have been using SpotFlux or plan to do so, please let us know your thoughts on the free VPN – that is the perfect word to describe SpotFlux.
CyberGhost Secure VPN is another anonymity tool for Windows that completely hides and protects your identity online.
Also read:
- NeoRouter – A Zero Configuration Remote Access & VPN Solution
- Set up & Configure VPN connection in Windows: Screenshot Tutorial
- SecurityKISS VPN Review
- TunnelBear VPN review
- Betternet Review.
Sounds like Cotse.net
anonymity
I missed mentioning one more drawback. Using SpotFlux, I was receiving too many firewall alerts while starting and closing secure connections.
SpotFLux Slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Page downloads
The main problem I see with Spotflux is that it has to be installed, and nowhere on the site is it mentioned that usage information is not present on your system. These things would not be a problem for most, but for those living in countries with very repressive governments (NO governments are repression free to all) would not want anything on their system that would in any way indicate that they are engaged in circumventing internet restrictions.
That’s where Ultrasurf comes in. It is better than TOR. For total obscurity, use Ultrasurf (www.ultrasurf.us). Norton Antivirus, and perhaps others, will tell you it is a malware site, but it is not. Ultrasurf MUST be used with Internet Explorer as the browser to work properly. When running Ultrasurf, all surfing goes through the Ultrasurf servers in the U.S., and so, that will be the I.P address all sites see. You will appear to all sites to be surfing from the U.S. All data streams – both ways – between your system and the Ultrasurf servers are encrypted. This provides total anonymity as to your location, sites and data being accessed. If you are in a restrictive country, you can surf anonymously and securely. The government will be unable to find out what you are doing on line. Ultrasurf is a portable app, so it does not install, and may be kept on a pen drive, so it isn’t on your system. It leaves no traces of having been used on your system, save what may be in your paging file. I would recommend turning off the paging file if your security situation is critical. I.e., your system may be confiscated for forensic investigation. Use portable Truecrypt to encrypt anything on your system you want to be absolutely inaccessible by others. The U.S. government, and almost certainly anyone else, can not crack Truecrypt.
If you don’t want to go to the Ultrasurf and Truecrypt sites, download Ultrasurf from here: http://d.pr/f/nSuR Download Truecrypt here: http://d.pr/f/iIwF The URLs are from my personal Droplr.com account.
If you want to know how to call any phone in the U.S. or Canada free, as often as you like, download this: http://d.pr/f/QPcz Also from my Droplr account.
I have Spotflux on but on some websites I get the following message:
ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved
While trying to retrieve the URL the following error was encountered:
Access Denied.
Access control configuration prevents your request from being allowed at this time. Please contact your service provider if you feel this is incorrect.
True that. I will check out Ultrasurf as well. Thanks for suggesting it as an alternative. Also, thank you for the alternative URLs.
One reason for such behavior could be adware sites but I am not sure. If you can give me URLs of some such sites, I will try to find out the reason why you get such messages.
Yes. Due to the encryption and a hectic bandwidth tunnel. Figuring out a way to deal with that. Will post here as soon as I find one. :)
Tom, have you read their privacy policy? http://launch.spotflux.com/privacy.htm They collect very little information , nothing that can identify you (so far they don’t ask for email or registration) and don’t do anything nefarious with it. If your not using the service for illegal purposes, you have nothing to worry about. I read this policy, searched their support forum for additional info such as on logging, contacted them by email with questions and am so far satisfied they are on the up and up. Time will tell but they seem very open about who they are, who their investors are and their business practices, more so than most Free VPN’s. Nowhere does it say they they were only high school grads, your statement is misleading. They do say they may charge for extra services in the future but the free service they provide so far as is is way better than most. It was enough to prompt me to test the service and so far, I am happy with it.
Spotflux
I started using it a week ago and love it. It lets my internet roaming happen almost as fast as before, unlike other services such as hidemyip which drags the speed to a crawl.
Nonetheless, I will have to ditch Spotflux, because yahoo does not work with it. I cannot compose emails or reply to emails on yahoo if Spotflux is on. What a bummer.
I love th eprogram but will have to look elsewhere
use https instead on http and yahoo mail should work
can it be use with LAN? I found spotflux network unpluged
Asked @Spotflux on Twitter about the same. It works for LAN in case of client-server model, where you connect to Internet via a computer. But if you are on a peer-to-peer model, I too need to know a method whereby the router can be programmed to hide IP and encrypt data. Am looking for alternative programs that allow this. Will post if I find it.
I don’t know what fucking planet your on pal but it’s not slow? All I can say is that you have a slow connection, nothing to do with spotflux. I’ve streamed movies without any problems at all. Whoever your ISP is, change it if your not getting what you want or clear out the junk files you most likely have in your registry.
Something wrong with your firewall settings. It sounds like your firewall is set up to it’s highest security. You don’t need too higher settings on a firewall as the security suite (ie: likes of AVG Internet Security or Norton 360 etc) handles anything that might be of a viral / Trojan / hacking nature. Check what your firewall settings are, if at it’s highest, knock it down a stage, it should run fine then.
what a fucking knobhead you are? What the fuck is Cotse.net , no such fucking website. You been smoking weed again visiomvet? Wankers like you need their fucking pricks hacked off and shoved up their arses! After saying that, you probably like your own knob shoved up your arse
I really appreciate this post. I’ve been looking all over for this! Thank God I found it on Bing. You have made my day! Thanks http://www.filekb.com/windows/download-spotflux/
Wont work with LAN. Has to installed on each computer. The Spotflux team did not respond. I figured it out on own. Another option is to route all Internet traffic through one computer (like a server would do) but it means much slower browsing.
Thanks Arun
I just downloaded the latest installer April, 26 2013. I’m really impressed which is why I had to write this. Either they have been working real hard or it just works perfectly cause I just did a huge clean/chkdsk/defrag. Last installation it would take 2 minutes to hook up to the server and it would disconnect before locking in. Now it hooks up in about 30 seconds without disconnecting.
My internet plan is 8Mbps down / 1Mbps up. But they actually give me 10Mbps up. I tested @ Speedtest.net.[ Ping> 74ms, 9.40Mbps download 1.46Mbps upload ]. This is a VPN on steroids. Unlimited downloads and no advertising. Set up is a breeze and the program screen is simple to use. It also has a scanner and will block some bad sites.
Something must be wrong. This is too good to be true.
If you check at “GRC Shields-Up” it says “No reverse DNS”.
Thank you SpotFlux guys.
And I also want to say good nite, goodbye and adios to the other “you know who” guys who put so much advertising in my computer that it even installed a advertising header in my AutoCad program, (I speak the truth, had to reinstall AutoCad 3hr. job.
I’ve tried many VPN’s. This is the best. And to those people who say it doesn’t work well get the latest version, and it helps to have a smoothly working computer.
Thank you for the update, Bob. I will also download the latest version.
Whenever spotflux is enabled, my i7 runs slower than pentium 2. I would click on a file, start off with not responding, then file menu comes after a minute, not to mention the performance of any Web browser. Interferes with kaspersky, av remains disabled. Simply uninstall spotflux, pc back to normal. Thank God.
Well, if you want a faster VPN, go for paid ones. I will recommend Steganos.
I’ve been using spotflux for a good while now with very few problems once I got used to the way it works on my PC.
Regrettably,
when I updated it at the end of May, it all went to pot and it screwed
with my internet connection and was unable to get on-line. I just
couldn’t find the cause and in the end I uninstalled it and installed an
older version that I had on file. Everything is back as it was and I am
a happy camper again.
I use it every day and have got used to the slowness on some of my sites, but in general the speeds I get are OK.
Just a question that hasn’t been posed yet! How does this type of VPN handle tracking information being collected “right at this very moment by facebook, twitter and the like”. No offense but these are the culprits to stay away from if you want any kind of privacy. Just look into all the security references all over the web exposing the treasure trove of info collected and sold by these outfits. No offense but it behoved me just to coment on a site with such blatant security holes on there web page discussing any thing like about secure connections. I had a good chucle when I finished writing this:)
Ahem… I live in Seoul, the fastest internet on the planet and spotflux used to run extremely fast. NOW, it is super slow and takes forever to load a single web page.
I’ve tried out VPNs before and the main problem I found was some sites in the U.S. will not work if you are showing up as being in a different country. Also, there is a problem with email. Spotflux looks rather promising, so I will try it.
Yes. Some websites are country specific and they redirect you to other websites based on your new IP address. In that case, I would suggest using TOR after disabling any VPN. It is not a VPN but still, a better privacy tool that allows you to select country from settings. But use if only if extremely important as its speed may be too slow sometimes.
but website of spotflux not use “https”
okeyfreedom vpn website use https…….
still..spotflux is good…….??????
what do u think of https://www.vpnoneclick.com/
it is also fast……pls compare this with Spotflux….
pls reply soon….????
Mr Kumar,
Thank you for mentioning these two VPN. I am looking for free/cheap VPN services that can offer good services. I will sure review both OkeyFreedom VPN and VPNoneClick in near future.
Regards
As far as I know, the ISP will see some random data that won’t make any sense. But to be sure, I will ask the SpotFlux people and reply back. Please give me some time. Thank you for posing the question. :)
Thank you for your quick reply :) I’ll be waiting for your feedback :)
Please can you tell me because I get this when I go to a website:” closeAds by Spotflux – Why am I seeing this?”
If I can answer in Castilian appreciate it for almost anything I do not understand English and all these have I had to translate
Thank you very much
The free version of SpotFlux now displays advertisements. You can close the advertisement by clicking the X button.
I like Spotflux – a lot. My only drawback is that it only has two locations. That affects anonymity as well in certain circumstances.
I used Spotflux but on occasions it showed enabled on checking my isp address it was still showing my real one, beware and always check.
Is there anyone else with the same problem?? Once I start spotflux, my computer starts to lag very much.. problem is gone once I disable spotflux
This VPN premium service also only has access servers in the USA.
Rockville Maryland is not so far away from Beltsville and Laurel Maryland, the location of the
NSA/CIA Hybrid Agency CSSG
http://leaksource.info/2013/06/14/there-is-an-nsacia-hybrid-agency-that-may-explain-snowdens-involvement-in-sigint-and-humint/
There are no free VPN services – could be an explanation that this is a free (bone) service.
There is also an open source google code source here:
https://code.google.com/p/spotflux/source/checkout?repo=wiki
map for your reference:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Laurel,+MD/@39.0900792,-77.0227225,11z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x89b7dd10e849dcd1:0x98cd5e2efdcd92fc
sir you mentioned 3 to 4 vpn’s ,so i had a doubt from all of the 4 vpn’s which one is good to use.
Great post thanks lot https://www.fipe.net/privateinternetaccess-review.html
Great post thanks lot . https://www.fipe.net/
Your site hit the nail on the head. I found the best VPN for Gaming at this site http://www.anonymousvpnsoftware.com/private-internet-access-vpn-review/
Valuable info here, thanks for the share. If you want to hide what you are doing online then you should be using a VPN. There are some good ones here http://www.anonymousvpnsoftware.com/private-internet-access-vpn-review/
CyberGhost’s package plan offers unlimited bandwidth, unlimited traffic (disconnects after 3 hours), AES 256 bit encryption, OpenVPN protocol; access to around 38 FREE servers in 15 countries, anti-finger printing system and single device connectivity.
In order to block ads and popups an ad-blocking software is enough. I previously used Ad Block Plus. But due it’s high memory usage recently switched to uBlock Origin. It is good.
Cotse offers PPTP VPN which is insecure for years. For alternatives look rather at SecurityKISS that was reviewed by Arun in another article. I used spotflux for a few months but eventually moved to Securitykiss as it is faster and more stable and free of annoying popups.
I had SPOTFLUX running fine till i installed WINDOWS 10 and it just refuses to enable. Wondering how to fix this.
My AVG virus detector killed the spotflux install because :
WebFilter is an Adware software that delivers advertisement content to
end-user and may be considered privacy-invasive. This set of malware
includes toolbars, multi-offer installers, intrusive and fraudulent
applications, free versions of commercial products which displays
advertising, and any software that is funded by advertising. Also some
forms of hacker or risk tools might be classified as potentially harmful
as they can be misused by an attacker (e.g. password revealers).
Think I’ll PASS
hi
one question, i had that same problem which you showed above, my previous wifi is connected and the unidentified network says ‘no internet access’. the network dignostics says ‘multiple connections’. what should i do for that?
It might be a clash. Did the troubleshooter not fix it? If no, simply uninstall Spotflux for a while, reboot and reinstall to get the proper settings that won’t conflict.