MY WORKING PROXIES (2015): Review: Wifi Protector

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Review: Wifi Protector – FREE VPN service

Holy Toledo! This VPN software and service come from a very professional looking web site, with a scrolling roster of praise from the VPN users.

This is the first time I had heard of Wifi Protector. The "initial" download was a bit over 6MB, however, during instal it began downloading more components.... and more components... and more components! Instal went on for at least half an hour, I couldn't believe it.

One component it was trying to add was an updated version of Silverlight. There was a conflict and I manually skipped it. Which may account for the red "Error!" message at the end of the long, long instal. I thought, okay, that's that.

I was ready to give up, when suddenly, a slider popped up from the lower right-hand corner of my screen. It was the Wifi Protector informing me it is now installed and protecting. I wonder what happened to Silverlight?

I am going to use this new VPN for a few days and let you know how it functions. So, bookmark and check back. Unless you're in the mood for a long instal to find out for yourself.

I had just hit the "Publish" button on this Review, when I got another surprise from Wifi Protector. All I had done was include a link to its own web site in the sidebar of this blog, and Wi-Fi Protector has seen fit to hijack the top of this Blog to add a full-color horizontal banner (728 x 90)!

Now, I don't mind giving these guys a link, but I'm not gonna let'em steal a banner's worth of unpaid ad space at the top of my web site. You really have to see this, just look what it did:

Wifi Protector hijacked my blog to give itself a free banner ad!
See the blue banner on top? I'm deleting their link!

And here's what the banner says:

"Get Rid of This Ad.
Remove Ads And
Get Faster VPN Today!
Upgrade today and get Advanced
Antivirus Protection Included!"

This is a VPN shakedown! A Blog protection racket by Wifi Protector!

Every time I refresh this blog page, I get a new ad line on the banner ad.

Congrats to the programmer who figured out how to do that, but you didn't make me happy, and you lose! Let's hope their VPN service can pull them out of the hot water they've jumped into with this unbelievable Blog-jacking.

I will give my readers the url, but I'm removing the link, which is apparently how they somehow installed their banner on my blog

https://fr.wifiprotector.com/wifiprotector/vpn.aspx?affid=adwords&k=vpn

I've now taken the Wifi Protector link out of the sidebar, and linked my own review there instead.... and their banner is still up there on my blog after several reloads of the page. I'm gonna have to contact Blog management on how to get rid of this. I don't think Blog.com is going to appreciate it. This is their turf!

In fact, I just tried to surf away, and the Wifi Protector banner popped up again.... it seems to be wedged into the top of my Firefox browser, between the bottom edge of the bookmarks bar, and the top edge of whatever page I'm on, i.e. Google. So, it's not clear now if I've got both a Blog-jacker, and a Browser-jacker in Wifi Protector.

As I said, bookmark and check back to find out how this VPN experiment turns out.

. . .

It is now 21:38 (aka 9:38 pm, my time - Montreal time)

15 minutes have passsed since I thought I had ended this post, and TA DA, I'm back.... In fact, I can finish my Review of Wifi Protector, the "Free" VPN.

It must be an hour or so since I spent 30 minutes or more installing Wifi Protector "free" VPN service.... which is still not functioning.

I had just wrapped up my post on them, when I noticed a big red shield with an exclamation point on it in my task bar. I hovered my cursor over it and a message said "Antivirus protection disabled".

Okay, I'm smelling a rat. I am betting Wifi Protector conveniently disabled my existing FREE Microsoft antivirus protection... to sell me its own PAID protection. This is just more and more a protection racket with Wifi Protector. I don't think hard sell like this is going to appeal to too many people. It does not appeal to me.

Then another message popped on-screen. Wifi Protector does in fact want Silverlight 4 to be installed in order for Wifi Protector to actually run and function on this system of mine. By the way, I am still using Windows XP Pro SP3, and I am not going to give it up no matter what anyone says.

A survey of my desktop indicates that my task bar is full of blips, installed by Wifi Protector. The only type of program that plasters your machine with junk and pesters you like this is malware, okay. So, Wifi Protector is acting like malware, that's my view.

Here's a summary of the accomplishments of Wifi Protector this afternoon.

A half an hour or more to instal.

Starts with a deceptive 6MB download file, and then crams god knows what into your hard drive for the next 30 minutes, downloading more and more files. This is another malware behavior.

Hijacks my Blog header and/or Firefox browser to impose a full-size 728-90 color banner with words threatening that I have to pay up to get rid of this banner ad.

Repeatedly launches Internet Explorer, a browser I don't use, cluttering my screen.

Sucked up my entire desktop RAM so nothing functions and I'm getting taskbar error "Switch To" "Retry".

Disabled my existing FREE anti-virus program from Microsoft.

Shoved a blue blip into my taskbar linked to its own "Technical Support" page, and shoved another page in, entitled "Buy Product".

It took half an hour to instal, and it's clever enough to plaster ads all over but it's not clever enough to actually end up in functioning order in my laptop, which is now a shambles.

And ends the day with a giant error screen demanding "Click here to get help!"

Wifi Protector

"Technical Support

This error is caused by a problem with Microsoft Silverlight."

That's right, blame it on the other program. Don't blame it on the hijacker malware you're trying force-sell me.

It then says:

"To fix this you need to:

Uninstall Wifi Protector (see below)

Uninstall Microsoft Silverlight (see below)

Download here and Instal Wifi Protector again (Microsoft Silverlight included)"

Then comes another complete section entitled:

"How to Uninstall Wifi Protector"

Windows XP

Yada yada yada......"

Then, much further down, "How To Uninstall Microsoft Silverlight"

Etc., etc.

And after getting all their junk and flotsam out of my machine, you think I'm gonna start all over and let them do it again! Plaster it again with blips and banners and popups and errors .... oh, no.

Not on your life.

I have no desire whatever to experiment with Wifi Protector's so-called "free" VPN which browbeats you until you pay. If you are in the mood, or a masochist, help yourself.

That's my Review. Although I do reserve the right to footnote later how long it takes me to uninstall the non-functioning "free" Wifi Protector. (I'm taking their link off my sidebar. They don't deserve one.)

Have a nice day, till next time.

This is the Online Security, VPN and Proxies blog signing off.

2 comments:

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UnknownJuly 6, 2019 at 11:20 AM
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How To Configure Your Web Browser to Use A Proxy:

FireFox users, go to (Tools > Options > Advanced > Network > [Connection] and click "Settings"). Select "Manual Proxy Configuration" and enter an IP and Port from one of my free proxy lists into the text boxes.

Internet Exporer users, go to
(Tools > Internet Options > Connections > LAN), select "Use proxy server" and enter an IP and Port from one of my free proxy lists into the text boxes.

Opera users, go to (Tools > Preferences), select the Advanced tab and click on Network to the left (3rd box down). Then, top of same window, click the "Proxy servers" button. Select "HTTP", and enter the IP address and Port number of the proxy server you have chosen to use. Hit OK at the bottom. You're done.

Google Chrome users, go to Option (top-right side) > and click the Under The Hood tab. > Then click on Change Proxy Settings and input the IP address and Port number of the proxy server you wish to use.

* A Proxy Is Good For Privacy

The word proxy means "go-between", someone who does something for another.

An IP address is called a proxy because it can put a remote computer (to which the IP address belongs) between your own computer's IP and the IP of a resource you are accessing over the Internet.

In other words, you can use the IP address of another computer in a different location as a shield or buffer. This can help to make your activities online more private by masking your own IP address as the origin whenever you interact with online resources.

Privacy is a fundamental right and necessity in a free society.

Using a proxy IP address makes it look like the request came from that remote computer, instead of from your own. For example, when you click a link in a search engine, or on a web page, or use any online service, a proxy IP can make it look like someone else's computer is doing those things, not yours. This can protect you from online spying by others, including snoops, the government, or even your Internet Service Provider (ISP).

This is not the whole story on proxy IPs, or online privacy. You should certainly look into the subject if your privacy is important to you.

DEFINITIONS:

What Is An Elite Proxy?

An elite proxy is a completely anonymous proxy IP address. It's another name for "high anonymous" proxy server.

A "high anonymous proxy server" does not pass forward to the site being accessed, nor does it reveal in any way, that you (the visitor) are requesting access through a proxy. In other words, not only are you hidden behind it, but the fact that you are using such a utility is kept totally confidential.

To the site being accessed, an elite or "high anonymous" proxy IP address is your perfect disguise on the Internet. With this, you don't even look like a proxy at all, but just an average Joe online looking for information. An elite, "high anonymous" proxy is the ideal mask to secure your privacy.

What Can You Do Under An Elite Proxy?

In addition to surfing, you can usually also check your Web-based email using a "high anonymous" proxy. You may also go chatting or download files from FTP sites.

Without a "high anonymous" IP to shield you online, a lot of the information that you enter into the web sites you visit, such as your name, email address, city and country, can be collected by vendors. They will then spam your email address with an annoying stream of junk mail. Surfing without a shield of some kind also makes you more susceptible to hackers.

A "high anonymous" proxy server can be an essential tool to shield your privacy. With a proxy like this in place, you can surf the Web assured that no type of data concerning you or your activities online will be relayed to anyone.

What is an "Anonymous" Proxy Server?

An "anonymous" proxy server does not send the HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR variable to the site you are accessing. This improves your privacy, since your IP address cannot be logged.

An "anonymous" proxy does not transfer the information about the IP-address of its user, and thus effectively hides the information about you and your surfing interests.

In addition, some proxies (the so-called elite or "high anonymous" proxies) can also hide the fact that a user is surfing through a proxy server. So there are two types of anonymous proxies, "anonymous" and "high anonymous" also called "elite".

What is a Transparent Proxy?

This type of proxy server does not conceal you online, it identifies itself as a proxy server to the sites you access, and also makes your original IP address available through the http headers.

Transparent proxies are generally used for their ability to cache web sites. While transparent proxies do not effectively provide any anonymity to those who use them, the use of one will get you around simple IP bans.

Another way of explaining it is that a "transparent proxy" is a proxy that does not modify the request or response between your computer and the remote computer hosting the site you want to visit, beyond what is required for proxy authentication and identification.

What is CoDeeN?

CoDeeN is an academic testbed Content Distribution Network (CDN) built on top of PlanetLab by the Network Systems Group at Princeton University:

http://codeen.cs.princeton.edu

This testbed CDN consists of a network of high-performance proxy servers.

Currently, proxy servers are deployed on many PlanetLab nodes. These proxy servers behave both as request redirectors and server surrogates.

Privacy Warning!

CoDeeN logs all use made of its network. This is done primarily to help identify abuse, and as damage control.

PlanetLab sometimes monitors these logs, reports abuse, and releases entries to aid investigations. In case of suspicious traffic, PlanetLab may access URLs from the logs to determine what kind of content is passing through their network.

PlanetLab also uses these logs in its own research, so the logs may be examined as needed for reasons unrelated to possible abuse.

PlanetLab has stated that it does not expect it will intentionally release any information that could personally identify normal users.

However, to prevent abuse, some sites have asked that PlanetLab pass along the IP addresses of users who have accessed web sites "anoymously" through CoDeeN proxies, and these IPs are indeed included with every response to such requests.

PlanetLab IP addresses can be identified at a glance by the typical Port numbers used: 3128, 3127, 3124.

Check Any Proxy Here:

You can even find the city and map location of any proxy before you use it! Just copy and paste the IP address into the field beside the (Search) button, above and hit "Search". If the IP has not expired, the map will show its location. One good reason to test a proxy is to see whether it's from Planetlab, a firm which, more than others, may place restrictions on the use of a proxy. For example, you might not be able to login to certain email accounts, or sign up for a web site; and certain pages on the Internet might be automatically blocked to you. If you need to sign up for things, you might prefer to test a few proxies to ensure it isn't from planetlab, which increases your chances of being able to login to things. Just to see what I mean, test this IP in the "Search" map above: 128.233.252.12, it's from planetlab, so you'll be able to see what that looks like.