Just fell over this new VPN while searching Google.
SumRando. The 1 GB free caught my eye, so I downloaded the file (under 5 MB) and installed it. Then had to sign up and give my email, then click a link in the email to validate.
Once validated, the Sumrando desktop app offers 1 GB of free surfing, however it does not specify whether the 1GB is a day, a week, or a month... Sumrando wraps your screen-top in a black & yellow bar that turns bright green when you are connected to an IP, and supposedly "protected".
The SumRando app offers three main choices for surfing:
1) Fastest Surfing, 2) Access US Based Content, and 3) Choose Country.
Choices 1 and 2 actually overlap the small list of free IPs under "Choose Country". If you select "Fastest Surfing", it connects to Sweden. If you select "Access US Based Content", it hooks you up to New York, USA.
I selected "Choose Country" just to see what's available.
The choice today (might be the same every day, I don't know) was Sweden, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Brazil, and Turkey.
I then switched my selection to Sumrando's "fastest surfing" on the 1GB free plan, and it hooked me up to Sweden.
With SumRando's Sweden IP, I got to Google exactly once, and not for long. Just long enough to switch to English. The page went blank and froze when I actually ran a search. I disconnected, tried New York (couldn't surf it, white page - so much for accessing "US-based content"). I disconnected, tried Brazil, it never connected. Went back to "fastest surfing" and got Sweden again, sitting here two minutes with a white blank screen. Then the page konked out, posting this error message:
"Secure Connection Failed
The connection to www.google.de was interrupted while the page was loading.
The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.
Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem."
I hit Try Again on the browser page, and got:
"The connection was reset
The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.
The site could be temporarily unavailable or too busy. Try again in a few moments.
If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network connection.
If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure that Firefox is permitted to access the Web."
That's the "fastest surfing" that Sumrando can provide on their 1 GB "free" plan?
Also, a very unpleasantly loud noise like a fist-full of glass marbles hitting the bottom of an empty can, is played whenever you disconnect.
I have three left to try, Turkey, New York and Singapore. May as well give SumRando a chance to prove or disprove itself. I'd been on SumRando's Turkey IP for one minute, blank page, it can't even connect to Google search. Well, it is a turkey. Let's try Singapore.
Wait, wait! Just as I gave up on Turkey and was looking for the Singapore switch, it connected to Google Turkey. I typed a question in: What is SumRando -- a bit of delay, then Google produced the search results.
At least I was able to get to a web site linked to one of the search results. It's a bit slow, not too bad if you really need a cloaked IP. I tried again, typed "the british empire" into Google Search, gradually got a slew of results. Images a bit slow loading. Let me click on "Historical Atlas of the British Empire". The page is coming up. It's 70% loaded, after half a minute, and kind of stuck there, no more is coming up, so, now I'll try Singapore.
Singapore connected and surfs a little faster than Turkey. Singapore IP today: 103.15.233.154.
Last try, Hong Kong. I typed "Canada" into google, clicked on a story headline: "Huge fire: Train carrying crude oil derails in Canada". Speed of the Hong Kong IP is about in between Singapore and Turkey. Closer to Turkey... the page is still loading half a minute later... Gave up and tried to go back to Google search, the page is white, and the status bar shows about 60% of "Google search" is loaded somewhere in the ether... not getting too far with SumRando's Hong Kong IP address.
I clicked on another story, "German-made ‘miracle’ machine turns water into gasoline" -- very very slow loading. Never got a chance to read the story that goes with the large top image, which never completely loaded. OK, this is not my idea of a good surf. Wait awhile... page still loading two minutes later. And then, the page konks out, another error message:
"Secure Connection Failed
The connection to www.google.com was interrupted while the page was loading.
The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.
Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem."
In all, SumRando has a small selection of country IP's on the free service. If you keep switching, you can find two or three that work, some faster than others, which is not to say they are fast, at all.
SumRando bills itself as "Online but under the Radar". I think it's more like "Online but under the blank white error page".
I see no reason to pay unless SumRando can guarantee access to a particular country IP at a reasonable (normal) surfing speed. I'm going to uninstal, I don't find SumRando's free version fast enough to be all that useful. And lots of down time trying to find a line that works.
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