# Privitize error 'can not connect to VPN'. Alternatives?



## Satangel (Nov 15, 2012)

I would like to be able to connect to Steam/LoL, basically be able to do whatever I want on school internet. 
A friend of mine uses Privitize, a free VPN service, and it works. He can connect to Steam/LoL just fine.

I've installed Privitize too, but every time it connects it gives me 'can not connect to VPN. Please tray again later'. A quick Google didn't help to find the solution. 
If you know any way to make Privitize work (preferred), or can give me another FREE VPN, I'd be very happy.


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## FAST6191 (Nov 15, 2012)

If your internet is as shiny as most Belgian internet I have dealt with might it be possible to VPN back into your own home instead? Assuming you are not on whitelisted internet home IP addresses tend not to be blocked where commercial VPN providers are more likely to be dropped by network admins that are paying attention.

As for how to do it my main two options are do it properly and set things up with a dynamic DNS (assuming you do not have a static one) or the easier option of just use teamviewer.

I am afraid I have not dealt with enough VPN providers (let alone the free services of any of them) to really make a recommendation otherwise.


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## Satangel (Nov 16, 2012)

FAST6191 said:


> If your internet is as shiny as most Belgian internet I have dealt with might it be possible to VPN back into your own home instead? Assuming you are not on whitelisted internet home IP addresses tend not to be blocked where commercial VPN providers are more likely to be dropped by network admins that are paying attention.
> 
> As for how to do it my main two options are do it properly and set things up with a dynamic DNS (assuming you do not have a static one) or the easier option of just use teamviewer.
> 
> I am afraid I have not dealt with enough VPN providers (let alone the free services of any of them) to really make a recommendation otherwise.


I'll look into Teamviewer, I've heard a lot of it (lets you pick over other screens, no?), but didn't know it could do this job....

Or do you mean I need to run a PC here everytime I'm at school, login there via Teamviewer (I would prefer Logmein) and browse via there?


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## FAST6191 (Nov 16, 2012)

Teamviewer's functionality is manyfold- the one most people use is the remote control option but the other two main options are a kind of screen sharing and webcam conference stuff (depending on the connection I sometimes like it more than skype and in all likelihood if skype continues to go downhill I might even switch to it full time) and VPN which allows you to have a connection back into your home network. The latter is aimed more at business use I would imagine, but it would work just the same here.

If you want to surf via your home PC I guess you could do that but I was actually thinking use it for the VPN options (remote control is far simpler and probably the easier option for you).

There are other options if you want to push it further where teamviewer might involve clicking on unblock in windows firewall others want a bit of groundwork done in the first place (forwarding ports, setting up a dynamic DNS and playing around with some of the less user friendly tools*). "I need to run a PC here everytime I'm at school"- if that is a thought for the power bill one of the parts of the other options is wake on lan (needs a wired connection though), I have never had much luck with it myself so you might instead consider setting up either a scheduled task (they can wake the machine up) or if your BIOS supports it a similar option. That way you can say have the machine on for a 10 minute window on every hour (or probably better allowing 15 minutes to get to a computer after classes).

*teamviewer, gotomypc, logmein and such services have made serious efforts on the user interface stakes where most of the free/open source stuff lacks somewhat there, working and working very well is something the open source stuff I have played with does manage though.


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## Sop (Nov 16, 2012)

FAST6191 said:


> Teamviewer's functionality is manyfold- the one most people use is the remote control option but the other two main options are a kind of screen sharing and webcam conference stuff (depending on the connection I sometimes like it more than skype and in all likelihood if skype continues to go downhill I might even switch to it full time) and VPN which allows you to have a connection back into your home network. The latter is aimed more at business use I would imagine, but it would work just the same here.
> 
> If you want to surf via your home PC I guess you could do that but I was actually thinking use it for the VPN options (remote control is far simpler and probably the easier option for you).
> 
> ...


Hey Fast, I was looking for something like this, never thought about the options of setting up my own VPN. I have a dynamic DNS ('twas for a minecraft server) and I'm fine with doing anything else needed, if you could drop me a link to a guide or provide me with some of your knowledge on the subject that would be so great.


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## FAST6191 (Nov 16, 2012)

I am not entirely sure what there is to say so I reckon I will waffle, if you get something out of it then great.

Some say VPN and some say tunnel and I probably would opt for the latter (if nothing else you can do fun things to work around a lot of blocks- DNS tunneling for instance still kind of works in a lot of cafes, hotels and things that redirect you as soon as you try to look at an external page*). Trouble is I otherwise have VNC and ssh terminals and frankly I am a few years out of schools and any networks that are not my own I probably have unfettered access to anyway so I rarely have to think around problems like you and Satangel seem to be facing. That said windows remote desktop (it is kind of secure but I can not bring myself to have remote desktop facing the internet) is not bad and having your own printer and network shares is nice so VPN might not be all that pointless (and more if you use a lot of web interfacing software).

*these sorts of places will often allow you to do a DNS request- wouldn't you know your traffic consists entirely of DNS requests in the order of full bandwidth.....

SSH on linux (not sure about macs) is trivial as it is probably there from the get go, SSH on windows is pretty poor although you can get some stuff done if you really want (copSSH has treated me fairly well*). Although there are kinds of VNC on linux the proper method is usually seen as SSHing into your machine and running a local X server (and windows has an option in things like xming). Most good SSH setup guides will cover how to generate keys (passworded SSH is nice and all but keys are definitely where it is at) and use of pageant. SFTP comes as a nice perk to a lot of SSH options as well.

*if you are going to do windows SSH I highly recommend a fairly tricked out copy of cygwin be installed (copSSH kind of demands it) and nircmd ( http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/index.html#commandline_utils ) as well as many other things there is pretty useful to have.

Depending upon how you view it though it can be nice to have multiple methods of ingress; very little is worse than sitting at a remote location and watching your sole VNC program crash or have a connection error out and you then have no method of getting back in (worst case scenario I SSH in and force a reboot).

You probably already forwarded ports, whether you want to do triggered ports or timed/rotating ports (assuming you have a nice enough firewall to pull that off) I leave to you.

You say you have a dynamic dns account already, I like to flank mine with a full domain somewhere (stick a cname for a given subdomain to your dynamic DNS) and it has implications for some of the more hackish options as well (tunneling over a protocol).

Frankly though teamviewer is where it is at for the most part and it even has better options for mobile devices; TightVNC has a some paid software ports to IOS and such but not as nice as teamviewer (which is also free). What VNC I use varies with use (some aspects of tightvnc have some interesting abilities like network driven third screens) but a secured (as in optional encryption plugin) ultravnc is my usual jumping off point, I should note I quite often get false positives from AV scanners when I plug various USB drives of wonder in on client computers and it has ultravnc on there (you can do things like send a prebaked ultravnc to a custom and have them call your machine back up with it and you control theirs which troubles some AV programs).


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## Satangel (Nov 29, 2012)

I still haven't been able to figure it out. I don't have the intention to run my homePC all the time, and log in there, it's possible but very cumbersome and just not worth it IMHO. 
It's simply a matter of using a service like Privitize, that works with my friends PC, it should work here too. 
Something like that is ideal.


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