How to make bittorrent only use VPN IP - Universal IP

This tutorial will explain how to make any and all applications only use the VPN IP at all times and will block any leaks of your real IP using Comodo Firewall. This tutorial is universal for those who have static IP, dynamic IP and/or public WIFI IP usage. This tutorial is more cumbersome than the tutorial for static because specific VPN servers are involved in it's setup. If you have a static IP (permanent IP) and NOT using a router then follow the instructions here.. http://forum.hidemyass.com/showthread.php?tid=1298 I use uTorrent as example but you can use any application.

***This tutorial was setup to work originally with OpenVPN (installed client) but the PPTP uses a different range, updated Step 2 Download Comodo Firewall here.. http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/ This only works on PC, not Mac! You can choose only to install the firewall during setup if you choose to keep your antivirus.

Step 1: Open Comodo Firewall and click Firewall, Advanced, then Network Security Policy. It already opens to Application Rules and where you will control your bittorrent client. If you haven't already run your client since installing Comodo Firewall do so now to be asked to allow and it will be inserted here. Otherwise click Add (top right) then Select (top right, new window) and choose running processes or browse to find (ie. program files/utorrent/utorrent.exe). Step 2: You will need the servers IP range that you use to complete the following. It's very simple. While logged in to the VPN and connected to the server of choice (favorite) go here and find the VPN IP address.. http://whatismyipaddress.com/ Now take that VPN IP and write it down and your range will be the 1st 3 sets of numbers left the same but the last set will be .1 through .255. Example.. NJ US server will give you this 216.155.158.### so the range would be 216.155.158.1 - 216.155.158.255. Simple Update! For PPTP you will need to do the same as above and get the range for the PPTP connection. Example: NJ OpenVPN (installed client) will use 216.155.158.1 - 216.155.158.255 but the PPTP range is 216.155.145.1 - 216.155.145.255. So basically you need to write 2 extra PPTP rules for each server you use equaling a total of 4 rules per server and obviously the one block rule. Find the application you want to control in the Application Rules list and and delete it's green allow rule. Right click the application and choose Add and make the 1st rule "NY IN" (example) leaving source as Any.. Step 3: Right click the application and choose Add and make the 2nd rule "NY OUT" (example) leaving the destination as Any.. Step 4: Right click the application and choose Add and make the 3rd rule "Block the rest" leaving both source and destination as Any.. Step 5: Make sure that the block rule in red is the below the allow rules or it will block every IP including the VPN server. You can move by highlighting and then click move up or down on the right side of the panel. It should look like this.. Obviously this is the 3 main servers I use and you can add as many servers as you like. Just login to the server, get the IP, create the range (ie. .1 -.255) and keep adding but most important is you keep the block rule last. Click OK (bottom right) Done! Warning! Do not do this to the HMA VPN Pro client application, openvpn, DNS (ie. OpenDNSupdater) and also System and svchost's or you will have problems!!!!! Best to control the last two mentioned using port security. You can read more about that here.. http://forum.hidemyass.com/showthread.php?tid=1416

How to use Windows Firewall for blocking non-VPN traffic - IP binding

How to Always / Only Use VPN Connection and block ISP - Make applications only use VPN Connection.

This tutorial will explain you how to use Windows Firewall to block non-VPN traffic for selected applications, e.g. your torrent client, a browser, download manager, etc.

VPNs are great for added security when using the Internet - but what about when the VPN drops or disconnects? Unfortunately, if you use Windows (any version), any running application (for example, BitTorrent, your browser) will revert to using your ISP connection, exposing your IP address and opening you up to security and privacy issues. This is of particular concern when using a VPN to secure a public wi-fi spot. Windows will not prevent traffic in the event of a disconnect.

There are many guides found online to prevent this using third-party firewalls such as [[Comodo Firewall|Comodo], or using a third-party applications such as VPNetMon or VPNCheck (neither of which I know anything about, and cannot speak to their reliability or safety).

This guide will show you how to configure Windows 7 Firewall to block any specified application (I have used Firefox as an example - but you can pick any application, e.g. utorrent or your preferred torrent client) from using your ISP connection, and permit it to connect the the Internet using only the VPN connection. Users who are unfamiliar with the basic aspects of Windows 7 Firewall may wish to consult this guide. Unfortunately, this will not work with the built-in firewall in Windows XP or Vista.

If the method described below does not work for you (or perhaps you don't want to mess with your firewall, or you use Windows XP / 2000 / Vista / Mac OS X), consider using a VPN that offers a client with IP Binding, which will prevent any selected application(s) from accessing the Internet in the event of an unexpected disconnection.

HideMyAss! offers PPTP, L2TP and OpenVPN, and a client that can bind all network traffic to the VPN connection.


Preliminary Considerations:

1. If you use an antivirus program such as avast! that has a Web Shield / Filter that passes HTTP traffic through an antivirus/malware scan, you may want to consider this post.
2. The IPv6 functionality in Windows 7 can also leak IP information - you may wish to disable it - see the guide here.
3. After you complete the steps in this guide, you may want to consider adding a rule to block all traffic that does not match a rule to the Domain profile. See the guide here.
4. If you want to create these rules for one user account, and maintain less strict rules for another user account, please see this post.
5. If you are blocking a torrent application such as uTorrent, you'll want to disable uTP, DHT, UPnP, Local Peer Discovery and IPv6.

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Steps:


1. Connect to your VPN as you normally would.


2. Open the Network and Sharing Center - right-click on the Internet connection icon in the taskbar and choose "Open Network and Sharing Center" (see below)

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3. You should see (at least) two networks listed under "View Your Active Networks" - your VPN connection and one called "Network" - a.k.a. your ISP Connection. Ensure that your VPN is a "Public Network", and your ISP connection is "Home Network". If you need to change either connection, click it and an option window will appear (see below).

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4. Go to the Control Panel and click System and Security (see below).

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5. In the resulting window, click Windows Firewall (see below).

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6. In the Windows Firewall  window, click Advanced Settings on the left pane (see below).
Note: You must be logged in as an Adminstrator to make changes to the Firewall Settings.

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7. You should see a window titled Windows Firewall with Advanced Security. In this window, click Inbound Rules (see below).

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8.  On the right pane, you will see an option for a New Rule. Click it (see below).

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9.  In the New Inbound Rule Wizard (which should appear), do the following:

   

Choose Program and click Next.	Choose the program you wish to block all traffic to except on the VPN connection, and click next.
Choose Block the Connection.	Tick Domain and Private. Make sure Public is left unticked.

  
 

   
  

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10. Repeat Step 9 for Outbound Rules.

When all of the above steps are complete, you should test the configuration. Run the application you made the rule for, and test that it is working when the VPN is connected. Start a download, and then disconnect from the VPN. If all is configured properly, the download should die immediately as the firewall will immediately block it from using your ISP-assigned IP address. If you wish to monitor traffic closely, use TCPView
Repeat step 9 and 10 for other applications you want IP binding to be enabled with, e.g. your browser, download manager, a game, etc.

How to setup Comodo Firewall - IP Binding through MAC address

These rules will work with or without a router.This is a good way to make sure any application(s) you choose,will only run through your vpn connection.

This will configure Comodo Firewall to allow specific applications, to access to the internet,only when HMA VPN is active. With Comodo firewall (100% free version), you can set a network zone based on an adapters MAC, make a pre-defined rule for that zone, and apply that rule to certain applications. A. Create a network zone, Get the MAC for the TAP-Win adapter 1. (XP) Start / Run and type CMD, press enter. (Win7) Start and type CMD, press enter. 2. You should see a black box called a DOS box with a blinking cursor. 3. Type IPCONFIG /ALL 4. Look in the mess of junk for the section that says TAP-Win32. 5. You need the part that says Physical Address . . . . . . 00-??-??-??-??-?? 6. Leave this window open for now.   Alternative way to find out the TAP-adapters MAC address: Go to -> Control Panel\Network and Internet\Network Connections 1) Right Click the Tap-win adapter 2) Click Status 3) Click Details The MAC address is the physical address, which you can't select on its on so you can either just write it down or 4) Ctr+C to copy and paste entire window into Notepad B. Create network zone, Add in Comodo 1. In Comodo, go to Firewall / Advanced / Network Security Policy / My Network Zones 2. Add / New Network Zone 3. Name it HMA MAC (press apply) 4. Select HMA MAC 5. Add / New Address 6. Choose "A MAC Address" and enter the Physical Address from earlier. 7. You should see your new Zone with the New rule. 8. Press OK. C. Make a Pre-Defined Rule 1. Open Firewall / Advanced / Predefined Firewall Policies 2. Click ADD 3. Enter a Name, HMA Only 4. Add... Action: Allow Protocol: IP Direction: In Source Address: Any Destination Address: Zone / HMA MAC Apply 5. Add... Action: Allow Protocol: IP Direction: Out Source Address: Zone / HMA MAC Destination Address: Any Apply 6. Add... Action: Block Protocol: IP Direction: In/Out Source Address: Any Destination Address: Any Apply Apply Apply 7. You should now have 2 green rules and then a Red one. D: Apply rule to Applications 1. Open Firewall / Advanced / Network Security Policy / Application Rules 2. Choose the application that should only work with HMA active, or add an new one. 3. It will open to "Application Network Access Control" 4. Here choose the Predefined Policy "HMA Only" 5. If there are other rules already, they will be removed.To keep any existing settings, you'll have to improvise here. 6. Apply 7. OK. Do this to all apps that should only access through the HMA VPN Connection E. Testing... 1. In the above example, I made a rule for Google Chrome. 2. Disconnect from HMA 3. Open Chrome - it is unable to load the home page. 4. Enable HMA 5. Refresh Chrome - it works I added a few more applications. Open Firewall / Advanced / Network Security Policy / Application Rules *Make sure your applications refer to "HMA Only" and your covered. Here's the download link for Comodo Firewall Free Edition: http://www.comodo.com/home/download/down...d=firewall / http://downloads.comodo.com/cis/download...taller.exe (32/64bit installer)

How to Secure Firefox (with a lot of links to tools and add-ons)

I'd like for people to come together and compare the different addons that we have for Firefox which make internet surfing a better and safer experience.

1. Start Firefox in Privacy mode (http://bit.ly/9c9bzl)
2. Make the Homepage a IP-Checker (http://www.ip-adress.com/) or try an addon that warns you of an IP change (http://bit.ly/cjaELd)
3. The problem with Privacy mode is that all the links/bookmarks will not save, thus you can use a synching tool - http://bit.ly/cMipZn OR http://bit.ly/dqkRo0
4. Use NoScript - http://bit.ly/ccbv0n

This addon makes you select whether scripts should be allowed on the pages you visit - also a good way to look at which sites have what scripts.

• Use AdBlock Plus - http://bit.ly/xRJb8 A great program that blocks ads, thus also blocking a good amount of Malware (by not letting you to click on the links)

• Better Privacy - http://bit.ly/aYdQmH Deletes LSO's, not sure that privacy mode allows these to save permanently.

• Force-TLS http://bit.ly/dcWqH4 Basically makes the browser (if there's a choice) to make a HTTPS connection to a site.

• LastPass - http://bit.ly/di7CfS OR lastpass.com

Great tool for passwords, if you remember the password, then it's not secure enough. Invest 12$ for a year that will give you access to some great second layer verification. Then you can also access all your passwords from phones, etc. It also allows you to save forms - thus you can save your credit card details, etc. You are taking a chance of storing such data in one place, so the 12$ investment is a good idea.

• Ghostery - http://bit.ly/9Y5jaW Blocks information flow to AD agencies about your habits (use with NoScript)

Use of Facebook(remember to config your privacy settings) :
There have been some disturbing news about Facebook using your surfing habbits for targeted ads (while you're logged on).
Because of this, there are a few addons towards Facebook:

The addons for facebook are old, use the Adblock addons in conjunction with the ExException to clear up your experiance in FB.

1. AntiSocial - DEAD
2. No FB Tracking - OLD
3. remove all facebook ads - OLD

For some people this doesn't work (old addon) , but it works for me.

Final Step:
Always use Firefox (or any Internet Browser) within a Sandbox (http://bit.ly/Ro4z)
It takes a bit of time to get used to the Sandboxie usage (especially once you have to remember that updates have to be done outside the sandbox) but it can save you from a very good amount of viruses/trojans and other nasty tings.

Also, there's a tool called VPNcheck - http://bit.ly/d8VK0x
The program will kill any program of your choice (Firefox/uTorrent etc) if you get a drop in the VPN connection. Though it might become obsolete once the IP Bind program within the VPN goes Alpha.

Similarly you can check out the great article of constricting your Internet Connection with a COMODO firewall through the VPN IP ranges - http://bit.ly/b3EC07

These are some of the addons that I use with my FireFox. I'd love to learn about other people's internet browser configuration. Also, I'd love to hear how people use other browsers (Chrome/Opera) as Firefox is a bit Clunky, but I haven't seen a good enough of a security with the other browsers.

• User agent Switcher - http://bit.ly/hPpRjR UAControl - http://bit.ly/pnZsmW

UA is an interesting thing, you can go through forums and see the members-only links by masking yourself as a googlebot (use the Switcher for that) otherwise use UAControl and set the default to block.

• RefControl - http://bit.ly/hmL3AW Similar to UAControl, set it to block and add the exceptions for sites that don't work - wordpress, etc.

• TrackerBlock - http://bit.ly/ff02Nv good companion to ghostely

• Adblock+ - http://bit.ly/oojb34 A good addon to adblock

• ExExceptions - http://bit.ly/oXQzlN Last defense against ads/popups. This will block them, similar to editing your hosts fie.

• Element Hiding Helper - http://bit.ly/qBjxG6 Addon for Adblock, just point and the ad is gone.

• CookieSafe - http://bit.ly/puL5sv control your cookies!

• HTTPS-Everywhere - http://bit.ly/aZvj4e Similar to force-tls

In the end, you ought to use a couple checking sites:
http://ip-check.info/?lang=en and IP-score.com are good ones.

Stay safe.

OH and remember to use CCleaner with secure deletion time to time.

How to let websites and IPs bypass the VPN using static routing

There are several reasons for letting certain IPs or websites bypass the VPN connection, so they are used with your real IP and connection instead.

For example: if a certain website is blocking access to foreign IPs, so you can only access it with your real IP if websites and services forbid the use of VPN, so your account won't get restricted or suspended if you cannot access a local machine in your network while the VPN is connected (e.g. server, other computer or network device of any kind. Windows If you don't want to do it the manual way via route.exe in command line, or using the HMA unRouting utility below, you might want to check out this GUI for route.exe Manual setup via route.exe On windows, to create static routing rules to let IPs bypass the VPN, you need to use the integrated tool "route.exe" of Windows. You can find it in the folder C:\Windows\System32 - but it's executable from any place. To use it, open a command prompt. Run "cmd.exe" or navigate to "All Programs/Accessories/Command Prompt" in the start menu. Run "route" to get the instructions for how to use this tool. How to use it for our purpose (IPs bypassing the VPN) is quickly explained: First you need to find your gateway IP address. This is usually the IP of your router/DSL-Modem, so the device your computer gets the internet from. If you're not sure which IP that is, please run "route print". In the mid-section of the output, you should see something like this: You'll see that certain IPs are using a gateway address that belongs into your local network. In this case, 192.168.88.2 is our gateway IP address, the IP of the router Keep that gateway IP address in mind. Now we need to get the IP of the website you want to bypass the VPN. For testing, we can use http://ipaddress.com As you might know, this website shows your current IP and location. When disconnected from the VPN, go there and you'll see your real IP and location. To get the IP of that website, you can simply ping it by running "ping ipadress.com". It returns the IP address, which is: 80.237.246.185 Alternatively use websites like http://www.hcidata.info/host2ip.htm for this purpose Now we create a routing rule for this website, by running "route add 80.237.246.185 192.168.88.2" (syntax: route add destinationIP gatewayIP) When that is done, connect to the VPN and visit http://ipaddress.com again. You'll notice that it still shows your real IP and location, instead the VPN IP and location. That means the routing rule is working and the website is bypassing the VPN. Note: This rules are only temporary, that means they disappear upon next reboot. To make them permanent, use the switch "-p", so e.g. "route -p add 80.237.246.185 192.168.88.2" Quick way using HMA UNrouting Utility This tool creates routing tables for you - this allows to exclude certain IPs or websites from being accessed through the VPN. That means when your VPN connection is active, the traffic between your computer and the IP will be transferred through your "normal" internet connection, with your real IP, ISP and location. This especially makes sense when accessing services that do not allow the use of VPN, e.g. financial related (Paypal, Onlinebanking) or advertising related (visitor exchange programs, affiliate systems). Download UNrouting Utility (.zip, 435 KB)   Mac OSX Manual setup using route and netstat The setup is pretty similar to the manual setup with route.exe in Windows, just the commands differ a little. To get the current routing table, so you can see all existing rules and get your gateway IP, run: "netstat -r". The output should look like the one on the right -> You can see that the gateway in this example is 192.168.132.2 OK, now let's create the routing rule. In this example we also want to let ipaddress.com bypass the VPN, so we need to get the IP of that website by pinging it. Run "ping ipaddress.com". It returns the IP of that website, which is 80.237.246.185 Run "sudo route -nv add 80.237.246.185 192.168.132.2". The syntax is "sudo route -nv add destinationIP gatewayIP". The output should look like in the image on the right -> Now, connect to the VPN and visit http://ipadress.com You'll notice that it shows your real IP and location, instead of the VPN ones. That means the routing rule is working and the IP/website is successfully bypassing the VPN.   Linux How to creating routing rules on Linux differs from distribution to distribution. For an overview and a detailed explanation for each distribution, see this link: http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/configuring-static-routes-in-debian-or-red-hat-linux-systems.html The command "ip route show" shows your current routing rules.   Android To set up static routing rules on Android, your device needs to be rooted. Then you can use any terminal emulator (e.g. this one https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jackpal.androidterm) to get into the command prompt. To get root privileges in the command prompt: su To show the current routing rules: ip route To set routing rules, you can use the same instructions as for Linux. See the link above

How to recover Windows passwords

This tutorial explains what to do if you have forgotton your Windows user password. Windows versions after XP can't be accessed through safe mode or otherwise. External applications are needed to reset/change the user password so it's possible to login again.

Caution: This tutorial is for advanced users. If you completely don't understand it, get someone who does. Alternatively, you can try other tools for this purpose. For example PCLoginNow (http://www.pcloginnow.com/product.html) or Ophcrack (http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/).
See this link for more password recovery tools
The following way has been successfully been tested with Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7.

Related links:

• Official website: http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/
• FAQ (Frequently asked questions)

Related downloads:

• cd110511.zip (~3MB) - Bootable CD image.
• usb110511.zip (~3MB) - Files for USB install

The files inside the USB zip are exactly the same as on the CD. See below for instructions on how to make USB disk bootable.

How to make the CD

Unzipped, there should be an ISO image file (cd??????.iso). This can be burned to CD using whatever burner program you like, most support writing ISO-images. Often double-clikcing on it in explorer will pop up the program offering to write the image to CD. Once written the CD should only contain some files like "initrd.gz", "vmlinuz" and some others. If it contains the image file "cd??????.iso" you didn't burn the image but instead added the file to a CD. I cannot help with this, please consult you CD-software manual or friends.
The CD will boot with most BIOSes, see your manual on how to set it to boot from CD. Some will auto-boot when a CD is in the drive, some others will show a boot-menu when you press ESC or F10/F12 when it probes the disks, some may need to have the boot order adjusted in setup.

How to make an bootable USB drive

• Copy all the files that is inside the usbXXXXXX.zip or on the CD onto an usb drive, directly on the drive, not inside any directory/folder.
• It is OK if there are other files on the USB drive from before, they will not be removed.
• Install bootloader on the USB drive, from command prompt in windows (start the command line with "run as administrator" if possible)
  • X:syslinux.exe -ma X:
• Replace X: with the drive letter the USB drive shows up as (DO NOT USE C:)
• If it seems like nothing happened, it is usually done.
• However, a file named ldlinux.sys may appear on the USB drive, that is normal.
• It should now in theory be bootable.
• Please know that getting some computers to boot from USB is worse than from CD, you may have to change settings, or some will not simply work at all.

  How to make the floppy

  The unzipped image (bdxxxxxx.bin) is a block-to-block representation of the actual floppy, and the file cannot simply be copied to the floppy. Special tools must be used to write it block by block.
  
• Unzip the bd zip file to a folder of your choice.
• There should be 3 files: bdxxxxxx.bin (the floppy image) and rawrite2.exe (the image writing program), and install.batwhich uses rawrite2 to write the .bin file to floppy.
• Insert a floppy in drive A: NOTE: It will lose all previous data!
• Run (doubleclick) install.bat and follow the on-screen instructions.

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor, Walkthrough

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The following is a walkthrough of using the CD to reset one user (admin) on a test Vista computer. Insert the CD and convince your BIOS that it should boot from it. How to boot from a CD varies from computer make to computer make, so it depends on your mainboard. Some BIOS shows a boot device select menu if you press ESC, F8, F11 or F12 or something like that during the self test. (some even tell you on the screen what to press) If it boots, you should see this -> Usually just press enter here. If you have linux knowledge, you can tweak kernel options if you need/like. Then it boots and outputs a lot of kernel messages about your hardware and such.. most if not all are nothing to worry about.	Click images to enlarge
Most of the generic linux boot now done, and we try to load the disk drivers. If you use the floppy version you will be asked to swap floppies at this point. Drivers are then tried based on PCI hardware indentification. Most of these messages are from the drivers themselves. Some talk a lot, some doesn't. But all give info on the brand and model and size of the disks found, if any.
Here you select one of the partitions listed above (in this case there is only one) or one of the letters from the menu. If there is a 100MB partition and a big one, select the big one. Floppy users may need to do 'f' to load in more drivers from another floppy. The 'd' option will re-run the PCI scan and start relevant drivers (they must already be loaded from floppy with 'f' option) The 'm' for manual load will present a list of all the drivers with short description if available, and allow you to specify which to load. (Dependecies are handled automatically) Here we only have one partition, so we just press enter to select it. The registry is usually system32/config under WINDOWS or WINNT directory, depending on the windows version (and it may be changed during installation). If the correct partition has been selected, the default prompt will be adjusted to match if it can find one of the usual variants. Press enter, then the program will tell if the correct directory has been selected.
Choice 1 is for password edit, most used. But if you wish, you can load any of the files (just enter it's name) and do manual registry edit on them. But here, we select 1 for password edit, some files are copied around into memory and the edit application is invoked.
This demo shows selection 1 for password edit, but you can also do other things. Note that 2, Syskey may be dangerous! AND NOT NEEDED TO RESET PASSWORDS! and does not work at all on Vista, but you get some info before you do any changes. Selection 3, RecoveryConsole is only relevant for Win2k, XP and 2003 and you must have selected to load the SOFTWARE part of the registry (selection 2) earlier. The manual registry editor is always available, it is not the most user-friendly thing, but anyway.. We continue our quest to change our "admin" users password..
This is a list of all local users on the machine. You may see more users here than in the overly user-friendly control panel, for example XP has some help and support built in users. The users marked "ADMIN" are members of the administrators group, which means they have admin rights, if you can login to one of them you can get control of the machine. The buildt in (at install time in all windows versions) administrator is always RID 01f4. This example is from Vista, and Vista by default has this locked down (the installer instead asks and makes another user the regular use administrator, in this case RID 03e8) The "lock?" collumn show if the user account is disabled or locked out (due to many logon attempts for example) or BLANK if the password seems to be blank. We select to edit the "admin" user (this was the user made administrator by the Vista installer)
Some status info, user is locked out if "Disabled" is set or "Failed login count" is larger than "max tries" policy setting. This user is not locked in any way. The lockout can be reset with option 4 below. UNIQ5cff702f5288ada4-pre-00000002-QINU Here we just reset/clear/blank the password. But you can also try to set a new password with option 2, but it will only work if the password is not blank already. Also, it often fails to work on XP and newer systems. Number 3 is to put a non-admin user into the administrators (220) group, thus making the user an administrator. IT IS STILL EXPERIMENTAL AND IT MAY sometimes RESULT IN STRANGE ERRORS WHEN LATER EDITING THE GROUP FROM WINDOWS! Also, usually pointless in promoting the Guest user, as it is most likely forbidden to log in by the security policy settings.
Exclamation point ! quits out (it's SHIFT 1 on the US keyboard layout used on the boot CD) Then we get back to the main menu, and select to quit..
You must answer y, or the changes will not be saved. This is the last chance to change your mind! Only changed files of the registry are actually written back. If you forgot something, you may run again, else press CTRL-ALT-DEL to reboot.
If you see an error message now, this does not mean that it isn't working. Reboot and test if Windows can be accessed again.

How to setup HideMyAss Pro VPN Client

If you don't have a HMA Pro VPN account yet and need help with registering, see: How to register for HMA Pro VPN Below find detailed information about how to install use the HMA Pro VPN client for Windows:
Installation of the HMA Pro VPN client
First you need to download the HMA Pro VPN client for Windows:  HMA-Pro-VPN-2.8.0.7-install.exe The Microsoft NET framework is required for this. Get it here: NET Framework Now start the clients setup file. The installation will run as displayed in the animation on the right -> Please note: You need administrator privileges to install the HMA client. To ensure this, install the HMA client by rightclicking the setup file and select "Run as Administrator" Should you receive a warning that the TAP driver did not pass the driver signing check by Microsoft - this is nothing to worry about. Just confirm and let the installation finish. Should the installation get aborted because of this, or if you're unable to connect with the HMA client, you may need to disable the Windows Driver Signing check first and then install the client. See instructions for that here: Driver Signing Check
Using the HMA Pro VPN client
Important settings: When starting the HMA client, you'll see the "Dashboard". To get started, first things to do are: Entering username and password select a VPN protocol (OpenVPN/PPTP) select a VPN server  See the image on the right; once done that, hit "Connect to VPN" and the client will start to connect. In the left menu, you can switch between the tabs of the HMA client, which are: Dashboard Index page, for controlling connection options and login details Country selection Shows a worldmap with all servers, so you have a better geographical overview IP address settings Set automatic IP changes, IP verifying options and see your IP history Secure IP bind Force applications to only work while VPN is connected (e.g. filesharing tools) Speed guide Compare speeds of all HMA servers with a single click (disconnect from VPN first!) Proxy settings Needed if you're online through a local network proxy (does not affect anonymity!) Billing & Packages Quicklinks and info about your billing cycle, payment plan, etc. Below you'll find descriptions of all features of the VPN client software.
Dashboard When starting the HMA client, you'll first see the "Dashboard". For connecting to the VPN, enter here your account username and password. Select a protocol (OpenVPN/PPTP) and a VPN server. It's best to choose a server, which is near your real location, to get the best speeds. Usually it doesn't matter which VPN protocol you choose. OpenVPN is more secure, but PPTP seems to be faster in most cases. If you should be unable to connect, the first thing to try would be changing protocol and VPN server.
Dashboard - Settings Here you can enable/disable "Load Balancing". Load balancing is a feature that allows you to switch to a less-loaded VPN server, should you try to connect to a VPN server that is heavily loaded. You can choose between a) Switch to a less-loaded server within the same location (City) b) Switch to a less-loaded server within a certain country or preselected server group By standard, you'll get asked and need to decide, if you want to switch to a less-loaded server. When unchecking the "Show warning before load balancing" checkbox, you'll automatically be switched to a less-loaded server, without confirmation. In addition, you can choose to only use load-balancing if a server is 20%, 30%, 50% or 60% more loaded than other servers from the same group.
Country selection In "Country selection", you'll find an overview of all available HMA Pro VPN servers, sorted for distance and countries.
Country selection - Map overview In the "Map overview" you'll see a worldmap with all server locations marked. It gives a better overview about how far away the servers are, and where the servers are located.
IP address settings In the "IP address settings" tab you can: 1) Change your IP with a single click 2) Setup automatic IP change after every X minutes/seconds  3) Choose a IP-verifying website, to make sure your IP really has changed on connection
IP address settings - IP History The IP History shows you all IPs you have used til now, including country, date+time, server name.
Secure IP bind With the Secure IP binding feature, you can prevent any application from making connections, when the VPN is inactive. This is especially useful if e.g. you let your BitTorrent client running through the night. With enabled IP binding, your torrent client won't leak your real IP when the VPN should get disconnected.
Speed Guide With the speed guide feature of our VPN client, you can always check which VPN server is the fastest for you. For that, select the servers you want to test. You can choose to Test both protocols test only OpenVPN protocol test only PPTP protocol only do a ping test (to check the latency) do an express test (faster than the full test) do an full test (most accuracy) There is also a history, so you can check the results of previous speed tets. Attention: You need to disconnect from the VPN first, otherwise you won't be able to do the tests.
Proxy settings The Proxy settings tab is important if you're connected to the internet through a local proxy, like at school or at work. If you have a direct connection (e.g. DSL, modem, etc.), leave it "Direct connection to Internet" (which is default)
Billing & packages The "Billing & packages" tab shows your VPN account username your billing cycle (1/6/12 months) your subscriptions expiring date current pricing That way you always know when you need to renew your subscription, and if the prices have changed.