WiTopia FAQ
What is a VPN?
Why do I need a “personal” VPN?
Why should I choose WiTopia for my VPN service?
Is this a remote access VPN to reach my company’s servers or my home computer?
Where and when should I use my VPN service?
How does the VPN work?
Will it work over any type of internet connection?
Is the VPN easy to set up?
Do you share my information with any other company?
Why are your prices so low versus your competition?
What types of payment do you accept?
Do you offer a monthly plan?
Do you serve ads or offer a free ad-based version?
Do you offer trials?
Do you have a Money Back Guarantee?
Does personalVPN work anywhere and everywhere?
Why is a VPN better than a proxy?
Why should I trust WiTopia?
Do you keep logs of my activity? Can you monitor my web surfing?
What can I do and not do over the service?
Will my current e-mail work through the VPN?
Does WiTopia offer DNS service for complete security and privacy?
Who owns WiTopia? Are you a front for the government?
What is your uptime?
Do you have bandwidth limits, transfer limits, or censor content?
Will the VPN slow my internet connection down?
I have multiple computers and devices, how many accounts do I need?
I have a Mac and PC and wish to use Open VPN on both, but not simultaneously – Which open VPN service should I buy?
Do you offer 256-bit encryption?
Can I run personalVPN on a router?
What kind of support do you offer?
Do you support torrents and P2P services?
What Operating Systems do you support?
I am in a country or location that monitors, blocks or censors the Internet – Will you service work for me?
Can I use VoIP over personalVPN?
Will the VPN service unblock Skype, Vonage, and other VoIP services if they are blocked in the country in which I am located?
Will the VPN service work with my PS3, Xbox, Apple TV, and programs like Boxee?
Where are your servers located?
Do you issue US and UK IP addresses?
Do you offer alternate ports in case the usual VPN ports are blocked?
What if I try it and just don’t like it?
A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is technology using hardware, software, or both to secure and privatize data across a network, usually the Internet, by building what techies call an “encrypted tunnel.”
Data passes through this “tunnel,” protected from anyone who tries to intercept it. Even if the data is intercepted, it is hopelessly scrambled and useless to anyone without the key to decrypt it.
Large businesses commonly use VPNs between offices to secure company data, and often provide individual “remote access” VPN solutions to home-based or traveling employees to protect data between them and the company’s network.
You also use a VPN when you bank or shop online and see the https:// in your web browser. Unfortunately, the protection with an https:// session is temporary and limited to that specific website.
With WiTopia’s VPN service, you initiate the secure encrypted tunnel from your side, so it is not dependent on the websites you visit. Your security and privacy is now maintained whether you see an https:// or not.
It’s also important to note that your protection and privacy is not limited to just browsing. Our VPN service encrypts and anonymizes all your Internet data to and from our VPN gateways. This includes Skype, IM, streaming, e-mail, as well as browsing.
A pc-based firewall only protects your data on your computer, and anti-virus software only protects you from, well, viruses. Neither protects your data as it flows over your local network, at a Wi-Fi Hotspot, or through your ISP. Without a VPN, your data is completely exposed and can easily be monitored and captured.
As laptops, smartphones, and wireless networks have grown more popular, a great deal more data has become a great deal more mobile. Even with your home ISP or search engines, such as Google, privacy concerns abound. It is more crucial than ever to protect your data, as well as your identity and privacy, with a VPN.
For a MUCH more complete answer, see the section, Why do I need a “personal” VPN?
Glad you asked. Check out Why choose WiTopia for your VPN service?
We’re not a GotomyPC or Hamachi type service. We’re providing a secure and anonymous encryption service to the Internet. It has lots of benefits, but it is not a means to link to your home computer or company’s systems.
Many of our customers located in countries that block VoIP or censor the Internet use it virtually all the time. Also, those who desire added privacy while online may use it a great deal. Others might only use it at wireless Hotspots or when traveling. Again, for a MUCH more complete answer, please visit, Why do I need a “personal” VPN?
When you activate your personalVPN™, it instantaneously builds an encrypted tunnel through your Internet connection from wherever you are to one of our Secure Internet Gateways. All Internet data between you and WiTopia is now encrypted. Nobody can break the encryption, including your ISP.
We also assign you a temporary and random WiTopia private IP address behind our gateway. Your “public” address will be that of whatever server of ours you are connected to for that session. This private IP cannot be traced by anyone through our server nor can anyone find your real IP address or location. You now cannot be sniffed, snooped, or spied on by anyone on your local network or across the Internet to our gateway.
Once your data reaches our Secure Internet Gateway, we decrypt the data (we must so that your intended party can make sense of it), and send it to its destination. This last part is safe because it would be virtually impossible to “sniff” data between a secure data center over an actual Internet backbone link. It just doesn’t happen. “Sniffing” and “spying” occur over local networks because it is so very easy to do –much easier than trying to break into a guarded bunker-type data center with biometric scanners and such.
When we receive the data from your destination server, we re-encrypt it and send it to you through the encrypted tunnel so no one can intercept it.
Sound complicated? It only takes milliseconds. You shouldn’t even notice it’s happening.
Yes. The VPN services should work over any Internet connection. Wired, Wi-Fi, and other wireless technologies should all support the VPN tunnel. We do recommend a broadband connection for best performance.
Yes. After purchase, you should be up and running within a few minutes.
Although VPNs are complex applications, we’ve invested a great deal of time and money into developing a completely online setup process for our PPTP and openVPN-based VPN services. No additional software or hardware is required.
And, if we may say so, this will be a far better experience than you’ll receive from other companies where you’ll often receive more of a “do it yourself” kit designed for computer experts.
No. Absolutely not.
No. There are no hidden fees or limits and we skimp on nothing. Although we can only theorize on the pricing strategy or cost structure of our competition, here are some thoughts.
We’re not greedy and are in it for the long haul.
We’re not trying to maximize profit per transaction, but with economies of scale and continued customer loyalty we see increasing returns over time. That was the plan from the beginning. We made an upfront investment to build WiTopia and continually reinvest revenues to sustain its expansion. We recoup that investment as the business grows and customers renew year after year.
We were a first mover in this market.
Having innovated the idea of a “personal” VPN, we were able to secure a large customer base before imitators came on the scene. This gave us financial stability right off the bat so we don’t need to gouge you to keep the lights on.
Our customers help us grow.
Because of our repeatable and scalable design and infrastructure, we can support growth with ease and things tend not to break. This lowers operating costs and makes for happy customers. Happy customers not only renew year after year, but they tell their friends and colleagues about us so we don’t have to spend much on marketing.
We don’t owe anyone dollars or explanations.
Instead of taking on investors, or business debt, we funded WiTopia from personal cash and assets. Exactly what they tell you not to do in business school, right? Nevertheless, we don’t owe investors explanations or returns on their investment. We put our money where our mouth is and believe the low-price, long-term strategy is the correct one.
We use Authorize.Net and PayPal to process all major credit cards, checks, and, of course, PayPal itself.
We don’t right now. We’re thinking about it, but we just went with the extremely low annual price with an unconditional 30 Day Money Back Guarantee.
We do not allow ads on the service. That would put us in the advertising business, not the privacy and security business. In our opinion that would be a conflict of interest.
The VPN services we know of that adopt an advertising-based model usually have data transfer limits and are likely more focused on selling ads than customers’ privacy and security. Be sure to check their policies concerning privacy and use of your information and we’re sure you’ll agree ad-based VPN services are not the bargain some might think.
We used to when we started out, but don’t anymore. And it’s not that we’ve grown cocky with success. Unfortunately, trials invite spammers and other assorted “bad guys” to dirty up the service. Trials sound like a good idea to inexperienced VPN companies, but we consider them gimmicky and they aren’t good for our existing customers or us. If you find that our VPN service doesn’t fit your needs for any reason, we will refund your money, in full, in the first 30 days after purchase.
Yes! As mentioned, we’ll unconditionally refund 100% of your money within 30 days of purchase. We may ask you why so we ensure it is not some easily correctable configuration change or some misunderstanding, but we don’t require you to give us a reason.
It should. We’ve had isolated cases where the PPTP VPN service has been blocked, but the openVPN-based SSL service (especially with the alternate port option locked and loaded) should get through most any force field.
A VPN encrypts all data (Surfing, IM, FTP, etc.) to and from your computer where a proxy typically only encrypts http (WWW) traffic. VPNs also tend to be much faster and more reliable.
To be fair, although limited in function, a commercial proxy, from a reputable company, may be fine for certain things.
Unfortunately, many try the free anonymous web proxy route. These can be set up (and shared) by literally anyone. Yes, anyone — criminals, hackers, child pornographers, well-meaning geeks who are running it over their Grandma’s cable connection. You just don’t know.
Utopian “fight the power” visions aside, using anonymous proxies means you may be pumping your passwords and personal data through a server setup by a couple enterprising 13-year-old hackers in Estonia.
Which may work out fine for you…but it probably won’t.
Versus our imitators, we could brag about our team’s extensive experience with IP networking, data security, and managed services since 1995. Heck, some were in it before that. We could claim we’re smarter than most and have hired engineers so smart they make you nervous. That would all be true and it’s not just our mothers saying that.
Keeping it real, compared to your ISP, a hotspot/network owner, or even a government, we have a vested interest in vigorously maintaining your data security and privacy.
After all, that is what you pay us to do.
Not to be too capitalistic or simplistic about it, but that really is quite an incentive. This is how we earn our livelihoods. We don’t sell ads. We don’t have side jobs. This is it. You pay us money and we do everything we can to provide you the best service and protection possible.
If we don’t do it well, or somehow betrayed your trust, we’d guess you’d go elsewhere in an Internet minute. Knowing that, we will strive to earn your trust every single day and, hopefully, year after year.
We are not set up in any way to view an individual customer’s activity, nor do we monitor, capture, or store logs that are directly attributable to any individual customer. Some indirect data, and the other bits that are cached during the regular course of running an Internet business, are regularly destroyed, mostly during our weekly maintenance windows. In fact, we only keep this minimal and temporary “trailing log” of indirect data in case we learn a user is violating the terms of use, e.g. spamming, committing crimes using the service, etc. In that specific case, we will report this to our abuse team, determine the guilty party through a laborious matching process, terminate their service, and take further action, if necessary.
We’d say simply, please don’t commit any crimes or cause harm to anyone using the VPN, but the lawyer-approved version is here.
Yes. We offer a zero-configuration SMTP relay at no additional charge in case your current mail provider refuses to carry your e-mail while the VPN is connected.
Yes. For best security and performance, especially in blocked countries, it is a good idea to use DNS servers that are not controlled by your ISP. Other available DNS servers may work fine, but we recommend that customers use ours. This will usually happen automatically when you connect or you can manually set them to make sure.
Sorry, but we’ve actually been asked that. I suppose it also begs the question “which government?” since we do business all over the world. All joking aside, WiTopia is completely privately owned by its founders and employees, none of whom work for, or are in collusion with, any government.
Other than our scheduled one-hour maintenance window every Saturday at 6:00 PM ET (2200-2300 GMT), which usually lasts a few minutes in reality, we’ve had no more than 9 hours cumulative unplanned downtime since we brought systems online in early 2003.
No. There are no bandwidth or transfer limits and we censor no content with the exception of sites that are repeatedly known for offering illegal content.
We closely monitor and ensure we keep plenty of bandwidth and server capacity in reserve for peak load times. That being said, if we detect abusive usage patterns, e.g. you’re trying to run a phone company over the VPN, we reserve the right to be unpleasant about that. Still, in years of offering VPN services, we have never limited anyone.
Any VPN or security application can slow performance, but it depends on a great many factors which can vary second to second and with each website you visit. Some users actually experience a speed increase when using the VPN service.
Overall, due to the encryption and distance, you will likely see a slowdown in download speed, but it shouldn’t be too noticeable in any practical terms. And, due to how the VPN “optimizes” traffic you can usually rely on an increase in upload speed, which can improve the performance of applications such as VoIP.
If you feel the VPN is slowing your connection abnormally, please consult Support immediately for troubleshooting.
You’re welcome to load your VPN on other computers and devices in your household so you should only need one account as long as you actively connect only one computer/device at a time to the VPN. If you need to connect to the VPN simultaneously from more than one computer/device, contact sales@witopia.net and they’ll see if you qualify for special pricing.
We recommend that you choose the product for the machine you use most to take advantage of our automated process and then follow instructions on the Support Wiki to set up openVPN on your computer with the different OS.
Yes. We offer true 256-bit encryption servers for our openVPN customers. Still, despite some speculation to the contrary, properly deployed 128-bit encryption cannot be broken with modern computing power. Mathematically, it would literally take thousands, if not millions, of years. Nevertheless, if you are being pursued by extraterrestrials, the NSA, or it just makes you feel better, we’re happy to provide it at no additional charge.
To clear up any possible misunderstanding, you can, of course, run it *through* a router, but not *on* a router. personalVPN™ is priced and supported as an individual end-user service. Therefore, running the VPN account from a router, instead of a computer or other end-user device is prohibited. If you desire a pre-configured and fully-supported VPN router solution, take a look at our CloakBox™ in Products and Services.
All customers enjoy unlimited online support 365 days a year. Any e-mail sent to support@witopia.net auto-generates a trouble ticket for tracking and is instantly assigned to a human support agent for resolution. We also have a comprehensive Support section complete with a gigantic Wiki filled with all sorts of solutions and tips for your VPN service.
We understand that online chat or phone support would seem to be better, but our e-mail trouble ticketing system gives us the opportunity to capture, track, and resolve support issues more effectively and also keep our prices lower. We don’t believe you will be dissatisfied with the responsiveness. We take it very seriously.
Lastly, we are continually investing in automation and our installers to ensure that support issues are minimized in the first place. That’s the real goal.
We’re a data security and privacy (not piracy) 
company first and foremost and although torrent technology has many legitimate applications, it is often used in the trading and sharing of media files with 100,000 of your closest friends.
It is a fact that P2P sites are often riddled with trojans, law enforcement honeypots, Identity thieves as well as, of course, copyrighted material. We also hear regularly from customers that when they subscribed to proxy services that cater to P2P activity they were sometimes attacked through these sites.
Suffice it to say that, all arguments aside, we’d be remiss as a security company to encourage use of these sites so , like most every other VPN provider, we must say that if your goal is to download or upload pirated files, meaning they contain copyrighted content without the owner’s permission, please do not do so over our network.
To make sure you purchase the correct VPN solution for your needs, be sure to consult Products and Services.
Nevertheless, one way or the other we typically support:
- Mac OSX — Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard
- Windows 2000, XP, XP 64-bit, Vista, Vista 64-bit, Windows 7
- iPhone and iPod Touch
- Windows Mobile 5 & 6
- Android
- Symbian
- Linux – as long as you, yourself, have a working knowledge of it and don’t think it’s “Free Windows”
Yes. Many of our customers are in countries or locations that block Internet services such as Skype or otherwise censor or monitor Internet activity or content. The VPN service should give you full and uncensored access to the Internet.
Yes. Although we can’t vouch for every VoIP service out there, we have many thousands of customers using Skype, Vonage, and many other VoIP services over the VPN.
If your VoIP service requires an ATA or other external hardware, you will likely need our CloakBox™ VPN router. This is most useful for those who don’t wish to use pc-based VoIP but want to use their regular phones or related peripherals.
Yes. Again, although we cannot vouch for the performance of every VoIP service out there, we have thousands of customers in blocked countries that use Skype or other major VoIP services every day over the VPN. If your VoIP service requires external hardware, such as an ATA, we would recommend taking a look at our CloakBox™ VPN router.
Yes. Now, if you need to plug in a device that does not have a VPN client, such as a PS3 or Xbox, you should look at our CloakBox™ VPN router. But AppleTV seems to have the ability to run the SSL VPN now so that should not require a CloakBox purchase. Contact sales@witopia.net if you have questions.
WiTopia currently has VPN Gateways deployed in:
Dulles, Virginia (Washington, DC Metro)
Atlanta, Georgia
Chicago, Illinois
Newark, New Jersey (NY Metro)
San Francisco, California
Los Angeles, California
Dallas, Texas
Seattle, Washington
Manchester, United Kingdom
London, United Kingdom
Hong Kong, China
More coming soon!!!
Please note that multiple gateway access is currently available only with the openVPN-based SSL VPN service.
Yes, with our openVPN-based service only, though. PPTP service currently only supplies US IP addresses.
Yes. It is very rare that the standard openVPN or PPTP ports are blocked, but it has happened. Our personalVPN-SSL (openVPN) customers have access to alternate ports which should get around almost any blocking by a local firewall.
No problem. As mentioned, we’ll unconditionally refund 100% of your money within 30 days of purchase. We may ask you why so we ensure it is not some easily correctable configuration change or some misunderstanding, but we don’t require you to give us a reason. Just send your order information to sales@witopia.net and request a refund and we’ll process it right away.