May 23, 2011 – Paul's Tech Talk

Is there a Free VPN for Linux?

Use Coupon Code “savenow15” AND SAVE 15% on the lifetime of your account!I had to search both high and low. It took me several hours and searching to find a viable option for me. I wanted to share this so others wouldn’t have to work as hard to surf safer on the web. If your like me, I like to go to free wifi spots to blog or even just surf the web. I don’t want anyone getting my personal information so I would always have to use Windows. I really got fustrated having to always load Windows when It was just easier to load up Kubuntu. I know in the past this was something that was never really an option because you’d have to be a real geek to do anything like this. Thanks to the open community of Linux, we have a viable option now for those who aren’t technically geeks but would still like to keep their web surfing secret from prying computers on an open wifi spots.

How to setup your free VPN for Kubuntu!

If you haven’t updated to Kubuntu 11.04 or later then you will need to make sure you have that version or later for this tutorial to work. You can also use Ubuntu 11.04 or later but the screenshots will be for Kubuntu, so there may be some difference in looks and names but should be relatively the same.

Book Mark the FREE US PPTP VPN site — This is essential because the problem with this free VPN service is that changes every 12 hours. This however isn’t a big problem because if your using a VPN for Wifi Hotspots. It just means everytime you go to a wifi spot you will be unsecure until you go to the bookmark and change the password. To Bookmark the site you can easily just press CLT-D.

If you have done those two steps then you are ready to setup your VPN.

Setting up the VPN

This is going to be relilitivly simple, because if your using the Linux you will know some of this already.

Go to your Network Manager — There are 2 ways to do this. You can find it on your toolbar either being a Ethernet or Wireless icon, just right click it and choice “Network Manager Settings” or you can click the “Start > Applications > Settings > System Settings > Network Settings”.

Once there you will want to click VPN

Click to see larger picture

Click the Add Button

As you can see if you have booked mark that page I told you earlier to go to. You will need to add the Gateway, username and password(remember this password is only good for a few hours, so remember this step). Then click “Advanced”

You will only need to do this once. Uncheck all in the Authentaction area but the MSCHAPv2 and Check “Use MPPE Encryption” but do not check the “Use Stateful Encryption”, if it is checked uncheck it. Then click OK!

Hit Ok or Apply and exit out of the manager. You may have to reboot to get the new settings to activate. I had to with my current system but that was only when creating the new VPN, after that it work fine.

You will need to edit the password everytime you want to use the VPN but if you have made it this far than you should be all set to use the VPN to safely surf the web. In order to change the password just remember the first 2 steps and instead of adding a new VPN just edit the one you created and change the password and hit Apply when done. I hope this has helped other Linux users to surf the web safely on free wifi spots. Enjoy!