[Nasser Alomran]

Hello All!

This thread will talk mainly about my story trying to get VPN to work on my BBOS10. Trying to get VPN to work is a living hell, especially if you are a regular non-corporate user like myself. Why do I need VPN? So I can enjoy all the US deals, I have a shipment forwarding company in the states and I have a physical address there as well, with VPN I can do the following:

1- Get deals and prices local only to the US, even though I am 12,000 miles away

2- Evade taxes, because I am not a resident or a citizen of the states or Canada. I can simply ask Amazon or other companies to either remove taxes when I give them evidence, or simply email authorities and get the amount refunded to my credit card (Just like when buying from the UK because I have a postal address there too!). 100% legal no gimmicks involved.

3- I can watch all the shows on Netflix in the states, UK, Scandinavian countries, whatever my heart desires. Some shows are available on one region and not the other. One example is like my favorite show Justified, I can watch it on Netherlands Netflix but its not available yet on the US one, Only when using VPN this is easily down by jumping servers.

4- Evade blocked websites, I am living in Kuwait, and all though its a free democratic country, sometimes things can get personal, and I can afford to leave cookie crumbs behind, let alone risk it.

5- Internet Radio and audio (Spotify for example). I can listen all day to all the music I want to listen to, and never worry about spotify or pandora not being supported in my region, super fast. DATA is very cheap in Kuwait, for 35 USD I can get 300GB worth of LTE (super fast 50mbps minimum speeds) data, more than I ever want, compare that to the US 30 bucks for 1 GB ?!?! So Im not scared about using my LTE connection for Netflix, watching shows, downloading torrents, heck even full games from steam!

There is alot more things, however I do hope that the previous 5 points do answer your question of "Why do you need VPN anyways?!" because I do, and without it my life is crap.

I was a Z10 owner, then a Q10 owner, before being fed up and jumped onto a Note 3 (did a wonderful job with torrents, VPN and netflix). Finally I just gave up on the Note 3, and went back to my beloved Blackberry, its a very complicated relationship, I just love Blackberries dont ask me why.

I got myself a new Blackberry Passport and I am on a search to finding the best VPN provider strictly supporting BBOS 10.3, no workaround involved, straight to the setup menu. Here is what I found:



StrongSwan VPN - Do it yourself VPN (Rating 3/5)
========================================

This is simply wonderful, I had 1 free year of ultra fast VPN setup on Amazon cloud not shared by anyone but myself. Setting it up was not easy, I am an BSc. IT graduate and I assure you it will take a full day of testing and getting things right. However there is one guide (look it up in my post history) that did a wonderful job of making the steps a breeze.

Pros:
1- Fast VPN
2- No bandwith restriction (More you use, the more you pay)
3- One year free from Amazon (Forget about USD 50 - 100 subscriptions)

Cons:
1- Can take minimum 2-5 hours to setup up. If you miss 1 step or do it the wrong way, GOOD LUCK troubleshooting! You have to be very careful to not miss or jump steps in the guide, it is very precise.
2- Entire hours of work will go into deploying 1 server, located in the USA, forget about the process involved to set up European servers, say like UK/British one to watch BBC region locked shows.
3- Scalable costs. You might not even know it, but going deep and deploying many modules/tools on Amazon's cloud can put your bill in the hundreds, or not thousands.

PureVPN (Rating 2/5) - As of 20/11/204
================================

I came across the service while searching through thearchives on the crackberry forum. There was even posts as recent as 17th of November 2014 talking about the service, heck even recommending it!

I went ahead and bought the service subscription, they gave me a 3.99 USD per month deal and that was not so expensive. However It has been 3 days, and 25+ correspondence emails with their support team and I cant get the service to work

The Time Line:
1- I ask them for a guide, they send me an old guide dating to pre 10.2 BBOS where we had to access Certs folder. I SPENT AN ENTIRE DAY searching for the certs folder just to find out the OMG, post 10.2 BBOS did not have a Certs folder, all you have to do is take their security certificate and paste it into your memory card, you can even email it to your self, then just click on import certificate.

2- Using their guide I found out they only had 3 servers for IKEV2, which is the only protocol currently available to consumers like you and me, beside IPsec. I heard good things about Microsoft's IKEV2, but its hard to find services. Another VPN provider by the name of Witopia (IIRC) has it? and its supported by blackberry. When I first contacted their live support they informed me that IKEV2 is available on almost all the servers, yet if you search through their documentations you find:

• 3 servers are available, one in the US, one in Canada and one in Romania
• Their server list shows UK/British IKEV2 is available but GOOD LUCK finding the server name
• There is no certificate available for you to download from your dashboard, you have to contact their support to have them email it to you!

Anyways, I accepted my fate, I am doomed to have only 3 servers. NOW I decided to follow their guide and try to connect to their servers, none of them work. Apparently the Certificate given to me has an expiry date of 12/11/2014, and their support keep explaining that the certificate never expires even though double clicking on it shows an expiry date. Connecting gives me an error "Invalid Certificate". So I ditch the certificate and follow a post on crackberry where a user successfully connected using the Addtrust external CA certificate, I tried doing that, I keep getting "Time out" Error. Eventually after 15-20 tries I got a connection to which it dropped by itself 10 minutes later.

Forget about connecting to their other 2 servers, Canada and Romania, its almost impossible to get things right.

Pros:
1- Cheap/moderate pricing through their last minute deal option
2- Very nice looking website and guide, they did a great job I have to admit
3- Nice client login interface and renew/purchase of things was easy
4- Provided me with a refund very quickly, took only 2 hours, but strict policy

Cons:
1- 3 servers available here for blackberryhttp://www.purevpn.com/config/blackberry/
2- US server worked once for me out of 40 times I tried connecting, two other servers are not working for me
3- Their support is terrible, you send them an essay of questions and you get 1 line answer, and this 1 line comes after waiting close to a full day for them to come back to you.
4- Their live support will tell you to send them an email, dont even bother asking them any question.
5- I've asked them 3 questions, and never have I gotten an answer from that.


EDIT: PureVPN was very fast to refund me the amount I paid to them, I was on my 3rd day and under 50mb, so I was covered by their refund policy. Please if you have any issues with them make sure you donot exceed 50mb usage or 3 days, otherwise you will not see your money. Thanks PureVPN for that.


12VPN (Rating 4.5/5) - As of 23/11/2014
=================================

Guys if there is one advice I would give to you, go for this provider. I did an extensive search and they have been around for years and they know what they are doing. Do keep in mind that they are exepnsive, but for the goodies you get (Autoproxy, Nat-firewall, SmartDNS) it is WELL worth it.

On PureVPN for example they make you pay for the extras, which can reach a total cost of around 60-70 USD. With 12VPN you can use discount codes (Im not going to post anything for integrity purposes), you easily reach that price, even lower!

They have an UPDATED guide, how do I know? Look at this photo



They simply crossed the way you import your certificate (on old release 10.1.x.x) and updated you with the new way to do so. It took me 2min flat to import the certificated (which wasn't expired by the way) to my phone and to setup a New York server configuration as well.

You get a great choice of 25-30 servers to choose from, I picked my favorite server location and set them up quickly



This way I can jump between servers instantly, it takes 1-2 seconds to connect to the server you want. I simply enjoy the collection of shows available on Netflix Nederlands (Holland) and their stand up comedies too.



Yet I like to watch the movie selection on US Netflix as well. I do my shopping all in the states because I can get my taxes easily, and pay lower than what the US folks pay for


Pros:
1- Easy to setup, very nice and informative guide (Up to date with current BBOS)
2- Many servers to choose from, all continents, world wide, and more are added periodically
3- Excellent support (Email, Knowledgebase etc..)
4- Amazing refund policy, 14 days (once every 12 months though!)
5- They support Blackberry, so thumbs up for them
6- In case you hated IKEV2 (which I love by the way) you can chose their Ipsec option!
7- They are headquartered in Hong Kong, no NSA/FBI sniffing bullcrap over there, ask Snowden!. They clearly state they donot log your activities. Lets hope it stays that way.

Cons:
1- More expensive than PureVPN and couple others
2- No live support option, only email communication available. They do have a number you can call though.
3- Very simple dashboard (though others might find this a plus)

Totally recommend it folks, if there was a choice, go for this one.


Witopia VPN (Rated 3/5) - As of 24/11/2014
===================================

I have much respect for this service provider. It is one of the longest standing VPN services, with easily a decade of experience. They admittedly support BBOS 10, They run more than 50 servers spanning the globe, from the states to the far east. Unlike the other IKEV2 providers, this player goes in with a Cisco IPsec configuration (Supported by BB YAY!), which is very simple, and takes you 2 minutes to setup

There was some problems with their Chinese client base, back in 2010-2012 where Witopia was blocked by the PRC, their websites and anything searched with their name off the Internet. They tried to find a workaround and a solution and eventually gave up replying to their clients through live chat or email, let alone financially reimburse them. I have read the stories all around the forums (especially shanghai expat forums) and even though I didn't read about their current status over there, I find their history somewhat off-putting.

Just like a majority of the VPN services supporting Blackberry, they have 3 packages. Their prices range from 49.99 USD/PA for the basic setup, to 250+ USD for the cloakbox service & hardware. Their basic vpn setup is not that expensive compared to other services reviewed and only lacks OpenVPN (which we have no use for as Blackberry owners anyways).

Unfortunately they RARELY (very rarely) ever give out adjustment/discount codes, in fact they haven't given out any in the past couple of years. They believe their prices are fairly adjusted and no discounts are needed. I always search for the discounts, I got $5 off PureVPN and $30 off 12VPN (just google the codes!) and Its fun trying to bargain for something.

Speed is an issue also, they keep saying that speed has nothing to do with them, but compared to other services I found their speed to be subpar compared to the others. For example being in Kuwait I compared speeds on servers located at the US (New York), UK (London) and Europe (Portugal, Lisbon) between Witopia and other 2 VPN providers. They were on average 20-45% slower in ever location mentioned, worst being Lisbon being 43% of the actual speed when not connected to a VPN. Perhaps that has something to do with me being in Kuwait? Who knows.

Give the service a try, they have a great 30 day unconditional refund policy, the best refund policy I came across. Consider that policy a trail to using their service, compared to PureVPN's 3 day policy, this is a great addition. If you find Witopia's IPsec suiting you, stick to it, if not, just ask for your money back. That simple.


Pros:
1- Moderately priced (Not cheap nor expensive)
2- Supports IPsec (Alternative to IKEV2)
3- Close to 50 servers to chose from, pick your favorites, and jump around when needed.
4- Live Support (24/7/365) which is great!
5- Blackberry Support - stated in their own words (Thumbs up!)
6- Been there for decades, will remain there for more (I hope).
7- Superb refund policy (Unconditional 30 days, you just have to ask for it)

Cons:
1- Some mixed reviews from different countries
2- Your country might have blocked Witopia for good and continue to do so (China for example)
3- Speed (Dont expect Lightning speed VPN, seriously)
4- No discounts/adjustment codes/coupons you name it, price you see is what you pay.




VPN Reactor
============

Upcoming review - wait for it

[Superdupont 2_0]

Just found this thread...okay, it seems you don't know how to import certificates on a device with OS 10.2.

Here is a guide:
http://docs.blackberry.com/en/smartp...2708099072.jsp

I am using the servers in the US and Canada on a Playbook and a BlackBerry 10.
No issues here.

I didn't check PureVPN for while, because I don't experience any problems, but normally they offer free trial accounts. At least in my case they offered a free trial account valid for 2-3 days, and I signed up because the trial account worked well.



Posted via CB10

[Nasser Alomran]

Thanks for your input Superdupont, Its not hard to import certificates, but thanks for posting the guide.

I was using the guide provided by PureVPN, it was out dated. The information on how to access the 'Certs' folder through Wifi/USB method is no longer the way to do it, ever since 10.2.x.x and everything right after, we can email ourselves the certificates or upload them to media card and simply click on them, to get the ability to import.

Unfortunately the certificates issued by PureVPN are on a yearly basis, the one sent to me had an expiry of 12/11/2014 which is close to 11 days ago, I kept getting invalid certificate on the phone as an error. Eventually I ditched the certificate and used the one mentioned in my previous post.

[Superdupont 2_0]

The certificate issue is interesting, because my standard setting was "all certificates", something I should have changed some time ago.

When I restrict the setting to the self-signed certificate of PureVPN (which I imported), the connection indeed fails.

When I restrict the setting to AddTrust External Root CA, the connection works (in my case).

Anyways, I will have a look at 12VPN next year.
Thanks for your review.




Posted via CB10

[R3d13]

Hi Nasser, thanks for the reviews and sharing your experience. I'm also in a similar situation and have been searching for a VPN that works.

Take a look at this site which lists some of the best VPN services:
Which VPN Services Take Your Anonymity Seriously? 2014 Edition | TorrentFreak

Most of them don't support IKEv2, but a few do. Have you tried TorGuard?

Besides possibly blocking VPN websites, does your mobile carrier ISP block connections to VPN networks? If it does, how do you get around that?

[Nasser Alomran]

R3d13 Good day to you.

Just make sure before signing up to any VPN service that you give their service a trial. Most of the companies I cam across (Cyberghost, PureVPN, AirVPN etc..) Offer trial service, if not a one week or one day subscription at a very minimal cost (sometimes 50 cents a day). Give that a try and see if your ISP has set any restrictions to them.

Just make sure you dont pay for a full service unless you check out their refund policy, some have a strict no refund policy like Cyberghost, I thought their IPsec is going to work on my BB and ended up paying 2 years subscription and stuck with it to this day, I've made use of it on my laptop and boxeebox anyhow.

[R3d13]

I'm going to try TorGuard since they offer a full refund.

So it looks like you've tried quite a few VPN services! I take it none of them were blocked by your mobile carrier?

[qazinm]

I just read your review and first of all apologize for the inconvenience you experienced. I have gone through your email thread and observed that you were given the link for servers by one of our TSE but it seems like the agent failed to properly communicate it to you.

I would like to offer you my assistance and I will personally try to make it up to you. Here is how you can solve your problem:

1. We offer IKEv2 on almost all servers, you can get complete list (which we have just sent to you via email)
3. Data usage limit is 500MB, also we are going to increase it into GBs in near future so customers could test our service in a better way.
4. PureVPN offers most wide range of protocols i.e. PPTP, L2TP, SSTP, OpenVPN (TCP), OpenVPN (UDP), IKEv2 and IPSec but there comes limitation that which protocol is supported on your device.
5. We found that information is wrong within the tutorial, thanks for pointing out, it will be updated in next 24 - 48 hours.

Please let me know if you need more help with PureVPN. I will be happy to assist you.

Best Regards,
Q. Nauman M.
Manager Customer Service & Support
PureVPN

[Nasser Alomran]

Thanks Nauman for your reply. This shows that PureVPN does care about its blackberry subscriber base, and BB owners. I hope I get the chance to give your service a go in the near future with the promised changes.

[freighter1]

Nauman, is the list on your website somewhere? I can only find us, can, and Romania.
Thanks

Posted via CB10

[laketrout73]

I just read your review and first of all apologize for the inconvenience you experienced. I have gone through your email thread and observed that you were given the link for servers by one of our TSE but it seems like the agent failed to properly communicate it to you.

I would like to offer you my assistance and I will personally try to make it up to you. Here is how you can solve your problem:

1. We offer IKEv2 on almost all servers, you can get complete list (which we have just sent to you via email)
3. Data usage limit is 500MB, also we are going to increase it into GBs in near future so customers could test our service in a better way.
4. PureVPN offers most wide range of protocols i.e. PPTP, L2TP, SSTP, OpenVPN (TCP), OpenVPN (UDP), IKEv2 and IPSec but there comes limitation that which protocol is supported on your device.
5. We found that information is wrong within the tutorial, thanks for pointing out, it will be updated in next 24 - 48 hours.

Please let me know if you need more help with PureVPN. I will be happy to assist you.

Best Regards,
Q. Nauman M.
Manager Customer Service & Support
PureVPN

Thanks. You need to change your link and mention that the SSTP list works as well with IKEv2.

Here's the link and list for anyone else:
PureVPN | SSTP Manual Setup Hostname List

[freighter1]

That would have been very helpful, had no idea that the sstp servers would work for ikev2...


Posted via CB10

[qazinm]

Sure, you may use any of the SSTP servers with BlackBerry too. Moreover, in the light of this reported issue, we have assigned our Development Department to rework on all tutorials and such information which will be there in near future. Also, we are glad to inform you all that we have added our Support Center which is support(dot)purevpn(dot)com having answers of all your questions. If you still have any question, our 24/7 live chat is there to assist you.
Actually we don't like our customers
We love them

Best Regards,
Q. Nauman M.
Manager Customer Service & Support
PureVPN

[gokulesh]

I recently switched to Witopia. Easy to setup and use. And they have servers practically everywhere.

I had PIA and since they aren't supporting BlackBerry I dunped them.

Posted via CB10

[froteq]

Thanks a lot for the great review. I am a Canadian expat working between South Korea and the UAE. Based on your recommendation I now have an account with 12VPN - it was super easy and hassle free. Everything works great, the set up instructions were clear and easy to follow. I couldn't access Netflix before, and has trouble with BBM and local carriers in Korea. Speed seems good and all problems now solved! Again, thanks!

Posted via CB10

[Virgil Munteanu]

Ok read this from down upstairs, at Hide My *** you won�t getting robbed and they have stable trustful servers with lower speed but purevpn speed is due tu their ip routing without trustful geo location changes. this means you can step into the internet trap pure like the name says, no money back only if you get mad JUST LIKE ME NOW!!

you should really start reading customer mails and reviews, I do not accept any cent to stay with you, I will move in 10 minutes to the next important page and start to post there but I have now that much of unique reviews I guess I will be very fast and I guess I setup also some macros to do it automated do not think you are offshore and god I am out of mind and secure

On 10.12.2014 22:49, PureVPN Support wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Please check the points and suggestions below:-
> 1. You purchased 4 annual accounts then ask them to merge to a single account having 20 multi logins
> 2. I confirmed you that 20 multi logins are allowed on your sigle account on 29th Nov 2014
> 3. Regarding Germany location you will be assisted and shown wit proof that there is no such issue, if you need
>
> Anyhow, keeping in view that you never used 3 accounts we may refund you in full for 3 annual accounts and 50% refund of the 4th account. You do not qualify for refund though having 39 GB usage as listed below but in order to get it you need to remove the reviews you just did. We may also paste these as a comment but we will not. We broken our policy to allow you on exceptional basis and to make it work for you i.e. 20 multi logins
> If you need the 100% refund of the 4th account too then you need to have a remote session with us after which your case will be reviewed.
>
> PROTOCOLS NUMBER OF TIMES USED BANDWIDTH
> PPTP 105 28,717,444,507 bytes (27,387.09 MB)
> OPENVPN-UDP 1 43,741 bytes (0.04 MB)
> L2TP 34 12,286,450,336 bytes (11,717.27 MB)
> Total Bandwidth
> 41,003,938,584 bytes (39,104.40 MB)
>
> Best Regards,
> Q. Nauman M.
> Manager Customer Service & Support
> PureVPN
>
> ***** We apologize for the delay, might caused in replying your email. We are experiencing an excessive load, unexpectedly, due to customer interest in the services. Our 24/7 live chat is available to assist you on immediate basis.*****
>
> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 2:37 AM, My Email wrote:
>
> I told you I won�t invest any minute in comunication with you because you are too lazy to read my issued mails to the support and their answers and that I got ignored totaly you ****ed me arround enough I won�t stop until I get my money back because I am a real person and can proce it you know what I�ll start to post now also screenshots online screenshots to prove it even more. just save my time and yours and the time your webmasters and supports investet in advertising your crapy semi vpn and return my money I will not stop it and this is my last mail bye bye
>
>
> On 10.12.2014 22:33, PureVPN Support wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Please contact us via live chat and ask for the Manager, I will assist you and clear the confusion / misunderstanding we have.
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Q. Nauman M.
>> Manager Customer Service & Support
>> PureVPN
>>
>> ***** We apologize for the delay, might caused in replying your email. We are experiencing an excessive load, unexpectedly, due to customer interest in the services. Our 24/7 live chat is available to assist you on immediate basis.*****
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 11, 2014 at 1:45 AM, My Email wrote:
>>
>> I need no assistance from you give me back my money or I distroy your business by reviews and I can prove it just get your *** in front of my whole emails and read them I was in time and I had really troble not that lousy multi login but I got ignored I swear I will invest every day 4 hours of searching pages where you advertise and write down reviews until your income decreases to a little student
>>
>>
>> On 10.12.2014 21:36, PureVPN Support wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Sorry for the inconvenience. It seems you did not notice what I wrote in the end �Still we are keen to assist you for which you may contact us any time.�
>>>
>>> Best Regards,
>>> Q. Nauman M.
>>> Manager Customer Service & Support
>>> PureVPN

[Virgil Munteanu]

sure Q. Nauman M. I wish you would tell to your customers that you offer no money back even though you write it on your page

[Nasser Alomran]

Virgil first of all take it easy, dont get too worked with these service providers because each one is different. Its true PureVPN have the harshest money back policy of them all but they do have their advantages as well. Never the less they refunded me the entire 45 dollars that I paid to them.

I really suggest you try other service providers. Give witopia or 12vpn a try, if you dont like it then just ask for a refund because these two are pretty lenient on their policies.

Sorry to see you having a hard time.

To everyone else: please guys try and make sure you give any service a go using their trial package, if they dont exist try and go through their refund policy, some providers are hard to deal with. I tried CyberGhost VPN they offered IPsec however the speeds and connection times were horrible, they simply had no refund policy!!! I wasted 109 USD on a two year membership offer that they lured me into...

Posted via CB10

[rblaa]

I have been using AceVPN for the last 5 years or so, they support IKEv2.

What I did is:

01. Download IKEv2 cert from your "My VPN Accounts" page of my account on my laptop

02. Rename the AcevpnEcdsa384Cert.pem.crt file extension to just .pem (BB10 will not see the .crt).

03. Email the renamed file to myself, from my Z10 I saved it to the download folder and imported it via Settings->Security->Certificates. It should show as something like "Acevpn.com Root CA".

04. Finally I can set up a new VPN profile in Settings:

Profile Name : Whatever
Server Address : Acevpn server IP address (get from account install instructions)
Gateway Type : Generic IKEv2 VPN Server
Authentication Type : EAP-MSCHAPv2
Authentication ID Type : IPv4
MSCHAPv2 EAP Identity* : Your Acevpn Username
MSCHAPv2 Username* : Your Acevpn Username
MSCHAPv2 Password* : Your Acevpn Password
Gateway Auth Type: PKI
Gateway Auth ID Type: IPv4
Gateway CA Certificate *: Acevpn.com Root CA
Perfect Forward Secrecy: On

[loveblackberry100]

What do you think about Vpnme which is in the blackberry world app?


Posted via CB10

[jope28]

What do you think about Vpnme which is in the blackberry world app?


Posted via CB10

VPNme works well for me. I like that the subscription is billed right on BlackBerry World.

[Hopefully NOT edited by admin to be fair lol. ] Frosty White Q10/10.3.1.2582 CB10

[kawikaratekid]

Have a look at hideme also.

Posted via CB10

[ZeBB45]

I am a VPN45 user and I strongly recommend.

Q10 - 10.3.2.2639/SR .2474  < α∂∂ι�т > 

[jope28]

What do you think about Vpnme which is in the blackberry world app?


Posted via CB10

I've been using VPNme (now called VPN45) for about a year and it has worked great. Use it to access sites and services when abroad.
It's super cheap and is adequate for my needs.

Remember to only use the native browser and turn WebRTC "off" when using VPN.

I'll continue to use their service. The app provides simple setup instructions.





Attachment 383424
Attachment 383425

 Frosty White Q10/10.3.2.2813 CB10 

[jaglenn]

VPN 45 works for me! It does stop at least once a day but I just tap tp sign in and it does. Sometimes takes 2 to 5 times.


Jaglenn's Passport