The support portal, our ticketing and chat systems will be temporarily unavailable due to system maintenance beginning at 8 p.m. MT. We expect this outage to last no more than one hour and it will NOT impact the functionality of the VPN. We apologize for any delay in responses to outstanding issues.
In an effort to ensure our agents are available to meet any support needs you may have, and to further prove our commitment to providing excellent and immediate support, we are now offering 24/7 live chat support. Like any organization, we understand the frustration of ticket wait-times and the sheer amount of effort that goes into ticket correspondence; including providing the wealth of relevant information that may be necessary to resolve an issue. If you share this sentiment, please feel free to reach out to one of our agents via the "Chat Now" bubble in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen and an agent will be with you to assist as soon as they
Thanks so much for your continued support as we work to ensure that your support experience is exceeds industry standards and that your issues, both technical and billing related, are addressed as quickly as possible.
You can read more about our move to 24/7 live chat and what are wonderful users mean to us, in our announcement, here.
While we due make every effort to provide our customers a retrospective, each week, regarding the latest news that may impact your privacy and security, we feel that ensuring individuals throughout the world are made aware, across as many mediums and platforms as possible. With that in mind, on our personal YouTube channel, Private Internet Access, we will now feature a weekly video highlighting the security and privacy concerns that might impact you, on a weekly basis.
Please subscribe to our YouTube channel, here, and make sure that you are up-to-date with the most important and impactful privacy and security news throughout the world.
You can watched the review for the week of May 22nd, by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az5xSbfSWbQ
Stay safe!
Today May 1st, our DevOps team identified an issue with our Socks5 Proxy that may impact connectivity. Some connectivity may have been temporarily restored for individual users, but a full solution for the problem is actively being worked on.
We apologize for the inconvenience caused by this issue and we hope to have the issue resolved as quickly as possible.
On Tuesday, April 28th, we removed our Ukraine location from our VPN network due to an administrative issue with the datacenter. We are working to remedy the situation, but no ETA is available at this time.
Thanks so much for your patience and we apologize for the inconvenience.
On Tuesday, April 21st, we experienced an outage that impacted the functionality of the support portal and our ticketing system. During this time, agents were unable to respond to user inquiries and guides and knowledgebase articles were temporarily inaccessible. We apologize for the inconvenience and we will do our best to ensure that user inquiries are addressed as quickly as possible.
Thanks so much for your patience and we apologize for the inconvenience.
On Tuesday, April 14th MDT, we experienced a temporary outage that impacted port-forwarding on all servers. Our DevOps team was able to isolate and resolve the issue. All port-forwarding capabilities have been restored on servers where available, including Montreal and Vancouver. We are currently working on an issue with CA Toronto, but do expect port forwarding to be re-enabled. However, we are currently unable to provide an ETA for completion.
Thanks so much for your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused.
The support portal, our ticketing and chat systems will be temporarily unavailable due to system maintenance from 7 p.m. MDT to 8 p.m. MDT this evening. We expect this outage to last no more than one hour and it will NOT impact the functionality of the VPN. We apologize for any delay in responses to outstanding issues.
Our DevOps team is aware of issues that may impact Port Forwarding usage on some of our servers. We have resolved the issue on all servers with the exception of Canada. We currently have no timetable for the re-addition of port forwarding capabilities to our Canadian servers, but we will make an announcement here, once it is back up and running. When attempting to use port forwarding (on servers outside of Canada), if you receive a "Failure" message, please re-connect until the port does populate as intended. Should you find that the issue persists, please submit a support ticket here:
https://www.piaproxy.net/helpdesk/new-ticket
Thank you for your patience and we apologize for any inconvenience caused by this issue.
Private Internet Access is happy to announce that the beta client and apps now feature WireGuard VPN support. WireGuard on our desktop clients and mobile apps are currently being rolled out to PIA beta testers. Note that this is still a beta version of PIA WireGuard support, there are still some features such as per-app connections on our Android VPN app that don’t yet work with WireGuard – but rest assured that we’re working on it! Also note that PIA will be closing signups for its mobile beta program during this WireGuard beta phase, meaning that the WireGuard beta is only available to existing beta testers.
WireGuard has been on the horizon as the next big thing in VPN connections since its inception and as such, Private Internet Access has been a major financial supporter of Wireguard development since 2018. WireGuard is a new VPN protocol which is made in and for the 21st century. It runs at Layer 3 and is even being implemented into the Linux kernel. For more information on WireGuard, check out our introduction article, WireGuide: All about the WireGuard VPN protocol.
You can read more about our Wireguard and it's addition to our applications, here: https://www.piaproxy.net/blog/private-internet-access-announces-wireguard-vpn-beta/
We are happy to announce that our Desktop team has a new version of our application that includes some important updates to OpenVPN, QT and our Windows Tap Adapter. You can find this update's changelog here:
Split tunnel apps can be configured to use the VPN only or to bypass the VPNThe default behavior can be set to "Bypass VPN" to use the VPN only for specific appsFixed TCP localhost connections for split tunnel apps on WindowsFixed split tunnel for Mac apps that bind to specific portsFixed focus behavior on Mac when closing windows with the keyboardUpdated Qt to 5.12.6Updated OpenVPN to 2.4.8Updated OpenSSL to 1.1.1dUpdated TAP adapter to 9.24.2 on Windows
If you would like more information regarding split-tunneling and its functionality (including the inverse split-tunnel feature), please refer to the following guide: https://www.piaproxy.net/helpdesk/kb/articles/desktop-application-split-tunneling-feature
We are happy to announce that our Desktop team has released a new beta version of our application that includes some important updates to OpenVPN, QT and our Windows Tap Adapter. As with any new release, all feedback is welcome and it's certainly no different with this beta! You can find this update's changelog here:
Split tunnel apps can be configured to use the VPN only or to bypass the VPNThe default behavior can be set to "Bypass VPN" to use the VPN only for specific appsFixed TCP localhost connections for split tunnel apps on WindowsFixed split tunnel for Mac apps that bind to specific portsFixed focus behavior on Mac when closing windows with the keyboardUpdated Qt to 5.12.6Updated OpenVPN to 2.4.8Updated OpenSSL to 1.1.1dUpdated TAP adapter to 9.24.2 on Windows
If you would like more information regarding split-tunneling and its functionality (including the inverse split-tunnel feature), please refer to the following guide: https://www.piaproxy.net/helpdesk/kb/articles/desktop-application-split-tunneling-feature
If you wish to try the beta, it can be installed from within the application, and we have a guide for getting this installed on your device which can be found here: https://www.piaproxy.net/helpdesk/kb/articles/how-do-i-join-the-desktop-beta-program
If you experience any issues with the beta, please reach out to our Desktop Development Team at the following email addresses:
Windows: beta-feedback-win.piaproxy.net
Unfortunately, due to our provider leaving the area, we have shut down our VPN gateways in India. We are currently searching for a new provider, but as with any such change, we will need to properly vet any new provider to ensure that their core values align with ours. Once a new provider has been chosen, we will make an announcement here.
We are aware of an issue with our Guides, within the support portal, which may prevent screenshots from populating properly. We are actively working on a resolution for this issue, with our ticketing system development team, and we hope to have a fix soon. Thanks for your patience and we apologize for the inconvenience caused by this issue.
The VPN industry looks just like the world of religion - everyone has their different beliefs on who to trust. However, even the diamond in the rough lied to the princess. Is it really possible to blindly trust a person or entity without getting hurt in the end?
Those of you who say yes, lucky you. For the rest of us mortals, I think the answer is, “no.” For anything you cannot verify, as Peter and Miles said, it’s a leap of faith.
But, when it comes to privacy and for the many out there whose lives would be put at risk if they do not have privacy, like journalists and dissidents, faith simply isn’t enough; especially, not faith in a mortal.
And we’re no exception. We don’t want you to blindly “believe” in us.
I Can Show You Our World ♪
We encourage everyone NOT to trust, but instead, to verify. In order to deliver a verifiably secure infrastructure and ecosystem, we are embarking on a journey which will lead us to a fully verifiable infrastructure to our community; this will require a number of steps which we will share with you as we progress starting with the following:
Open Sourcing the PIA Clients, Starting with the Desktop Client - Your machine is your private space. You deserve to know what you're putting on it, and what it's doing. With the open sourcing of our clients, you can now verify what you're installing. Please check it out!
Verifiable Zero Access: Start! – We’re building an internal roadmap to create a transparent and verifiable infrastructure, in which no one, including ourselves, is permitted access to the servers through which VPN traffic flows. We will keep you abreast of all progress, and moreover, this will be a community-led effort. Verifiable Zero Access proves that we cannot log or monitor your traffic.
Random Audited Truths (I smell a rat!) - We have begun reaching out to external auditors and, in tandem, are opening up our operations to review by our users. This allows you to verify with your own eyes, whenever you want. WYSIWYG.
Follow this space for continuing updates on our progress; we believe it is a revolutionary change in the making.
We don’t want you to trust us implicitly, so now you can verify.
We aren’t Aladdin. We are the genie who serves you, and Aladdin didn’t trust the genie. He got out of the cave of wonder and verified.
Don’t trust. Verify.
Introducing the only verified and verifiable VPN service in the world, Private Internet Access.
link: https://www.piaproxy.net/blog/2019/12/dont-trust-verify/
We are happy to announce the latest release of our iOS application, version 3.3.0.
Along with stability improvements, we have implemented a Quick Settings Tile which will allow you to open InBrowser from within the application. InBrowser, a browser created by our teams at Private Internet Access, is a private browser for iOS which will erase all data saved, during use, once the application is closed out. The data that is erased upon closure includes all history, all cookies and any sessions . You can read more about InBrowser here:
As always, any feedback you may have for the iOS application is welcome and very much appreciated.
We are excited to announce that, this past week, we released a new version of our desktop application, v1.7. We have introduced some new and exciting features with this release, including the Shadowsocks proxy option and new commands for the Command Line Interface which was introduced in v1.6. We have, additionally, as noted in our sticky regarding CVE-2019-14899, made some additional security improvements. As always, our team has provided guides for these new features, which can be found here:
VPN Proxy Settings Article:
https://www.piaproxy.net/helpdesk/kb/articles/understanding-the-proxy-settings-feature
The PIA Command Line Interface updated Guide for the new commands:
https://www.piaproxy.net/helpdesk/kb/articles/pia-desktop-command-line-interface
Below you can find the full changelog for this update:
- The Shadowsocks proxy setting can be used to redirect the VPN connection through a Shadowsocks region
- Added the 'piactl monitor' command
- Added the 'connectionstate' type to 'piactl get'
- Improved firewall rules on Linux to mitigate CVE-2019-14899 on affected distributions
- Improved handling of crashes caused by graphics drivers on Windows
- Fixed an issue preventing apps from being selected for App Exclusions on macOS 10.15
- Fixed an issue causing Windows 10 1507 / LTSB 2015 to restart on shutdown
As always, we welcome any feedback you may have regarding these new features. Many of the items implemented in this release are based on your feedback, so thanks so much for your support and continuing to offer us suggestions on how we can improve all of our releases.
Due to a significant snow event in the Denver area, our customer support staffing level is lower than normal. As a result of this storm, response times may be higher than normal. We sincerely apologize and we will continue to work hard to address all inquiries in a timely manner. Thank you so much for your patience.
I'm excited to announce that we have released a new version of our desktop application, v1.6. We have two new exciting features introduced in this release: VPN Snooze and the PIA Command Line Interface! We have added two guides to our knowledgebase that will assist in not just understanding these new features, but on how best they can be utilized.
VPN Snooze Guide:
https://www.piaproxy.net/helpdesk/kb/articles/understanding-the-snooze-feature
The PIA Command Line Interface Guide:
https://www.piaproxy.net/helpdesk/kb/articles/pia-desktop-command-line-interface
Below you can find the changelog for this update:
- VPN Snooze allows temporarily disconnecting the VPN connection.
- Added "piactl" - a command-line interface to control the client.
- Connection loss is detected more quickly.
- Fixed issues in the App Exclusions feature that could occur when switching network connections.
- App Exclusions supports macOS 10.12.
- Fixed detection of the iptables version for some Linux distributions.
- App Exclusions is improved for listening sockets on Linux.
- The dashboard repositions correctly if the screen resolution changes on macOS.
- Fixed an issue that could cause long delays when the client starts on login.
- Security improvements.
As always, we welcome any feedback you might have! We are particularly excited about the introduction of the CLI and we are excited to hear your ideas about how we might further build on this feature.
On the back of our announcement yesterday and the various media coverage relating to the upcoming merger acquisition with Kape Technologies, I wanted to take a moment to address the concern some of you have about our intent going forward, and whether this move means that we are no longer focused on privacy.
At Private Internet Access, we have always been very clear that our business allows us to carry out what we consider financially sustainable activism. We’re not afraid to stand up, we’re not afraid to speak out and we are quick to ensure that we provide support to those whose voices are often not heard, those whose causes are often overlooked.
Our business was founded with some very clear guiding principles that have helped us grow from a two-person team to a medium-sized business with a substantial customer base and a healthy turnover, and at no point have we let our integrity and belief that there can be a better tomorrow falter.
From day one, we have been clear that your privacy is our policy and that the Private Internet Access VPN and our other privacy products exist to bring power to the people.
Any company has a number of stakeholders; from ownership and management through employees and business partners and, in most cases, the customer base. At PIA we also consider those who are not our customers to fall within our stakeholder group. The people. The people are our stakeholders, and it is to you all, collectively, that we must remain accountable.
The decision to join forces with Kape Technologies was not one that was taken lightly, and it was a decision that came on the back of extensive dialogue and due diligence by both the parties in the transaction, and I’d like to touch on some of that.
Private Internet Access always has, and always will, put privacy first. Privacy is a fundamental human right as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, and one that our entire business has been built around. Our commitment to the privacy of our users, and the global population at large, is one thing we would never compromise on. Privacy is bigger than you and I, privacy is bigger than PIA and Kape. Privacy is an absolute necessity to protect and safeguard life for a substantial proportion of the world population.
At Private Internet Access, we want to continue fighting for privacy, against censorship and oppression and for human rights in general. We want to see the next three billion people connected to the internet. We want to see world economies improve in line with people receiving unfettered access to information. We want to contribute to ensuring that people can engage, become empowered and educate those in their communities for a better global society for all. We believe in the power of people and we have hope, hope for the future. A global future in which we all have the same access, the same rights and the same opportunities.
And, in partnering with Kape Technologies, we believe that we will be better equipped to continue fighting for the digital liberties of today and tomorrow. Through lengthy conversation and mutual commitment, Kape Technologies and Private Internet Access have agreed to codify some guiding principles going forward.
These guiding principles can be found at http://investors.kape.com/about-us and I also include an excerpt here:
1. Zero Secrecy – openness as a guiding force – we believe that an organisation cannot ensure privacy for others without being open and transparent itself.
2. Zero Reliance – we remove the need for you to trust anyone with your personal data by ensuring no one has it, including ourselves.
3. Zero Data – sanctity of personal data – we believe each individual owns his own data therefore we will never store or attempt to sell what does not belong to us.
4. 100% Customer first – we believe that all decisions should be made with the end user in mind, while maintaining profit as well as building a sustainable balance between social, environmental and economic profit.
5. Zero Theater – what you see is what you get, we tell it as it is and deliver on what we promise to achieve.
6. Zero Tier – net neutrality – we believe that all connections and data should be treated equally and without manipulation.
7. 100% Honesty – we will say it as we see it, straightforward and direct.
8. Zero Sidelining – life purpose – this is not a passing phase, this is our mission and we are determined to stick to it and overcome any obstacles which comes our way.
Going forward, Private Internet Access and Kape Technologies will be bound by these eight guiding principles in absolutely everything that we do.
We are not selling out, we have not come to a crossroads and decided to take an entirely different direction. We are growing. We are becoming stronger, and together we will continue fighting for a just world for you and I, and for those who come after us.
What we will do is use this opportunity to further our work to develop and promote better privacy and security tools, and further our commitment to and involvement in human rights and digital liberties as we continue to empower each other and those around us.
Give us the time to prove to you that we remain as serious and committed to the cause now as we were before, and join us as we break down barriers and unite across borders.
Millions of years ago, when we were the prey, we relied on our ability to have privacy to hide our location, smell and sounds. With privacy, we gained freedom — and we survived. However, over time, we gave up many freedoms in exchange for peaceful order, as social contracts and consensus on the general will had developed — but at least there was peace.
Unfortunately, that peace wasn’t the everlasting kind. Society has been refactored time and again and, moreover, has continually been rewritten from the ground up. But yet, there continues to be inequalities that lead to greed, jealousy, unfairness and pain, which, more often than not, has led to war.
Once we, the people, developed the ability to sequence DNA, we learned that humans inherently derive from mixed ancestry. Ancient DNA reveals that the mixing of groups extremely different from each other is a common feature of human nature and, therefore, no population is, or ever could be, pure and that we are all 99.9% identical. Therefore, at birth, one could conclude that we would have equal opportunities in a capitalist society.
Unfortunately, this isn’t true. A war for your mind, continues to alter our own abilities and view of the world, and furthermore, access to information specifically changes one’s abilities. Thus, the only equalizer in this world is knowledge and as they say, knowledge is power.
In the Information Era, uncensored access to the Internet and the ability to access and communicate information without the fear of being placed into a database, is by all means, the final frontier before the end of bellum omnium contra omnes.
Private Internet Access has always sought to provide uncensored access to information without anyone knowing. Our business has always been and continues to be focused on giving power to you.
In order to help fight the good fight for the equality of all people, 2.5 years ago, Private Internet Access began exploring partnerships with others in the industry with the idea that together, we would be stronger. We knew that the Crypto Wars were gearing up to become a mainstream battle. However, we were dismayed to find that many would not sign a binding and actionable pact to refuse to log, but there was one: our new partner, Kape Technologies, with whom we are merging with today. Along with its digital privacy activities, including Cyberghost and Zenmate, together, we will continue the fight, even stronger, and moreover, in the most transparent way possible – as a publicly listed company that anyone can own. The company, which will now be called Private Internet, should not be in the hands of any one person, but instead, all people should have the fair right to own and participate in privacy.
Along with our award-winning VPN services, we will be launching Private Search and the totally free and private Libre Browser, which are all powered by strong cryptography and the driving moral principle that privacy is a fundamental right for all.
It turns out, our natural instincts, dating as far back to the times when we were cavemen, continues to be our way to freedom.
Cryptography, which affords us privacy and decentralization, is the emancipation of mankind.
This is my faith, and this is what Private Internet is about.
Let’s finish this.
Onward, Andrew Lee
Co-Founder, Private Internet
https://www.piaproxy.net/blog/2019/11/bellum-omnium-contra-omnes-the-war-of-all-against-all/
We are currently experiencing higher than normal response times as a result of an increase in ticket volume and short staffing. We sincerely apologize for the delay and the inconvenience the delay is causing. We will do our best to ensure that all questions and/or issues are addressed as quickly as possible.
Thank you for your patience.
Out of necessity, we have removed two of our exit gateways: South Africa and Brazil. While this action, in both locations, was undertaken at the same time, this is purely coincidental and the result of entirely different reasons. Unfortunately, the latter of the two closures (Brazil) is a result of recent changes to Brazilian law regarding data retention. As this new law is in direct conflict with PIA's no-logging policy and our commitment to ensuring our subscriber's safety and security, we can no longer support servers within Brazil. You can read more about these changes and our decision, here:
Johannesburg, as noted in the blog post above, is the result of a closure of the service provider we use(d) in this region. We are leaving open the possibility that our South African servers may be restored in the future, however, any potential provider must be thoroughly vetted for security purposes. Once the lengthy vetting process is complete, and we are able to provide a server in South Africa, we will make an announcement here.
We are proud to announce the release of version 1.5.1 for all supported Desktop operating systems. Among the new features and changes introduced in this release is split tunneling, which allows applications to bypass the VPN using the App Exclusions feature. When used, this will allow applications to circumvent the encrypted tunnel and connect directly to the internet. While not all applications can be excluded, currently, a wide variety of apps, including those found within the Windows 10 Store, can be added to the exclusions list. Below is the full change log from this release:
* Split tunneling allows applications to bypass the VPN using the App Exclusions feature.
* Excluded applications bypass the VPN and connect directly to the Internet.
* Windows: This feature currently requires Windows 7 SP1. Support for Windows Store apps requires Windows 10.
* Mac: This feature currently requires macOS 10.13.
* Linux: This feature currently requires iptables 1.6.1 with systemd network control groups on Linux.
Additionally, in order to assist with any issues you may experience while using this feature, we have included a help link to the App Exclusions which leads you to the following knowledgebase article:
Split Tunnel Application Examples
As the title indicates, this article provides examples of applications that you might wish to exclude and how to exclude those programs that may be considered less common.
In order to gather feedback on this feature and to continue improving functionality, please visit our Reddit on split-tunneling, which can be found here:
Announcing: Split-Tunneling (Reddit)
Additionally, as the split-tunneling feature is currently in beta, and as we work to ensure users who experience these issues are assisted as quickly as possible, you can reach out to our desktop development team via the following email addresses:
Windows: beta-feedback-win.piaproxy.net
Mac: beta-feedback-mac.piaproxy.net
Linux: beta-feedback-linux.piaproxy.net
We hope you enjoy the split-tunneling feature and don't hesitate to contact us should you experience any issues.
Our Browser Extension team would like to alert users about a privacy-affecting issue in the current version of Chrome (v71) as well as other Chromium-based browsers, where DNS requests using the "dns-prefetch" feature will bypass any proxy configured in the browser and instead perform domain name lookups using the operating system's configured DNS servers. This effectively bypasses our Browser Extension's DNS leak protection and makes it possible for your home IP address to be exposed via your DNS requests even while browsing via Private Internet Access.
This vulnerability has been fixed in the latest Beta version of Chrome (v73) but until that version becomes stable, we recommend one or both of these remediation steps:
- Use the desktop client in conjunction with the browser extension.
This will ensure that any requests that escape the browser's proxy will be covered by the desktop client.
Setting both clients to the same VPN server will mitigate any performance issues. - Set your host operating system's DNS server to a static address.
We recommend adding CloudFlare's DNS servers as your host operating system's custom DNS servers.
Preferred DNS server address: 1.1.1.1
Alternate DNS server address: 1.0.0.1
Desktop Platform
Open Beta
We will be launching our new client on Open Beta (available to all customers) on the 3rd December 2018. You will be able to download the beta client directly from the Private Internet Access downloads page (available here).
The new client features a whole host of changes and improvements over the existing client, including (but not limited to):
- Brand new UI design
- Dark/light theme support
- Improved killswitch and leak protection
- Improved account handling
- Improved VPN connection negotiation
- Improved Installation
- Configurable DNS
Website Platform
Transparency Report
We recently rolled out a Transparency Report which demonstrates how many subpoenas and court order which received. The Transparency Report is available at https://www.piaproxy.net/pages/transparency-report
Customer Control Panel 2FA
We have added in 2FA to our Customer Control Panel (CCP) as per requests from customers. The 2FA option is available when you sign in to the CCP (default is disabled but can easily be enabled or disabled).
Please note: If you reset your password within the CCP with 2FA enabled, the system will prompt for a 2FA code in order to send the password reset.
Customer Support
We’ve added a Top 10 most commonly asked questions on Social Media. This will help customers with common questions refer to a simple post which has been pinned. This is available here.
These feature questions revolving around:
- 14 Eyes & Logs
- Accessibility
- DMCA (Copyright) Notifications
- FireTV & FireStick
- Live Chat
- MACE (Adblocking) on Google Play
- Regional Blocks & Censoring Countries
- Speed Complaints
- Suggestions, Feedback and Ideas
- Supported Operating Systems
In order to help answer questions in a speedily fashion, I am adding this (stickied) post to answer our most commonly asked questions.
For ease of reading, I have created the list with the questions and answers (alphabetically) below:
- 14 Eyes & Logs
- Accessibility
- DMCA (Copyright) Notifications
- FireTV & FireStick
- Live Chat
- MACE (Adblocking) on Google Play
- Regional Blocks & Censoring Countries
- Speed Complaints
- Suggestions, Feedback and Ideas
- Supported Operating Systems
1. Do you Log? But You're In A 14 Eyes Country!
Our logging policy is very simple; "We do not log. Period." We have stated this multiple times in court in 2016 (United States vs McWaters) and in 2017 (United States vs Colby) when we were ordered to provide logs. When we receive a court order or subpoena, our Legal department thoroughly vet the validity of the request and respond accordingly. Our Transparency Report demonstrates subpoena and court requests that we've received.
Being in a 14 eyes country is often a misunderstood concept within the VPN industry. The 14 Eyes agreement is an intelligence sharing community which perform mass surveillance and share the results with countries in the agreement. This happens irrelevant of the jurisdiction of the VPN provider, however the US is one of the only few countries left without any data retention laws.
Please Note: Whilst a VPN increases your privacy and security, additional steps and hardening will need to be completed in order to ensure your full security and privacy. Some of these practices are demonstrated in our Best Practices Guides on our Helpdesk and our Firefox Hardening guide on our Blog.
2. What Accessibility programs will work with the Private Internet Access client?
Currently the client integrates with VoiceOver (MacOS), Windows Narrator (Windows) & Orca (Linux) screen reader applications. Additionally, keyboard navigation has full functionality on iOS 9+ and 64bit devices.
3. I received a DMCA Copyright notification but my VPN was enabled! What gives?
To ensure your security and privacy when downloading, please ensure that your Killswitch is enabled with the various Leak options also enabled (the guide is available on our Helpdesk) We do not condone the breach of copyright material and is expressly prohibited by the Terms of Service which is agreed upon when you commence service with Private Internet Access.
4. How do I use Private Internet Access on my FireStick/FireTV?
You can load the Private Internet Access directly from AmazonApp Store or the Android APK for FireStick/FireTV through sideloading. The guide is available on our Helpdesk.
5. Why don't you have Live Chat?
Live Chat is available from within the Customer Control Panel (requires login) and is offered from 09:00 - 18:00 Monday to Friday MST. Outside of these hours, you can still utilise the panel to submit a ticket. We offer 24/7/364 support so there is always someone in the office working to respond and resolve any issues or questions you may have.
6. MACE is not available on the Google Play Store. What do I do?
MACE is available in all versions except for the one we distribute on Google Play due to policy reasons. You can get the Android APK with MACE from Amazon Appstore, Samsung Galaxy Apps or directly from our website. The APK from our website will need to be sideloaded (the sideloading guide is available on our Helpdesk). The sideloaded APK will offer auto-updates through the app to ensure that the most recent update is always available.
7. I'm based in XYZ country and I'm blocked from accessing your site. What can I do?
There are very few countries which are prevented from using the Private Internet Access service due to encryption embargoes (the list is available on our Helpdesk). However, some restrictive countries will prevent access to our website due to censorship. To combat this, we have mirrored our website on an .onion (piavpnaymodqeuza.onion) website to allow access.
8. I have slow speeds. What can I do to fix this?
Slow speeds can be caused by a range of causes and our Support Team will work with you in order to identify the cause. We will need to conduct testing with you in order to help identify the cause but there are some simple questions that we will need to help understand your troubleshooting and steps taken already.
- Where do you see the slow speeds precisely (torrents, general browsing, etc.)?
- What speeds are you seeing (with and without the VPN active)?
- What method are you using to test your speeds?
- What operating system are you running on your device(s)?
- Are you running any firewalls or other security software on your device(s)?
- How are you connecting to the internet (public wifi, your router, an ISP's modem, etc.)?
- How are you connecting to VPN (our PIA application, a manual setup, another application, etc.)?
- If you are connecting using a flashed router with VPN, what firmware are you using (DD-WRT, Tomato, Merlin, Pfsense, etc.)?
- Since government censorship and third-party interference can sometimes cause issues with speeds, approximately where in the world are you connecting from?
- Who is your ISP?
- Have you tried other servers and seen any difference in speeds?
- Have you tried other connection types and port combinations?
- To prevent duplicate effort, what troubleshooting steps have you already taken?
9. I have an Idea/Suggestion/Feedback. Where can I give it?
The best way to submit an idea, feedback or suggestion is by submitting it through our Helpdesk through the Feedback option. This collates all the ideas, feedback and suggestions in an open and transparent manner which allows multiple users to upvote. Each idea, suggestion or feedback is read by Management and graded for impact, importance, functionality and benefit.
10. What Operating Systems Do You Support?
Currently we support:
- iOS 9+
- Android 4.1+
- Extension (Chrome & Firefox & Opera)
- Android TV / Nvidia Shield
- FireOS
- Windows 7, 8.1, 10
- MacOS 10.10 +
- Ubuntu 16.04 +
- Mint 18 +
- Debian
- Arch
Whilst the Linux distros are not exhaustive, the Desktop Environment affects our ability to support the client. As such, Linux distros that utilise Gnome, XFCE, LXDE, LXQt or KDE will function (and are tested by our QA Team).
October 2018 sees some significant changes across the Private Internet Access service and client.
These are part of a coordinated effort to further enhance the customer experience whilst ensuring your privacy and security is protected. Our teams have been working tirelessly in the background, which were greatly invigorated after the success of the company retreat in mid-September 2018.
So What's Changing?
Desktop Client
We will be launching a closed public beta of our completely newly built client (planned for the 8th October 2018). This will be available to customers within the Customer Control Panel (as are all our Beta software). We will be releasing the code under our open source policy when we release the client officially (after both a closed and open beta period).
The new client features a pleathora of changes, including but not limited to;
- More modern user experience (obviously).
- Customizable dashboard, giving you the controls and information you care about at a glance.
- Re-architectured at every level and rebuilt using C++ and Qt, replacing Ruby and NW.js (previously a source of false positives by anti-virus software).
- Lower CPU and memory usage.
- Smaller download size.
- Improved killswitch / leak protection implementation.
- In-app update notifications (download and install updates from within the app).
- Encapsulate privileged operations in a system daemon (you will no longer need to grant root privileges every time you run the app).
- Crash reporting (opt-in; no information is collected without your consent).
- New dedicated TAP adapter on Windows (no more conflicts with other installed software).
- Built-in uninstaller on macOS.
The UI has also had extensive overhaul and improvements with screenshots available on social media.
We will release more information throughout the Beta period with any changes, updates and additional features.
Live Chat
Due to the success of Live Chat pilot program, we will be releasing Live Chat to all customers within the Customer Control Panel. Live Chat is available from the widget located in the bottom right and will be available to speak to a Customer Support agent from 09:00 to 18:00 MST. Outside of these times, the widget can be used to log a ticket as normal.
Live Chat will be expanded on the 15th October 2018.
Google Play Store
Due to restrictions within the Google Play Store terms and conditions, we had to remove the MACE component within the Android application. The MACE enabled APK is available for direct download from the Private Internet Access website and can be sideloaded using this installation guide.
As announced earlier as part of our August announcement, Customer Support is currently operating at a skeleton staff which will affect response times.
This is due to all members of Private Internet Access currently participating in our first company retreat. This is so we can build greater cohesion, team spirit and morale within the company.
Customer Support (including myself) are working at the retreat to ensure we are aware of any issues which happen and resolve as appropriate. We understand that this will result in a backlog of tickets to be cleared after the retreat and customer support agents will clear the backlog as a priority when the support department reopens at 0800 on Friday morning.
Facebook, Adroll, Outbrain, XAD and Taboola were added to our website recently in order to better understand the impact of our social media marketing. Due to the concern expressed in this thread, we have removed them all from our website.
We had utilised these trackers in order to assess the impact of our social media and marketing, and to gauge the impact of our work and changes. We do still have Google Analytics installed ( with 'anonymizeIP' set to true ) to give us some basic insights into our traffic and Adwords efforts, however we are actively looking for a replacement.
We will make further announcements as they become available.
Customer Support
On the 13th and 14th September, Private Internet Access will host our first company retreat in Denver, Colorado.
Although Customer Support will operate during these days, Support will operate at a greatly reduced staffing level in order for Support agents to attend and engage at the retreat. This will be effective from 18:00 on the 11th September 2018 until 0800 on the 14th September 2018.
The retreat will see all Private Internet Access staff come together in order to discuss our goals, our drives and our projects in order to build greater company cohesion in the spirit of collaboration and communication.
Open Source
Additionally, we are awaiting completion of external audits for several open source projects, such as our Android release and our new Desktop client when completed. When these are completed, we will be releasing the code for review and contributions.
We’ve seen recent reporting that implies PIA is vulnerable to the ‘VORACLE’ exploit. From our internal investigation, we are not vulnerable as compression is not enabled on the Private Internet Access service.
Compression was disabled on the 26th December 2014 within the server configuration which supersedes the local configuration and will overrule potential settings presented by the configuration file.
This prevents the VORACLE exploit from occurring as according to the researcher’s slides and results, compression must be enabled for the attack to be used against a VPN service.
To confirm that compression was disabled from the server-side, we checked the configuration settings from the OpenVPN command line (with verb 4 enabled) to show the exact push statement disabling it:
“Mon Aug 13 16:12:59 2018 us=472321 PUSH: Received control message: 'PUSH_REPLY,redirect-gateway def1,dhcp-option DNS 209.222.18.222,dhcp-option DNS 209.222.18.218,ping 10,comp-lzo no,route 10.31.10.1,topology net30,ifconfig 10.31.10.6 10.31.10.5,auth-token'”
We also confirmed that our Mobile platforms (Android and iOS) are also superseded by the server configuration and do not allow compression.
We are in contact with the researcher and will keep you updated if we see any evidence to the contrary. Additionally, we will endeavour to make sure any such reporting around this in relation to Private Internet Access is correct. For clarity;
“The list of VPN providers on my slides were just to help the audience understand the kind of vpns that the talk was dealing with. Not that all of those vpns were vulnerable. In fact, there are many VPN providers using OpenVpn and they could have this. This is why I worked with the OpenVPN team directly. Their usage [guidelines] now clearly talk about the security issues when compression is enabled."
- Ahamed Nafeez
As always, we would like to thank the researcher, and all security researchers, for helping expose issues in security software and making end users safer.
A part of our efforts to add several new regions to better serve our customers, Private Internet Access welcomes a new additional region to its network:
Johannesburg, South Africa (za-johannesburg.piaproxy.net)
This region was enabled on the 26th July 2018 and should appear in the region list of our apps shortly.
A part of our efforts to add several new regions to better serve our customers, Private Internet Access welcomes a new additional region to its network:
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (ae-dubai.piaproxy.net)
This region was enabled on the 26th July 2018 and should appear in the region list of our apps shortly.
A part of our efforts to add several new regions to better serve our customers, Private Internet Access welcomes a new additional region to its network:
Washington DC (us-washingtondc.piaproxy.net)
This region was enabled on the 5th July 2018 and should appear in the region list of our apps shortly.
A part of our efforts to add several new regions to better serve our customers, Private Internet Access welcomes a new additional region to its network:
Denver, Colorado (us-denver.piaproxy.net)
This region was enabled on the 13th July 2018 and should appear in the region list of our apps shortly.
Today we are excited to announce that we have released the PIA Client for iOS as part of our policy to Open Source all our applications. The client integrates with our previously released client library for Apple platforms.
We ask for community participation and collaboration for the benefit of all who seek privacy and security in the current age. Please do not hesitate to join us in #privateinternetaccess on freenode if you want to get involved, or fancy chatting about our open source initiative.
We still have quite a few repositories left to release, and we look forward to sharing more of the PIA codebase with you over the coming months.
You can find previously released repositories over at our GitHub page, please do submit pull requests, make feature requests and get stuck in! We want your feedback so that we can continue to provide the best service and features we possibly can.
Following on from the successful release of our Chrome extension and our Firefox extension, we are pleased to announce the release of our Opera Extension.
You can download and install our Opera extension via the Opera addons store or by the direct link https://addons.opera.com/en/extensions/details/private-internet-access-extension/
Jun
5
A part of our efforts to add several new regions to better serve our customers, Private Internet Access welcomes a new additional region to its network:
Berlin (de-berlin.piaproxy.net)
Frankfurt (The existing Germany Server has been renamed de-frankfurt.piaproxy.net)
This region was enabled on the 05th June 2018 and should appear in the region list of our apps shortly.
A part of our efforts to add several new regions to better serve our customers, Private Internet Access welcomes two new additional regions to its network:
Hungary (hungary.piaproxy.net)
Poland (poland.piaproxy.net)
These two regions were enabled on the 30th May 2018 and should appear in the region list of our apps shortly.
Some time back we were able to announce that we had initiated the process of releasing the source code for our client-side applications. Today we are excited to announce that we have released the PIA client library for Apple platforms.
The library allows users to easily enable and communicate with the Private Internet Access service. It also provides abstract interfaces for authentication, subscriptions, server updates, connectivity updates, managing VPN profiles, etc.
The library has been tested on both iOS and MacOS, and has the following dependencies:
- iOS 9.0+ / MacOS 10.11+
- Xcode 9+ (Swift 4)
- Git
- Ruby
- CocoaPods 1.5.0
- Jazzy (optional, for documentation)
We recommend using the Git and Ruby packages provided by Homebrew. Head over to the repository to take a closer look.
We still have quite a few repositories left to release, and we look forward to sharing more of the PIA codebase with you over the coming months.
As we continue our initial release cycle, we hope to see more community participation and collaboration within the privacy sphere. We want to work together to build products that are accessible and inclusive and help lower the threshold for providing unfettered access for all, regardless of location. Please do not hesitate to join us in #privateinternetaccess on freenode if you want to get involved, or fancy chatting about our open source initiative.
You can find previously released repositories over at our GitHub page, please do submit pull requests, make feature requests and get stuck in! We want your feedback so that we can continue to improve.
May
23
v80 Public Release Changelog:
- “About page”
- “New help menu item”
- “Added translations for missing regions”
- “Updated nwjs to 0.30.5 (fixes a memory leak)”
- “Linux: Install additional libappindicator packages to fix the tray on some systems”
- “macOS: Offer to shutdown PIA processes during upgrades”
- “macOS: Discontinue OSX 10.9 support”
- “macOS: Unquarantine application after install”
On the 23rd May 2018, Private Internet Access moved to a new Customer Support portal in alignment with our move to Open Source our software for greater transparency and visibility to maximise your security and privacy.
We moved from a dedicated, encrypted Zendesk deployment to a (again dedicated, encrypted) DeskPRO deployment. DeskPRO is used by a large range of both large and small technical companies and organisations including Microsoft, Capital One, the United Kingdom's National Health Service to name but a few. The DeskPRO code can be viewed and contributed to at their GitHub repository.
So Why Change?
We made the decision to move to open sourcing our software to demonstrate our commitment towards transparency and trust with the added aim to contribute towards the ongoing development of the privacy and security industries. We felt that in order to do this, someone had to make the first step and as such, we did!
In order to compliment this, we continue to migrate our internal tools to open source alternatives which again can be verified and audited to ensure the best possible security and privacy for our customers.
So What Changed?
Helpdesk:
- Feedback Section: The Feedback Section will allow our customers to easily file feature requests, suggestions and bug reports without the need to file ticket. Furthermore it will allow transparency to see what we accepted, what we're working as well as already deployed requests (aka successes).
- Guide Section: The Guide Section allows easy access to the latest guides which are updated by our Advanced Technical Agents to ensure the latest configurations are correct. The Advanced Technical Agents will continue to work with router firmware developers to also ensure setup configuration guides are correct when a new release is upcoming.
- Download Section: The Download Section is a repository of previous client builds and ovpn configuration settings.
- Ticket Submission: The new ticket submission forms require either technical setup information (for technical issues) or account identifier (for account and/or payment issues) which enable the Customer Support agents to quickly and accurately understand your issue leading to a faster resolution time overall and a better customer experience.
- Ticket Deferment: In order to improve the customer experience, the new support portal will automatically link to existing articles within the helpdesk if your ticket refers to the issue. This results in faster response time overall and a better customer experience.
- System Integrations: To ensure we are as well connected as possible, we have integrated our review and social media into the Customer Support Portal. This means that we can talk to our customers via a wider range of communication methods and review website to ensure a better customer experience.
Privacy:
- Privacy: All tickets will be deleted after being resolved for 60 days. For additional information, please see the new policy available here.
Future Development:
- Live Chat: Live Chat is currently planned to be enabled within the Customer Control Panel and will allow our Technical and Account agents to assist and resolve in real time with our customers.
- Phone Support: Phone Support is currently planned to be enabled (after Live Chat is launched and successful) and will allow our Technical and Account agents to assist and resolve in real time with our customers.
Please Note:
We hope our new support portal helps you find appropriate help information and get the support you're looking for, however if you find any dead links please let us know and we will fix them as a priority.