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Today review


After my previous review hype, it is my responsibility to inform all users of add-ons to be very cautious. Be very careful and install at your own risk. By the third day, I have Re-installed Fedora 30 and Re-formatted the partitions and only installed mozilla-noscript from the Fedora repository and only installed HTTPS Everywhere from the Firefox add-ons.

By the third day of testing, fiddling and using this add-on, I had lost the trust and confidence for this add-on. My last Fedora 30 was only installed a week ago with only the default packages. I had only NoScript and HTTPS Everywhere in Firefox that I had used for years. Windscribe was the only extra add-on.


With Windscribe:

1) By the third day, I had to enter the url at least 3 times before it start loading. Websites kept reloading. It was slow with this add-on ON and its was not useable. I had to set it to OFF for Firefox to work.

2) ifconfig showed that about 30 MiB, the total of all the tun and WiFi Tx and Rx traffic, whereas the Windscribe counter showed more than 100 MiB used. There was no download or Video for the three days. 2.5 GiB consumed for just Text and some images in the last three days! That is not possible.

Can someone out there check what is actually going on using network tools like Wireshark, etc.?


Ok. I will do it on my own using OpenVPN and Cisco IPsec.

Firefox should invest the resources to review all add-ons for all updates before allowing them to ride on its Browser as it could break its useability and much worse, plant sinister and malicious codes in its add-on.


THE INTERNET IS FULL OF SECURITY FLAWS. IT IS UP TO ALL OF US TO PUT IN THE HEART AND SOUL TO MAKE IT GOOD INSTEAD OF EVIL. THEN THERE IS NO WAY THAT THE WORLD IS BAD FOR ANYONE.



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2 days ago review


Wow, Windscribe is really some Security and Privacy Services. Using sudo yum install windscribe-cli from /etc/yum.repos.d/windscribe.repo was seamless. windscribe viewlog show the line OpenVPN 2.4.7 x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu which is a native TRUE VPN which is, my desktop is connected direct to a France exit point through a VPN tunnel which is, all my desktop traffic is encrypted between any location to the exit point in France, like my actual location is in Malaysia, but my virtual location is in France. If I use wget in Fedora 30, all my data traffic will go through the encrypted VPN tunnel. I set my Firefox virtual location as Switzerland which is then a Double Hop, which is an improvement as all the Firefox traffic is encrypted to the France exit point and then the encrypted traffic is redirected to the exit point in Switzerland. The Double Hop speed is slower, but acceptable. Again, many thanks to the Windscibe Canadian team for producing this needed high quality internet package for the World.

One good feature is that the windscribe-cli reconnect to the last VPN exit point at every Fedora 30 shutdown and boot up cycle. It remember the setup parameters and connect exactly every time. Similarly, Firefox also reconnect to the last VPN exit point in every Close and Start cycle. In one VPN add-on that I tried, it requires me to login every time when I Start Firefox to get their VPN service. I remove the VPN add-on immediately and add-on Windscribe. That was when I discovered Windscribe yesterday. After a day or so, I found that Windscribe has all that I want in a VPN service exactly and more! It comes with Privacy on top of Security. Is save me a lot of trouble to search and do it myself to get only 10% at most what Windscribe already has.

sudo dnf update will automatically update what is new in the windscribe.repo . It is best that Windscribe put the windscribe packages in the Fedora repository as an open source. This would gain the trust and confidence of all Fedora users to install the Windscribe packages as any one can look into them for improvements and check for malicious code. NoScript has done it. sudo dnf install mozilla-noscript will install from the Fedora repository since the much earlier Fedora versions. There is no need to include the extension NoScript from Add-ons . dnf will automatically install NoScript from the Fedora repository and embed NoScript into Firefox. sudo dnf update will automatically update any new changes in NoScript onto Firefox.

Again, it is good that dnf install windscribe-cli will do all the work from the Fedora repository as only the Windscribe development team know the best to give users the seamless process. If Windscribe do have such a plan, please investigate the negatives in doing so. Like, many people can break the windscribe-cli if too many people are involved. Perhaps, there should be an approval process such that any new changes in the Fedora repository must be reviewed and check by the Windscribe developer before any update, big or small, can be updated in the Fedora repository.

If only the Windscribe client is running in Firefox, the WiFi icon is normal on the Fedora 30. If both the windscribe-cli is running in Fedora 30 and the Windscribe add-on is running in Firefox, the WiFi icon becomes a ? (question mark). It is imperative that the WiFi icon on the desktop screen is back to normal and add with a new 'Key' icon on the desktop whenever the windscribe-cli is running in Fedora 30 as describe below. The colour of the Windscribe icon in Firefox will show the browser client status.


Test 1)
Power down Router only and then power Router up.

Test 2)
Main power supply down. Router is down, but the Laptop is running on battery power.

In both Test 1 and Test 2, after desktop connection established, Firefox VPN reconnect again.
However, the Laptop desktop VPN tunnel remains disconnected. Users must run 'windscribe connect FR' to establish a VPN tunnel to a France exit point.

It is imperative that a Fedora 30 desktop must have a Windscribe security icon, like a 'Key Symbol' at the top right corner of the desktop screen to tell users that the Desktop is either connected or disconnected to a VPN exit point. Cisco IPsec-based VPN and SecurityKiss OpenVPN both have the 'Key Symbol' on the Fedora desktop screen whenever the VPN tunnel is connected.

It is desirable to have the Desktop automatically re-connected to the last VPN exit point as soon as the Desktop establish connection to the Home Router, very much like Firefox automatically reconnect to the browser last VPN exit point perpetually, as users may forget to reconnect the Desktop.

For both Test 1 an Test 2, Firefox could connect to a new exit point and not the previous exit point. It is desirable that Firefox remember the last connected exit point and establish all new connections as such in manual mode.

The above three inclusions will improve the VPN connectivity by a mile.




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3 days ago review

Do as described as a VPN like my IP address is one in Germany when I selected the virtual location as Germany. Although I did not checked using tools for the extra features like ad blocking, etc., I trust that Windscribe state it as it is.

Another plus is that Windscribe did not guide, force, misled or use sinister ploy in getting users to do unnecessary or unwanted upgrade.

So far my experience with Windscribe is satisfactory and smooth. Hopefully this add-on will keep on improving and will not degrade in the future. Then Windscribe will always have a place in my Firefox in every of my new Fedora about every six months. My thanks to the Canadian team in producing this useful Privacy and Security Firefox extension.