Comments on: Astrill

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 20:52:00 +0000

To add to the discussion on logs and privacy – this is a quote from one of their support representatives named “Torado” “We know everything sir.” as he was proceeding to terminate service. Pretty fierce and got all Orwellian. Do not trust Astrill.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 20:42:00 +0000

I was a paid customer. Astrill ran a 50% Black Friday discount – so I purchased TWO (2) years of service and one year of At Home plan.

Long story short, a year later they terminate my service telling me the account expired, and furnishing a bogus invoice that has no mention of the At Home Plan (which was paid for an received) nor the second year.

Tried for 2 MONTHs to plead the case only getting stonewalled and ignored. Documentation proving payment, documentation proving the services that were purchased differed from the bogus invoice furnished….

One support rep (who terminated the account) throwing insults throughout the process and enjoying the termination process. Bad scene. DO NOT BUY.

By: Jim Lyons

Jim Lyons — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 12:25:00 +0000

If you value your privacy do not use Astrill’s service as they log all your usage.

By: xlr5

xlr5 — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 09:32:00 +0000

A summary of service (after almost 2 years of using it):
1) First year speed was very decent ; second year when changes to Great China Firewall (GCF) were implemented OpenVPN stopped working. It took them about 3 month to come up with StealthVPN and during that time clients were not able to tunnel internet traffic. Trusting this guys that it will be fixed I did extend my subscription for next year. Well, fix was implemented but is paid additionaly (working most of the time as well).

What was outrageous after fix was implemented was that new customers were getting fix for free for a certain period of time BUT all customers were asked to pay for all of it (read: scre**d in the a**).

2) For simple questions customer service works good ; for more complicated it takes time.

3) Sellected Ratings
I asked them a question how can I post a review (as over a year customer I thought that I’ve earn that right). Seeng on their WWW so many very happy customers reviews (and none in the middle nor not happy) made me thinking how it’s possible?

After question was asked I was asked instantly why I want to do that. During a conversation it came out that Astrill is ’selecting’ reviews that are to be shown. Well, you can judge it by yourself but for me it’s at least information manipulation…

4) At the moment, as for China: OpenWeb is mostly working (but it’s slower than it was before and in some provinces there are problems with connecting to Astrill servers) ; OpenVPN is useless, StealthVPN is working but at about half of OpenWeb speed and is additionaly paid (even to customers that enrolled before GCF was changed….)

5) As there is no refund if something changes and you can’t use the service anymore you’re screwed.
Astrill does failed to provide current customers fix free of charge so they can use the service they paid for upfront in the same way they did when enrolling.

Astrill’s answer was: StealthVPN it’s more secured and computing power is not free = you want the fix, pay again.

I would recommend to look for an alternative VPN provider that knows how to care about loyal, multiuser client. To be true, I do that at the moment.

By: Frustrated

Frustrated — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:21:00 +0000

I agree with both HnK and Guest above. I also suddenly started having problems in November after using Astrill for several months in China. I talked to their support numerous times, but every time would get different people, most of whom seemed to have limited knowledge of the challenges here in China, and who would all give me similar advice to try the same 3 or 4 things I’d already tried numerous times. I suspect Astrill is going the way of every other VPN in China–the more successful they are, the quicker the guardians of the Great Firewall will figure it out and start shutting down ports, and/or throttle the speed going to certain IP addresses, basically whatever they can do to make using a VPN as inconvenient as possible. I think the Internet controllers here have become more sophisticated now, and may not use the method of completely blocking a VPN service; rather, while you can still sign on, they now throttle your speed to the point it is almost unusable.

By: HnK

HnK — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 18:09:00 +0000

I can confirm your statement about Astrill. I’ve been using Astrill for over5 months ,and recently ,about one month ago , it got buggy . And had all the problem said above . I dont know what’s wrong , and I don’t have that patience to contact their support and wait for them to reply. So after it expired ,I changed my VPN solution.

Believe it or not . Not my concern anyway.

By: Jotei66

Jotei66 — Sat, 21 May 2011 00:50:00 +0000

By far the best VPN service I have used and not expensive when up against the competion. I have tried many and none have offered the best speed and the helpful advice / support very good. I have a 20Mb connection, Virgin UK and while using Astrill I get around 18.5 – compared to many I tried, its amazing. Software bundled to connect etc is easy and non complicated. Would definetly recommend! Happy user for 12 months…

By: Alaettin Orduseven

Alaettin Orduseven — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 23:29:00 +0000

I don’t like astril. because usa servers not working.

By: Holson

Holson — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 12:03:00 +0000

Scam! Stay away from this company! I got a great offer, 40% discount, 39$ for a year. I signed up, and then just as I was about to pay… the price changed! It almost doubled! Suddenly I had to pay 59$! What happened to my 40% discount???

I contacted support and they said they have no discount offers on their site. Then I sent them the link with the ad proving it was on their site, and in addition a screenshot of it. They then claimed I had signed up with another affiliate… which is not the case at all… why would I? Now they deleted the discount page on their site, and won’t give me the discount I have proved that I was offered. It is just a scam!

Be careful people! These guys refuse to register you unless you give them your mobil phone number. Why? What do they want your mobile phone number for? Why do they refuse to register you any other way? When do you start to receive ads on your mobile? There have also been reports about their program is a trojan. And they give you fake discounts and then try to charge you twice the amount. Stay away! There are a lot of other VPN services that are serious and are not trying to scam you. Go with one of them. Thats what I am going to do. Never Astrill again!

By: Encore

Encore — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 15:31:00 +0000

Have you considered contacting their support? you didnt even mentioned your name. So,that they can look into your issue. are you even there customer?