WiTopia
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WiTopia start providing personal VPN service since 2005 , they have both SSL VPN (OpenVPN) and PPTP VPN plan , you just need one account to access all their servers in 15 countries .
Unlike other VPN provider, WiTopia has installer to configure their service for you, it is good when you are not familiar with the network thing, you just download and click a few “next” button , then you are good to go . very easy to use.
And what i like the most is WiTopia allow unlimited, real-time instantaneous switching between all cities and countries , all WiTopia VPN gateways are pre-loaded into your customized installer that you will receive immediately after registration . very convenient . and of course they have 24×7x365 live chat support and 30 days UNCONDITIONAL moneyback guarantee
The only downside is WiTopia only have yearly package .
easy install with pptp or openvpn
fast with openvpn about 1.7Mbs
us and uk ips
I have used the Witopia VPN via PPTP on a Mac for a year in China. It gave me reliable access to blocked web sites. It was fast enough for Skype video calls to the U.S. and for listening to NPR broadcasts. I needed very little support because the service worked well and got what I needed easily and promptly.
Witopia is a great service. I’m an expatriate living in the USA, and use it to access BBC iPlayer from overseas.
I subscribe to their second tier of service, the $59.99 SSL VPN. The speed is fantastic; 6mb/s up and down when running a speed test. Download speeds from UK servers have been around 400-500kbps. I am located outside of Washington, so these speeds are fantastic – enough for streaming video to actually work.
I was intially hesitant about actually spending the money, but the speeds are much better than trying to use a free proxy, and the reliability has been great.
I have just started the whole VPN idea, which I like, and WiTopia is my first try. I have payed for the $60 a year service and so far I am decently satisfied. I have noticed that a few of the torrent sites I use I am unable to get to (I am based in the Midwest but use their San Francisco server) and that totally destroys the service for me. I have 30 days to make up my mind but I just signed up for Blacklogic and I am hoping I get better results from them. Speed is pretty decent. I have a 15meg down at home and it is ok speed wise.
Speed wise its ok I get around 2.6-3MB for 5MB line, I would hope for faster speed due to my 5MB line isn’t as fast as other people’s. I also tested this on a 1.5MB line which it is able to reach full speed.
A file dl from microsoft reaches 2.8-3.1MB with Witopia while without I can reach 4.2MB. So its more or less ok IMO, certainly better than some other VPN service I tried in past.
Compare to some other VPNs (I won’t name them) its reasonably fast for such pricing! Quick response from support as well.
Thumbs Up!
Witopia used to be great. Then around July 1st they decided to block torrent sites. Mininova, Piratebay, Isohunt, etc… I can’t believe they would do that. It seems like a gross violation of the TOS. They are getting a lot of heat for it: http://getsatisfaction.com/witopia/topics/pirate_bay_and_mininova_blocked (you can chime in). Hopefully they will soon realize how stupid it is for a VPN to censor. If not, I am definitely changing provider. Its a real shame, they really offered excellent service up to this point.
I am currently not in US at the moment so VPN is a must.
Problem to reach near full speed for my 8Mbps line I need lots of concurrent connections in Download Manager when downloading stuffs. A single connection I can’t even hit over 1Mbps, mind you this was tested on Micro$oft site. Without using Witopia I can quickly reach full speed with just 2 connections but with Witopia I need at least over 20. I noticed the speed isn’t stable either even with that many connections it goes up & down. Please Witopia fix it to allow faster speed on single connection!
Second issue is inexperience staffs at Witopia, support answer emails fast which is good however they are not that experience especially if you ask something slightly technical. This is however minor compare to speed issue.
I also agree with previous reviewer zag regarding some P2P site being totally blocked off.
I initially had a speed issue with Witopia but I contacted their Support staff (that I found very responsive and knowledgeable, actually). They only have email support but they wrote back in less than an hour.
They suggested I manually input their DNS servers and make sure I use their closest VPN servers as I was being allocated to a more distant server for some reason which was major cause of speed issue.
Very pleased now with speed and their price is unbeatable from my research. I think they should have made this more clear during setup, but i do like that they activated immediately and that they had installers versus the DIY approaches and “waiting to be approved” and then sending you a mess of files to install yourself, I saw with others.
This was a great service for 3 months. After 3 months it turned to crap. It works up to about 7 to 8 pm EST. Then it just stops working. It will connect but never resolve the web page. Waste of money. Support does not exist.
I started using Witopia in August 2009 mainly for access to Facebook, Youtube, webshots, etc from China. It was working great until recently. It seems the government has cracked the ‘code’ and those sites are, once again, blocked. If you intent to use Witopia for Facebook or other social networking sites access from China, make sure they have addressed the above issues before purchasing.
hello,
just got a Mac.
Live in UAE
Would like to load the witopia.
I am writing from a VPN protected PC. How do I get it on the Mac?
Currently on my last days of 30 day money-back guarantee and thinking to cancel. I don’t know if it is their fault or are Chinese somehow catching up with them. I ordered the 60USD backage, OpenVPN and have had huge troubles accessing Facebook all the time. My ping times are to their servers over 350ms and I am in very fast network in Shanghai. Facebook disconnects, or just won’t open at all most times.
They helped me to connect to their Hong Kong servers but they were even worse pings than the ones to USA!
Witopia is most affordable service and I pay the fees from my own pocket . My god hence I hope I could use their services but now it is such a pain.
Just to add, I can confirm the same issues now that “Polly” and “Bob Smith” are reporting! I did not read other reviews before posting so please be aware, the Chinese are maybe on to Witopia or something else is going on!
Yes, now I realised also that Piratebay is blocked by Witopia. Without Witopia you cannot access Piratebay either so it is not totaly no-go inside China. Lets see when they start blocking Facebook etc. Witopia I mean. BTJunkie is ok with Witopia, AND without witopia. But with Witopia you cannot download any torrents from BTJunkie. ARGH! Fucking cunts. Not only that but as reported there is huge problems now to access internet through Witopia access points inside China so I think I will definetly cancel their asses off from my list and try one another service I found that operates in Netherlands and costs 5 euros a month.
To follow up, I can attest Witopia worked well for me in Shanghai and Beijing. Facebook, twitter, everything. It was magic. I used the san francisco servers for US content and Hong Kong for general use. The london servers were a little slow from China but I was able to download shows to watch later if real-time proved too jittery. I don’t use pirate bay or file-sharing so not an issue for me and understand why they might not want to take that on!
If slow, contact their support and escalate if they don’t fix it. my vpn was slower until i adjusted it and then it was near line speed.
I frequently traveled, witopia seems to be working fine. It gives reasonable speed not great speed but at its price its value for money to me. I however would like to see an Asian gateway from them in not too distant future preferably from Japan or S Korea.
Currently happy with it.
Witopia has a Hong Kong gateway. If you are having speed issues with them, you should contact their support people as once I learned to switch cities and entered their DNS servers I had much faster speed.
I’ve been a fan and user of Witopia’s VPN service for the past 4 years, but this is very very sad and unacceptable. Blocking Bit-torrent sites is not cool.
It was always obvious you can’t download via torrents all day on WiTopia’s service, I just to used to grab the pointer torrent file only, then disconnect from Witopia and then download via my faster local ISP’s non filtered connection.
I don’t see the point in renewing this service, since there is enough blocking in UAE already, after so many years. I Feel like I’ve betrayed my friends’ trust who are also Witopia customers now, and were asking about these network errors.
Guys any other comparable services around?
Witopia has been great from about Oct-Dec 2009, all of a sudden, facebook and several other blocked sites are unaccessable from China. Not to mention regular websites that are extremely slow. I understand using a proxy server will take some time, but just recently it has completely fell off completely regarding speed. Hopefully, this is not a major issue and the Witopia support team can get me back up and running smoothly or else, it’s back to the drawing board to get around China’s Firewall.
Witopia is extremely fast from China but you need to use their latest installer and make sure you use their dns. contact them for update.
For all you who need to know; YES WITOPIA DOES WORK IN CHINA! I have been living in Beijing, for about a month now, got sick of not having things I took for granted when I was back in the states (like youtube), so I bought the personalVPN SSL for Mac last night and I gave it a try….
Now I can now access both my facebook and twitter accounts as well as watch youtube and episodes of 30 Rock from nbc.com
I am totally satisfied with everything. There is an actual person who gets back to me for technical support issues and not some automated messege! I am very happy with my service from WiTiopia.
I’ve had Witopia PersonalVPN for about a year now. I can say that I’ve been overwhelmingly satisfied with the service. Value for the money was great… especially when the price was $39.99…it is now $59.99, and while I’m most likely renewing, I’m shopping around today because of that jump. It’s still a decent price, but I haven’t seen a 50% increase in service and functionality to correspond with a 50% increase in price. If there’s new software, I can’t help but ask why, as a current customer, I haven’t been provided with it. If you want to keep me as a customer, this seems like a no-brainer.
When I got my renewal notice, I went to the site to do exactly that, so before you weigh my gripes, view that as a testament to Witopia’s PersonalVPN service. Last night, I had my first problem ever with witopia when Google flagged my searches and required visual code verification to prove I wasn’t a spider. The renewal notice probably didn’t come at the most opportune time for Witopia, but I was ready to do so anyways, right up until I noticed that the price had jumped by 50%. I was less than thrilled.
Witopia assures me that “We have made many upgrades to our services.” Well, I’ve been a customer for a year, and even with the upgrades made in infrastructure, I’ve been using the same software since day one with no ability to update despite apparently new features becoming available. They say that they have “alternate ports and 256-bit encryption options” and different gateways. Currently I have no ability to easily select any of their new gateways without manually editing their config files in a text editor, and if I have a way to change the ports and encryption strength, I certainly don’t know about it. This just gives me the feeling that once I pay for the service, I get the product as is, no updates, you’re done with me. New UK or China gateways are not “upgrades” to a US customer, especially when functionality has decreased…
Specifically, I’ve lost the ability to use Hulu, and for someone in the US that’s using a VPN from hotel rooms for legitimate security purposes, I can’t tell you how frustrating this is -Especially since some hotels block Hulu and Slingbox traffic. Frankly, when it comes to Hulu, there’s no guarantee that any alternate VPN will be able to avoid the same fate, but if I’m sending a 200mb CAD file to my office which, on those connections, can take all night, there’s no Hulu until it’s done transferring. I actually bring a netbook now just for file transfers! Even though Hulu accounts for probably less than 5% of my time, it’s a highly noticeable decrease in functionality that has occurred this year. A new gateway in Hong Kong or London is not a new feature for a US customer. Faster speeds are great, but when functionality decreases, and price increases, the next destination for this customer is MyVPNReviews.
Make no mistake, in all likelihood, if I don’t find an alternative with comparable service, price, and software, I’ll probably renew with Witopia. I can still successfully use Witopia when abroad to connect to Netflix and Xbox live (via internet connection sharing with a notebook), and the ability to use it on windows mobile and apple devices has been a lifesaver in public locations. Again, my complaints come down to not seeing a 50% increase in value to justify a 50% increase in price. If there’s new functionality in the software, then why, as a current customer, have I not been provided with this? Just some of the questions I’ll be looking to answer in the 30 days I have left to renew.
Hi,
You can upgrade your software at any time with WiTopia and gain access to all enhancements. As a US user, you will appreciate the adding of many cities to include San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Seattle, New York, Atlanta, Chicago, washington, DC (and more coming) as well as Hong Kong and Manchester and London UK.
I think it is very unfair to characterize it as a “50%” increase as what we’re talking about is the expiration of a promotional offer that we ran for so long people came to accept $39.99 a year as our regular price for openVPN access.
We decided to end the promotion and charge $59.99 a year for openVPN access and maintain PPTP at 39.99 a year. That is still very much below what you will find elsewhere and they likely won’t include all the coverage we have, tcp 443 and 256-bit encrypted servers, REAL-TIME and UNLIMITED gateway/server switching. No bandwidth limits, etc.
If it must be characterized as an “increase” in price, and not a promotion expiration, we’re really talking about a $20 per year price change. For Mac users, we also now include Viscosity client ($9 retail) at no additional cost and, versus e-mailing you files like others as kind of a “VPN kit,” we are about to issue our second generation of simple Installers,
Suffice it to say that we have invested immensely in the service since launching it in March 2005 and are not a couple server shop out to make a quick buck.
Like anything in telecom/Internet, you may not recognize an immediate tangible benefit from this investment (although there are many) because of the major benefits is that we will be there when you need us. Reliability, ISP route diversity, security, support, data center space, etc. are costly. well..they’re costly when you do it right.
It sounds like you use the service a lot, and for heavy bandwidth transfers. Have you had many outages? Any bills for extra bandwidth?
I know you say that you are overwhelmingly satisfied with the service and will likely renew, and we very much appreciate that, but there seems to be a big misunderstanding as to our intentions and i felt we were being mischaracterized.
Yes. For unlimited openVPN access, unlimited city-switching, unlimited bandwidth, tcp 443 and 256-bit encryption options, unlimited support, %99.9999 availability, 30 day moneyback guarantee (best in industry), 5 years experience (as of March 2010) as premiere VPN service provider, we now charge $59.99 a year.
Please do compare because you might gain a whole new appreciation for us and what we provide for such an amazingly generous price point.
p.s. Support should have instructed you how to update as well as access any multimedia service you desire, including the one that starts with “H.” We just do not discuss that on public forums.
No doubt, Witopia provides the best service for the best price. Who can beat $69 per year? However, the connection is terribly slow for streaming media and online gaming. Speed addicts might want to check out the competition and pay a few extra dollars for sonic boom speed.
I stream hulu, bbc (for my Top Gear fix), Pandora, and Netflix using Witopia from china and US and speed was always excellent. You do need to use their DNS servers though!! If you use openDNS or your ISPs, it can be a lot slower.
They also don’t send out much e-mail (any, really) so you need to actively contact them to get latest updates. They need to work on keeping customers updated better IMHO. I bought in May 2009 and was shocked at all the cities they had added, including special servers for China.
I was a bit miffed they didn’t actively let me know they had added so much to the service, but they allowed me to update at no additional cost and the service and speed is very good.
if you have a speed issue, contact their support team right away. I find they are very helpful.
the download speed sucks unless you browse the internets on Lynx. updating DNS servers and switching cities do nothing but cut a north american 12 mbps line into a Chinese dial-up. hey, the old reviews by josh tes, polly and bob smith are still true today. but they excluded WiTopia’s shady salespeople lurking in forums to exaggerate their services. of course, other vendors are guilty as hell as well.
Grasshopper,
I am the only person from WiTopia that has ever commented on these forums and I was clear about that. Poor speed is always a local or “in between you and our servers” issue and are 99% resolvable. We do not limit bandwidth, have huge connections with multiple ISPs, and have ample server and bandwidth capacity at all our gateway cities. If you have a 12 Mbps line, you should get most of that easily unless there is another issue which we can gladly troubleshoot with you.
If you are truly one of our customers and not a competitor, Please contact our support team immediately so we can help you find out why your performance is so poor. This is also a good article if you wish to investigate yourself: http://wiki.personalvpn.net/wiki/VPN_Service_Speed_Issues
I tried this company today, using their Open (SSL) VPN solution. They have an excellent website and I really wanted to be able to recommend them, but I’m afraid I just can’t.
To use the VPN you have to install their software which I found to be very amateur. For example, when you install it comes up with the usual screen to choose where you want to install to, but woe betide you if you are foolish enough to use any location but the default! After that nothing works! Why provide the screen at all if it will break if you use it. Likewise, under Vista you must run the software as Administrator or it won’t work, which I don’t much like either.
Most importantly though, I have to echo another reviewer and say that I too found the performance pretty bad. I’m also trying to use their service from China and while there were occasional bursts of speed acceptable (not stunning) performance, it was mostly pretty unusable. Even the simplest web surfing task (and I’m talking small pages here, not hugely intensive ones) would simply hang up indefinitely. I tried testing some of their servers using SpeedTest.Net and found that many of the servers had terrible connection speeds so I know that it’s not just about my connection here in China.
I never bothered to try their support so I’ve been charitable and given it 5 stars. I can’t actually comment on it.
All in all, I got better service from my previous vpn at half the price.
Sasha-
with openVPN, you have to install software and run as administrator if you use Vista. This has nothing to do with us. Just the way it is. openVPN is the best VPN software on market today and we deployed it before anyone else and have used it for over 5 years. It’s more powerful than built-on VPNs (which we also have), but it does require an install and administrator access.
As far as performance, I really wish you would have contacted our support staff before you posted a negative review as any speed issue in China is very easily correctable. We even post what to do in the setup instructions if you encounter a speed issue.
We have an unconditional 30 day refund policy though so if you don’t want to correct this, we can refund your money, but I ask you to contact our support right away so we can help.
I find the Witopia service to be rather good. From pre-sales emails to setup support issues – it all works fine.
My download speeds are at about 90-99% of what my ISP provides and uploads are – as weird as it may sound – much faster through the VPN. My ISP provides 1.5Mbit/s but I most times do speedtests giving me some 6-7Mbit/s. Must be something wrong with the speedtests (although I’ve tried +15 and they all give the same result).
I am quite content with the selection of servers available, although I would like to see one in Denmark – so I could watch Danish TV online.
This is the best VPN that I’ve ever used / seen out there! They have fantastic support and have really improved their service over the years! I would definitely suggest you give WiTopia a BIG look if you’re looking for a solid VPN!
Great guys that gave me super fast support. Always nice to know someones on the other end of these web businesses. Top-notch : )
I live in Australia and was concerned about the upcoming internet filter/goverment control of information masked as protecting people. I decided to look at the options for a VPN. Witopias support is awesome. I emailed them and received a response within 5 minutes advising me what to do to fix the speed issue i was having at first. It was a quick and simple fix that solved the problem straight away. I have told anyone who will listen how good the service and support is.
Hi guys,
Just a quick note to say a HUGE thank you for your service.
Now I can use wireless connections whilst on my travels safely and securely. I use the SSL version on a Vista and it’s works well every time without slowing down surfing!
My only complaint is that I should have been using this earlier.
You Guys Rock!
1. The ssl connection provide by you really rocks. I have so many options. (so many servers) to cocnnect. The one really in manchester side is really fast.
2. Windows 7 as of now i didnt find any issues after isntalling the SSL connection. It is 100% stable in relation to pptp. Because from here when i used to connect through pptp before once or twice it used to disconnect.
3. But sisnce yesterday after installing ssl on windows 7 on my directors laptop till now it hasnt disconnected.
4.The support staff/support from your staff was really incredible.Even if I am in UAE and with the time diferrence i found it very impressive because i used to get a reply within 3o min max which is really aooreciable.
5. Last bu ot least i will suggest this to my friends.
This is thee best VPN service I have been using for more than 2 yrs now. I travel frequently to China on business trips so having a secure tunnel gives me piece of mind when checking my bank statements or other personal accounts online.
Support is the best in the business. I have emailed these folks in the wee hours of the morning and I actually had a human email me back. You can’t get this type of support these days from anyone, not even Uncle Sam. I’d recommend it to any friends or family members for secure transactions and surfing while overseas or at airports or any establishment that offers free wifi connections.
The VPN service (at least from China) is not super fast but it’s enough for me. The best thing about Witopia is the SUPPORT!! Really fast, friendly and helpful. The installation is also pretty easy.
Thank you WiTopia for an excellent service! I have used your service for a year in China and was so impressed that I just signed up for another year.
Your support team is incredible! I had a small problem, sent an email and they fixed it in 4 minutes! Wow!
Wow !! Thats the least I can say !! I came to this site hunting for cheaper VPN solutions and what a shock I had !! I have been using Witopia VPN for 2 years now and I have never had a single problem. The speed has always been as fast as my connection could go (24Mb/s).
What really made me appreciate it is looking at the prices of the competitor VPN solutions through this site….Its NOT EVEN CLOSE !!! and the best thing is that it offers UNLIMITED b/w.
Simply put……competition stands no chance.
Support with witopia is *excellent*. I had issues connecting to a certain video site in the USA using PPTP. Support provided assistance in upgrading to a open vpn based service, in less than one hour and on a Sunday.
I wish all software vendors had support like this.
Thanks Witopia.
i am living in china..i think witopia is my best purchase here in china. i had some problems last 10 days. and almost planning to send email to customer service today. but i received automatically an email today which mentioned about the problems i have.i thought it was a luck. and send an email to customer service and i received the reply just in about a minute..its great. definitely suggest Witopia VPN..
good work thanks..
WiTopia scores high on all levels, from the quality of its service, to the speed and reliability of its VPN and its incredibly fast and helpful customer service.
Well what can I say…
One of the servers were down and I asked a question via the support “contact us link” of Witopia. The response was accurate and extensive and clear. Travis came back to me with two possible solutions, which worked and my problem was resolved in less than one hour..
From Australia, I would never have expected such quick service.
Thank you very much for your help today, I strongly recommend using witopia!
Sebastien
As a self-confessed cyber peasant driven crazy by Internet censorship in t”he world’s most populous country”, I was a little hesitant about going for a VPN as I had imagined installation would be technically demanding for a computer illiterate. But I was lucky enough to get JEN as my “human” and she walked me patiently through the installation process, simplifying the terminology so that even this cyber-peasant could get the installation done. As I am still on DAY ONE of my WITopia journey I limit my ratings to SUPPORT and award FIVE STARS, the same number as on the flag of the country I am living in! Great job, JEN, working somewhere out there in the Shenandoah Valley.
Excellent product. Outstanding customer service. Highly recommended!!
I began using WiTopia in 2008 due to frequent travel. Shortly thereafter, I was reassigned to Europe, making the purchase an even better value. I recently passed my renewal period and didn’t hesitate to do so.
I use the service for my mobile devices as well. After recently purchasing an iPad, I was having difficulty getting the service setup. I sent a message to customer service and received a response within a couple of hours. I was able to correct my own error and get the service going. This was my second time using customer service and the second time they’ve been both timely and helpful.
I do notice a speed difference over the VPN, which is to be expected. I wouldn’t call it significant and it doesn’t affect my opinion of the value of the service provided. If you are looking for a VPN, give WiTopia a try. I think you’ll be as satisfied as I am.
I’m sure I’m not the most knowledgeable responder here regarding the technical aspects of using any VPN, but one thing that consistently impresses me about WiTopia is its customer support, always prompt and accurate!
Impressed.
I just purchased your VPN for a year. I’m in China and polls among the ex-pats here are that your service is the cheapest and the best. I had hesitated because I liked being able to buy monthly since I’m not always in China (still do a lot of travelling where VPNs aren’t necessary), but in the end I just went with you folks figuring the money I’d save compared to $15 a month with your competitors is significant overall.
Anyway, that was officially the easiest and clearest set-up EVER. I didn’t need to wait for a password or a secure key or approval. Your online instructions are pristine and FUNNY! And, even though I’m in China, the connection to FB & Twitter was immediate — no problems at all.
So, I’m pleased. Thanks!
Keep up the good work and the good humour,
Ember Swift
Canada/China
I have been using Witopia for about 6 months now in my laptop and have been extremely satisfied with it’s performance and ease of use. I need it as I travel to places where the ISPs block all sorts of sites including non-offensive ones.
Anyway, I wanted to install Witopia on my PC at home and found there was a problem. After much going backwards and forwards with the support team, we found a problem with my ADSL line and its incompatibility with my ‘personal firwall’ that was preventing Witopia from connecting.
A great team who answer problems quickly and efficiently and deserve much credit.
Many thanks to all
Cedric
I was impresssed with Witopia and the level of service till I changed ISP. My new ISP is Telstra Bigpond Australia’s largest internet supplier. Their ADSL service uses a Thompson modem that is locked to Bigpond (unable to change any setings). Unfortunately Bigpond’s IP range conflictes with Witopia and fails to connect although it gives every appearance to have done so. (TIP – always check the IP address when using Witopia or your security could be compromised. Witopia suggested that I put a router between the modem and my computer to resolve the IP conflict. I did this but it didnt work and I asked support for suggestions. Witopia support do not reply.
With Australia intoducing severe internet blocking later this year a reliable VPN will be essential unfortunately Witopia will not be suitable
so far, i haven’t run into any connection problems. the only time that i get frustrated is when accessing youtube. i’ve been using witopia for 4 months now in shanghai and while sometimes its youtube loading speed is fast enough that you can watch without waiting, other times it slows to a snail’s crawl. otherwise, this vpn is giving me connection to all websites and is generally still quite fast.
Fantastic service, just purchased a Lamnia VPN account, struggled setting it up went on there live support the guys talked me through it in two mins, and made me laugh all the way. Its brilliant dealing with what is clearly a British company and not just a call center in the middle of nowhere. i recommend this service to anyone it is fast and so far uninterupted
Just wanted to give thanks after you helping me resolve a small issue updating to the latest PVPN-SSL installer (turns out it was because my subscription was about to expire).
I’ve happily re-subscribed due to your pretty-much faultless service to date, only to find it has improved even further! Working out of China, as I am, you seem to have raised the bar on speed, connectivity and usability.
Worth every Cent. You’re life-savers. Witopia are always recommended by myself, and used by all my ex-pat colleagues over here.
I have been a subscriber for a few years, WiTopia is a great service. I came over from a competitor when they could not get my Mac working. I use both a PC and Mac and the package deal with PPTP and SSL is a great value. The Support is good. Even though it is through email I get timely responses and good answers.
I definitely recommend WiTopia
I now have been using Witopia for a full year from China. Support is good, response time wise, however, features advertised such as the HK Proxy never worked for me. First question support asked when I brought up the concern was “Why do you need the Proxy is you use the SSL VPN?”
Why do you provide proxy?
Seems like there is a feature race among VPN providers with tradeoff being the overall quality. Although I experienced no downtime at all with Witopia, I decided to try another provider (less feature inclined) right before my Witopia expected renewal date.
While not having a huge bandwidth (I am on a 1MB connection), I experienced a huge boost in speed. I used to have to pause youtube and wait few minutes to be able to watch any video. No need for that anymore. I had tried all the gateways Witopia offered. Even the recent changes to the HK gateway did not change anything. It is actually slower to connect to SFO/LA than to HK from Mainland China.
Anyhow, I am overall satisfied with Witopia as it did what it is supposed to: get me access blocked websites in China, but the tradeoff was speed.
Stunning service performance on both my Mac and iPhone that freed my internet in the Gulf from idiotic restrictions.
Just extended for another year and will continue do so expecially due to stunning support.
Witopia has become such a valuable program for myself and many of my friends here in China. It’s reliable and super easy to use. Well worth the nominal yearly fee!
When I upgraded machines and had trouble using my old VPN settings, Jen in Customer Service walked me successfully through the updating process. She responded within a couple of minutes of every email I sent–now that to me is amazing service!
I used Witopia in China and found it to be an invaluable tool. When I travel again I’m definitely going to buy another subscription.
I started to use Witopia VPN via SSL on Windows two (2) days ago and I had an issue running the software. I contacted technical support and to be honest it’s unbelieve how fast they fixed the technical issue. It took around 10min. Thanks to Mr. Shiring Agent.
Witopia is most definitely an incredible VPN service!
Instant support, easily installable and so easy to run! Even for someone who doesn’t know much about computers. All you have to do is to start it, choose your server and you’re ready to go!
My computer crashed and I couldn’t find the details in my e-mail inbox, I googled the name and I see a “Chat support” window on their website. I click it, I get instant live-support and now five minutes later everything is fixed.
Perfect!
I’ve used witopia for three years and every year it gets better and better. Whenever I had a customer service issue they resolved it quickly and to my satisfaction; the vpn worked well where I live in what I consider a heavily censored area. If anyone is looking at these reviews to determine whether they should sign up for it I say without hesitation, ‘go for it, do it today’. I haven’t regretted it, which is why I keep coming back.
Witopia provide easy and reliable service.
Since I use a lot of data and homepages that are “harmonized” in certain countries, I have to rely on VPN’s, and Witopia did a good job. I used the PPTP plan, which worked fine most of the time.
However, over the last few months, China has vamped up its internet control, so I recommend the SSL or combo offer if that’s where You work.
All in all a very good and reliable product.
Had some trouble installing on a Mac, but the live customer service was fantastic! I live in China and received excellent real-time feedback from a knowledgable agent (Jen) at a time that was convenient for me (very rare in my years here). Definitely recommend witopia to others!
Overall plenty of servers to choose from. I can use full time as well with my casual downloading. No support bugging me about downloading too much etc. Line is stable. However there are a few let downs, not good for p2p as p2p seems to blocked which isn’t a big issue for me. Some sites are also blocked, eg gutteruncensored dot com for example. I would also like to see alternative ports like 443 be available with more servers.
Witopia is overrated. They used to be good but they seem to have gotten too big to care. Their support is very irresponsible, often rude and impatient. They will only be nice to you on Twitter because everyone sees it, but on 1-to-1 support the service is bad. Connection is unstable at best when used in China with China Unicom, I would recommend anyone to stay away from this provider.
I have been very impressed with both the product and back up service from Witopia. I have no hesitation in recommending this product and service to others.
I bought a new computer and initially had some problems transferring to the new computer, but their back up was excellent – how often can you say that these days?
As for the product itself, it works perfectly. It does slow the download speeds a little bit, but it is still quicker than is really needed.
This product is excellent and so is the backup service. I wish more products were as good and do what it says ‘on the packet’ – this one certainly does!
Not sure if others noticed this, but some sites just don’t load when using it. I don’t mean those torrent sites. Some sites will load one day then suddenly next day I get Unable to connect error but if disabled or use web proxy those sites will load! When asked about them blocking sites they claim they don’t block which isn’t true either as there are couple of not torrent sites still don’t load ever but will load if I don’t use witopia.
They need to fix this issue.
These guys are terrific. Tried a couple others (at higher prices even) but they were slow and one just stopped working altogether. with witopia, I found setup to be very easy, download speeds are super quick, and it seems solid. always connects. Witopia lets you change cities you connect through as often as you like too. not sure i need that for anything but I like it!
Despite them blocking bitorrent tracker sites, these guys still provide the best value for money packages, with excellent service, all servers for just 59.99 USD.
I have been very satisfied with the Witopia VPN. Over time I have had some questions and always got a quick response. It has worked very well and quickly on public networks. It is sometimes blocked on private networks. And the price is fair. Highly recommended.
Around March 2010, reviewers begin to refer to
Witopia as “guys”, “you guys”, “these guys”.
What is that about? Seems scripted.
The service/support appears to be good.
Not all that inspired to purchase an internet security product
from some “guys”.
went for personalVPN-SSL package, had problems connecting to hulu, chatted with online support and sorted it out in 2 mins. great work, they gained loyal customer
Wow! I have been a subscriber since March 2010 and never had much issues running on a windows laptop. Recently, we got a Mac Pro and needed to set-up the VPN on it. After reading many online suggestions and getting confused, I decided to go on the Live Chat option thinking that it’s just a gimmick. But WOW! I was DELIGHTED and SURPRISED to receive a “bing” from Jennifer, the technical support available in mere minutes! She was v helpful, courteous, patient and made sure i understood what was required. Wow… I am surely to be a subscriber for life!
I read a lot of the 2009 reviews on this site before posting. I don’t know what used to go on with Witopia, but it is obviously different now at the end of 2010. There is 24 hour online chat with people who know what they’re talking about, and YES YOU CAN use torrent sites. I just left this page, tried 3 of them, and had no problems. I tried so many free vpns and gave up on that. Then, I searched and searched for a decent product from a decent provider at a decent price (NOT so easy to find that combo!). I was fortunate to get in touch with Tara at Witopia. After she pleasantly and professionally fielded a hundred different questions from me (at least!), I decided to buy. She walked me through each step, troubleshot problems that, frankly I (NOT they) had, and I even got to talk to one of the owners (Bill) on the online chat when I went back and Tara was on break. The price was much better than what I had seen elsewhere, too. While I had them online, I tried the Latvian server and the Atlanta server, and they were both great! I know that some of these reviews are bogus, so I would be happy to talk to anyone via Skype who has a question for an actual satisfied client… me! That 24-online chat support I mentioned, is from real humans who know what they are talking about. They also have a huge selection of servers all over the world and the packages they offer – I think fit anyone’s needs. I was never happy with those bogus free services, and even though I tend to be a cheapskate, I have to say that I am supersatisfied with mine, and I only pay $59.99 a year… well, well worth it to me. You can contact me at nativespeakerenglish@yahoo.com if you have any questions for me. I am in no way affiliated with Witopia, just a guy who thinks that it is as important to mention good service and product as it is to complain about the bad
WiTopia has the BEST Support Staff I have ever encountered. They are courteous and reply immediately. They work diligently with you to solve your troubleshooting needs.
Wonderful product, fair price, EXCELLENT support staff.
I wish I’d known about witopia.net before I’d tried another (slightly more expensive, less product) company. This works brilliantly every time. Even better, the support staff (Brooks) were incredibly patient with this technodinosaur–never losing it no matter how incredibly ignorant or repetitious my questions were (I know about zip when it comes to computers).
I LOVE WITOPIA.NET!!!
Into my second year of use now. Excellent product.
But the support staff are the best.
10/10
Product: Great
Service: Better
Support: Excellent
I would like to certify you some of my websites that can pay you is decidedly appealing. These are new things on the network and so please produce with us with their assessment. It is very important to me, so I insufficiency you to be forgiving. The largest of these is without a doubt the łysienie, łysienie I hope that you will-power like it there too much like me. Kindest wishes!
The best VPN service with an amazing price and a friendly yet professional 24/7 chat support team. Do I have to say more?!
I have been a Witopia subscriber for nearly 2 years, and will soon be renewing my subscription for a third year. This service does *everything* it promises. It’s fast. It’s solidly reliable. It works perfectly with Skype. It quickly and honestly reports any service glitches on its blog page and proposes appropriate workarounds.
It’s a bit of a mystery to me how Witopia can do what they do at the amazingly low prices they charge. The infrastructure is huge. Gateway servers are available worldwide, on every continent except Antarctica. (If you live there, just use the Sydney gateway
)
A final note: Witopia’s customer service is second to none. I’ve made a couple of tech queries during the course of my subscription, and have always received prompt, professional and directly helpful responses. Most recently, I’d lost my program download link due to a hard drive crash in the course of installing a new OS. Witopia got back to me in less than 24 hours with a new link and I was soon “back in business.”
I can honestly say that I have found “nothing not to like” regarding Witopia’s product and service, and I plan to be a lifetime customer.
Jim North
Philippines
Being fairly new to VPNs, I found this service to be extremely easy to setup and use. I wanted an extra layer of protection and found WiTopia to be most excellent!
Customer service is fast and very helpful when needed.
I use both the stand-alone clients (personalVPN – SSL (openVPN) for my MacBook and iPhone) and CloakBox Pro.
Thanks guys for an excellent experience so far!
Witopia VPN is the best!! Hands down!! Their customer service is excellent and I am into my third year going. You will not find another product that compares.
I am a network geek and I initially started to use witopia only for watching US tv shows when out of the country.
After a while I realized how good the service was and I started to use it for just everything, The best money spent on network services after buying my first 300 baud modem. I love the flexibility (many server in a lot of different countries and the possibility to use different access options: PPTP, IPSEC and SSL. Support is great and always on-line. It is also possible to configure your own router (this is not supported) or get their own in order to connect your network. My witopia account is configured on my Cisco 1751, iPad, iPhone, iMac and MacBook pro. I get great speed and no problem streaming video.
Best price, best support and best reliability (multiple end point server in same location and you do not even realize it because they use round robin DNS to share the load and multiple locations). Speed you always going to get an hit compared to you pure provider speed but it is the best around and streams without interruptions.
Tried a single subscription to Witopia’s PersonalVPN service (using their Viscosity application on our family’s multiple MBP computers)
In a word, a winner – fast, easy, changing gateways or alternate servers just a few mouse clicks, never a problem
Rather than buy individual subscriptions for each computer – which in hindsight I wish I had done – I instead succumbed to the ‘upsale’ and ordered a Cloakbox Pro to gain simultaneous VPN access by multiple users
Essentially a Linksys WRT160NL that has been flashed with DD-WRT firmware, the device is slow, buggy, does not have the alternate server options that the Viscosity app features, and has been more trouble than worthy
Worse, Witopia support for the Cloakbox Pro has been spotty at best and – more often – either woeful or nonexistent (as in no reply)
Summary – I would recommend Witopia’s PersonalVPN Combo Mac product (for OS X and iOS) without hesitation
Under no circumstances should you consider the Cloakbox option
I love your VPN service!
Your customer service is stellar and I am impressed with resolution of technical issues on the first contact.
Accolades to your service and your staff! Don’t change a thing!
I bought the Witopia one year subscription. Downloaded and installed, It worked for one day and then stopped. Live support was not co-operative, showed arrogance and stubbornness. second day, they said that your transaction is FRAUD and your service is cancelled. Imagine, without any information from them, they said that your transaction is fraud and keeping quiet with money paid to them. Please be careful while buying Witopia, if their service does not work with you, they might say that your transaction is FRAUD and sit on your money.
thanks
Rajesh
I have been attempting to use Witopia in mainland China for 6 months now, with frustratingly limited success.
I was initially quite impressed with their customer service. However, the one thing they cannot do is provide a working VPN in mainland China (Shanghai).
When i asked more detailed questions they denied it had anything to do with Witopia, but instead with the great firewall. Uhhh….yeah..that’s why i need a VPN, to get around the great firewall. I would like a refund, since i haven’t had any use out of their service (i have ssl and ptpp and neither of them are useful) but they’re not giving me a refund – they are stonewalling and blaming it on the great firewall.
My other two vpns, although not completely reliable, work a lot more often than witopia.
Witopia no longer working for me in mainlaind China – TLS error = not sure what to do – just wrote to witopia
I have used Witopia for about a year from China and the connectivity has been great and the few times where there was an issue their customer service was on top of it super fast with a correct solution.
I travel all over China and it connects equally well from Shanghai and Guangzhou and everywhere in between. The only other company on the net who comes close in performance and customer service is HostGator in my opinion.
About the only thing that isn’t great is the speed but that’s not Witopia’s fault. Some days I can watch YouTube and NetFlix with no lag and other days it’s terrible. That has more to do with the bandwidth available on the ISPs here.
Whoever is having issues connecting needs to read the instructions and get with Witopia’s customer service. I have used it on a Gateway netbook, Dell with windows 7 and a Acer with XP successfully.
And I am REAL customer who relies on this service to run my business as I have to access YouTube, Facebook and several other sites which are blocked from China.
Hello,
I have been extremely satisfied with these guys for the longest time. However, for the past month or so witopia hasn’t been working and they haven’t done anything about it! I’ll be requesting my refund tonight. However, if what people are saying above is true, I won’t have much success in doing so.
I have been a user of various VPN providers for 6 years now, and Witopia is by far the most secure, fastest, most reliable, and best of the group.
I have been using Witopia for two years and have never had an outage, and never had a problem that was not resolved with the help of support and my own trouble shooting in a few days ( the problems turned out to always be either my hardware or software that caused the problem, not Witopia, even though I tended to initially blame Witopia each time a problem occured). For the $59.95 price I can not rate Witopia with enough stars. I am in the metropolitan area of Washington DC, my internet provider is Comcast, and there is no measurable difference between the speeds I get when connected to Witopia and those when not connected. Blazing fast over optic cable.
I’ve been a Witopia customer for over two years now and wanted to offer some comments, especially now that I’m looking into going to another provider.
The truth is, there have been so few issues with Witopia over these past two years:
1) has one of the highest number of servers (50-plus) across more countries (30-plus, I think) than most other VPN providers;
free web proxy service for customers (allows me to access web-based content on any computer without having to install their OpenVPN software. Additionally, I can connect game consoles and other network-capable equipment (HDTV, Blu-Ray player, etc.) without exposing my real IP address);
2) downtime for me has been non-existent;
3) customer support has been very good; not perfect, but very good;
4) pricing is among the lowest of any VPN provider I’ve found;
5) uses OpenVPN;
6) ease of installation;
7) technical support, via their chat system, is almost instantaneous, competent and friendly;
9) their own DNS servers;
So why would I consider leaving when they have so much to offer? Good question. I really have NO complaints. I do, however, wonder:
1) How is it that this company can offer so much for so little money? I might call it the “McDonald’s Syndrome,” that is to say, instead of asking why the food is so expensive at the ABC Restaurant, ask why McDonald’s is so inexpensive? So, I ask myself how is it that this company can offer almost everything I want in a VPN provider but yet do it for so little money? I guess it’s the “if it sounds too good to be true than it probably is” dilemma. Maybe I’m just a bit too jaded, but, it’s just something I’ve thought about.
Now, would I be less suspicious about Witopia if they charged, say, $149.99 year? As weird as it sounds, I just might;
2) I’m concerned about my VPN provider being within the jurisdiction of either the United States or the E.U. Not only that, Witopia’s headquarters are in Reston, VA. I look at that close physical proximity to all those nasty three-letter government agencies and I wonder….
Again, would I be less suspicious about Witopia if they were located in, say, Green Bay, WI? Yeah, I suppose I would. But I’d really like it if they were in Iran or China, I guess. At least some place where they could just thumb their nose at US or EU authorities should they come calling;
3) I wish they allowed for anonymous payment methods;
4) P2P is not allowed, even on non-U.S. servers (which certainly raises the “Why?” question, unless they have some connection to ??? I don’t know, I’m just sayin’….).
In closing, I want to reiterate that I really love using Witopia; it’s been an incredible experience and if it wasn’t for these four nagging issues I wouldn’t be looking and, instead, I would be recommending Witopia to anyone and everyone without any hesitation.
These are just some thoughts I’ve had and it seemed that sharing them with those doing some shopping might be helpful to them. I hope that’s the case.
l8trg8trATgmx.com
This is the be-all end-all of VPNs.
I live in China, so a VPN is not only necessary, but sometimes the Chinese Gov’t finds ways to block their VPN channels.
Every time this happens I email witopia and I’m back on track in no time.
I have horrible bandwith in my apartment, but one of their most recent fixes seemed to work so well that it defied the limits of my bandwith somehow and I am now working at unprecedented levels of speed.
I don’t know what fix they emailed to the user who wrote the latest review, but I live in China too, and WiTopia started failing on me about 10 days ago. Since then it’s just gotten worse. The first time the VPN stopped working, I hopped on live chat and got it fixed almost instantly. Within a day or two, that solution stopped working too, and when I tried to go back for more help, I found they’d taken live chat offline, apparently to duck the hordes of frustrated customers in China. They also didn’t respond to my email query for several days, then sent out an apologetic mass email… containing a fix that didn’t work either. My polite response also went ignored for another few days until I managed to find my own solution on Google and asked them to either make it so I could implement the solution myself, or refund half of my money. When they didn’t respond for another 24+ hours, I figured they’d just given up altogether on their China customers and, desperate for reliable access to Gmail (which is also being intermittently blocked here), I shelled out for another VPN. Hours later, I finally got another impersonal response from WiTopia containing instructions for the asked-for fix, but by this point I’m so exhausted and frustrated that I can’t even work up the energy to see if this one actually fixes the problem — or to pursue the question of getting a refund. My new VPN is faster than WiTopia ever was, doesn’t block torrent sites, has loads more features, and I just used their live support system to fix a minor problem in thirty seconds flat.
WiTopia was perfectly adequate and very reasonably priced for six months or so when it worked, but, wow — they handled recent issues in the worst possible way. I’d go elsewhere if you’re looking for a way to get around the Great Firewall. Their recent popularity among expats here has really turned out to be a huge white elephant.
I used VPN since the begining from some of the most expensive to some really cheap ones. Not all expensive ones are good and some cheaper ones as just as good as them.
I have been using Witopia for several years and I travel a to several countries each year. Some places when using Witopia its good and I mean good. Other places like China there are issues!
Others places like SE Asia, for some countries there no issue others seems my speed is throttled! except night time when I use Witopia VPN. However the place that I noticed throttling (in SE Asia) when I use HideMyAss VPN its NOT throttled at all! Probably means local ISP must have known about Witopia or something.
Anyway I would still prefer Witopia as my primary VPN service while HideMyAss as my backup since its not as fast. Distant 3rd could go either AceVPN or Cryptocloud. Yes Cryptocloud! I know people have said its bad. That was in past. I used it when it was known as torrentfreedom one of the worse! vpn I ever used. At start of Cryptocloud it was just as bad. Nowadays seems better but remember there are still hiccups with Cryptocloud overall its just not as good as some others.
Overall I still trust in Witopia however I hope they take noticed of this review and fix the issues faced in China & SE Asia.
Witopia no longer working in China
Until a month ago I would have listed Witopia as 5 stars all the way!
BUT… Then it stopped working in mainland china (I’m in Beijing).. Been using Witopia for going on 3 years now and only just renewed my subscription in Dec’10 (the $69/year bundle for Mac & iPhone/iPad) …
I got maybe a month of use from it and now nothing… no reply to emails (maybe they are blocked in my gmail too, who knows), no way to access their website for updates (thats all blocked too) etc etc…
They used to be fantastic, fast connection and the fastest, friendliest customer service I have ever experiences from any sort of online based company (web host, vpn provider etc)…
But now it would seem they have abandoned their China based customers – an email letting me at least know the situation – are they trying to find a work around or new solution or have they just decided not to support customers in china anymore etc?
As many have already mentioned – the primary reason people purchase a VPN service in China is because of the Great Firewall…
Am super frusted (as I’m sure many many people are right now) not being able to access youtube and facebook in particular, not to mention google and gmail access going up and down etc, but there are sooo many seemingly random sites that are also blocked….
Can anyone recommend a vpn service that is working in China at present – would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Witopia NOW sucks! DO they have ANYONE working cust. service?
Do they have ANYONE that get set up the dam vpn in Chiner?!?!
They and It is completely worthless…….
Not being very computer literate I needed customer support to help me install.Their help was first class. The site connects quickly and is fast. When I had a connection problem the technical department helped me fix it using live chat. I think you have to accept problems for one reason or another with this type of service and it is good to know that there is first class customer support.
This service was excellent when I joined it, save for some stupid issues their payments system has with locations without postal/ZIP codes. Great software, easy to use, good speed, solid support.
Then March 2011 arrived, and their service fell off a cliff – no service for the best part of 3 weeks. Then during April 2011 it seems like the concerns expressed by other users above about using a US based VPN provider came true – warning emails from Witopia were received about how the (US) DMCA was telling them that the activities of their (non-US) customer were not cool. One warning, then disconnection.
Is quite sad, as they were good, and this is no doubt the end of their business. Find another provider people.
Can’t speak to how it works in China but for me a very simple install and super speedy. no buffering on video. I tried a few others and they all sucked. count me as a fan.
I am using the service from within the US, so I cannot speak for other countries. However, this service has been excellent thus far. High speed, easy setup/connection, and rock solid connections. I absolutely recommend this service.
My Witopia VPN stopped working and the support staff Shirin couldn’t help and the company didn’t want to refund the money. Their software and customer service sucks. I am using another VPN now which actually works!
I love Witopia and its great support.Their support is 7×24 and i didn’t see this type of support on the NET.Support members are very nice and patient.Their Price is fantastic and I am sure that they have best value of Price/Performane on the world.Their servers are disributed all of the world and you can connect to everywhere on the NET via their servers with a acceptable quality.I offer WiTopia to everyone on the NET.
Thanks Witopia and Thanks support team
using witopia for three years now (personalvpn pro) with ssl for mac and pptp for iPhone and iPad on the move!
works like a charm: i have my server connected all the time to internet via witopia. just loses connection on the planned reboot/clean up time on server side. but for mac and mobile devices real value for your money.
special mention for the chat-support: this is what customer-service is supposed to be: quick, swift and efficient!
This is my second year using WiTopia’s VPN services from China. The support staff and professionalism is the best I have ever experienced, with the exception of the IRS (long story). Only on one occasion did I have problems connecting to the VPN, but as it turned out all VPN services were being targeted by the Chinese government. Witopia was back up in no time while my friends using other VPN services were SOL for over a week. But best of all, is the support and their expertise.
Using Witopia for the 2nd year now, and the service is as promised. I’ve never had connectivity problems & such, and the speed is great. However, what stands out is the extremely excellent & responsive customer service… I’ve always had a smile on my face when dealing with their customer service – which is kinda unusual because it’s usually a pain in general. Always resolved my issues in a few minutes, even if it’s stupid questions that are already in their support wiki. Overall, A+, 10/10, worth every penny and I’ve even recommended it to friends who’re also quite happy with them.
I found Witopia to be a poor choice for VPN Service.
In July, 2011, I first purchased a personal account but then upgraded to a “cloakbox” account. This involved purchasing a cheap Chinese router sold as a “Buffalo” brand unit that overheats. It’s model no. WZR-HP-G300NH with preloaded codes and keys to access “hundreds” of data centers securely.
The initial feel is always that this is a dependable system. You plug in your cables and the unit routes data securely. The idea here is to be able to route a house full of computers through a VPN tunnel. This ability sounds seductive. However, I tried this unit over an extended period of time and found little satisfaction.
Office security is unstable. The Witopia system is unreliable because the VPN drops unexpectedly and office data goes in the open through the ISP. Then, the VPN starts to work again and the internet connection slows down for several minutes while the VPN connection is established and running. So office work is punctuated by lag times for VPN loading.
One fix is to route through the data center in San Francisco (strangely labeled “LAX”). However, it seems many Witopia users figure that out and also route through San Francisco soon jamming up the channels there and slowing down traffic. Channels to other countries result in dropped connections and little else.
Gaming simply does not work. XBOX will not connect to outside accounts through this system and the Witopia helpdesk smugly replies to service calls that they do not service the xbox. Various PC games do connect through the Witopia system, but ping times escalate from 2 milliseconds to 500 milliseconds making game play impossible.
One approach Witopia said would cure the gaming problem was to nest routers. Plug the Buffalo into a non-VPN router and then plug that into the cable modem. The system worked well for a few hours but then the Buffalo stopped working and rebooted itself every five minutes.
Calls for help yielded little in the way of sound guidance and advice. Sometimes, the response will be a link to a cryptic website with more links that go nowhere. Occasionally, a surly response is all that arrives (you’ll pay a fee for resetting the router). Sometimes help arrives but then something else quickly goes wrong.
This was an investment of $249 that was wasted. The system is rickety to say the least and the equipment is junk. The channels are unreliable and the speeds are ridiculous for gaming. Save your money on this service.
i have been using VPN from Witopia for three years now. their products are great, easy to install and use, and their online support is the best.
charles
Honestly one of the best services out there. Their customer service is second to none, and I’ve never had a problem accessing any blocked site. I’m been located in China for the past 2 years, and they have been my life line to the free world.
I’ve been using the Witopia Cloakbox service for about 3 weeks now and I am extremely happy with the performance and support staff. I am an American expat living in Europe and frequently use the service to access media sites in the US I wouldn’t normally be able to view. I find the cloakbox well worth the price for the convenience of having my entire home network on the VPN. The Buffalo router that comes with the cloakbox is ok, however, it really doesn’t perform like a gigabit router, internal network file transfer are at least 10 times slower (2-4mbps vs 30-50mbps) when compared to my Netgear 3700. So I use the Buffalo for my outgoing traffic but still use the Netgear for my internal network. I did need to contact technical support regarding an issue with speed and my inability to change servers. I received a response to my email within 30 minutes or less which really surprised me. I also used their chat feature and screen share session to resolve my issue and I found the tech support staff to be very professional and very knowledgeable about their product. My only complain with the service would be a degradation in my speed… I subscribe to a 10 Mb service and consistently test it at close to 15Mb, however, when using the VPN the speed drops to between 2-5.5 Mb depending on which testing site I use. This is still more than adequate for my purposes and Witopia staff noted these sites are not really designed with VPN service in mind. I have to say that the difference is not that noticeable during use and I am still able to stream video, although not necessarily at the highest quality. Overall I have found this service to be excellent and a reasonable price.
The reviews that talk about how amazing the service is are a bit strange. They are not responding to a specific question or providing help with any technical issues or information requirement. Call me cynical but I am not sure why did they come to this site and volunteer to talk about it after 2 and 3 years? But hey I may be wrong.
So while on the subject I would like to hear from someone who is using it in the UAE (United Arab Emirates) where the ISP has managed to block almost every service that I tried.
I just renewed with Witopia.net for the third year in a row because they are simply the best, IMHO. I trust the company, I get excellent service, I appreciate having an IP address in the USA whenever I need one. I did research other options and have continued to stay with this company because I love the product, the support and the VPN itself… and it’s VERY affordable! Thank you everyone at WiTopia – you guys & gals are the best!
I am so happy to have VPN that consistently works in China. It’s been a hassle to find a reliable but not too expensive product like theirs. When i had a small issue in downloading the installer (completely my fault, i didn’t follow the instructions in order) their customer service chat line was excellent. The agent I spoke to was both very polite, and extremely helpful, by activating my account for me, and giving me the link for the installer. I will definitely continue to use this product in the future.
Not good news…
I’m using Witopia in UAE for 3 years so far… and I just renewed last week, and it was working fine.
As of today, Dec. 31st, 2011 I cannot use it anymore..!
Would you please confirm if it is still working in UAE or not?
Thanks,
Witopia is essential for me while I’m in China. I would recommend it to anybody that needs fast, reliable access to site like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Wikipedia while in China. They provide great support and a great service.
On Saturday January 14th Witopia made major changes in their system. I was unable to use the system for three days. Their online chat support service is worthless. They finally told me after three days that I needed to download new software. There was n notice of this or anything or their website to that affect. I have downloaded their new client software and made my connection to their gateways. HOWEVER the connection constantly disconnects leaving me exposed on the internet AND IT DOES NOT NOTIFY ME OF THE DISCONNECT AS THE SYSTEM USED TO. Their service has gone to hell in a matter of days and it appears there is no relief in site. I highly recommend that anyone stay away from Wipotia until they have demonstrated that they have improved the service and customer support. Chuck
New software released this week not working in China. If you have the old software, don’t upgrade until they fix it.
I loved Witopia, hopefully I will again. For the last couple years it’s been my gateway to the west from China. But about 2 weeks ago it completely stopped working. I keep getting the error below:
RESOLVE: Cannot resolve host address: tlsvpn.hkg.witopia.net: [NO_DATA] The requested name is valid but does not have an IP address.
I used to get this error occasionally, but I could fix it by restarting my router or modem.
The worst part is that any site that might be able to help me is blocked.
Frustrating… and I just renewed two months ago.