Apr 23
5

VPN Tracker 19.6.6: Connection Improvements for Remote Work

By | VPN Tracker | No Comments

With so many of us now working from home, we’ve been getting a lot of input from our customers and have focused on improvements for remote work situations in VPN Tracker 19.6.6.

We’ve focused on three core areas: Remote DNS, Connection Checker and general connection improvements.

Remote DNS and Split DNS Improvements

To briefly recap: when using Remote DNS, you can ask your company’s DNS servers to resolve addresses for you. This is required if you have internal pages that are only known to your internal DNS servers, e.g. “internal.corp.example.com”

Instead of sending all requests to your company DNS server, you can also only send requests for certain domains – this is usually referred to as “Split DNS”.In VPN Tracker 365 19.6.6, we have added split DNS support for lower-level tools and libraries: anything that relies on etc/resolv.conf will now get the correct split DNS settings you have configured in VPN Tracker.

We’ve also fixed a few issues, one of which is worth mentioning in particular: when using split DNS with a host-to-everywhere connection, in some circumstances all DNS queries would also be sent through the tunnel; This has now been corrected. So if your internal domains can no longer be found with the new update, check your DNS settings and make sure all the necessary search domains have been added.

Remote DNS settings in VPN Tracker 365

Connection Checker Improvements

Another big area of focus for this release is Connection Checker. If you’re working from home, it’s important to figure out the best settings for your home internet connection.

Connection Checker can tell you which VPN protocols your router and ISP support and will give you advice on what settings you may need to change to get things working.

Thanks to customer feedback, we’ve been able to improve the in-app suggestions and hints and have also fixed a few bugs.

Connection Checker in VPN Tracker 365
Connection Checker detects which VPN standards your home internet connection supports

Connection Improvements

As always, we’ve also made a number of improvements to the VPN Tracker engine, for more reliable VPN connections.

Check the full release notes for all the nitty gritty details, here are a few highlights:

  • A rare issue with Remote Connection Wipe has been fixed that could prevent some Team members from starting a connection
  • OpenVPN connections now support more compression configuration options that can be sent by the server
  • Several fixes that could occasionally prevent IPsec VPN connections from coming up right away
  • Improved error flow when updating your company login password for L2TP, OpenVPN and SonicWALL SSL connections

How to Update

Go to VPN Tracker 365 → Check for Updates… to get the update right away. You can manage your update settings under VPN Tracker 365 → Preferences:

Checking for updates in VPN Tracker 365

Test Nightly or Beta Releases

If you’re the VPN admin for your company, a reseller or just like getting the cutting edge, you can also enable Nightly or Beta updates under VPN Tracker 365 → Preferences.

You’ll be able to get early access to new features and will be able to test any upcoming changes with your connections before they are rolled out to all users.

Can I go back to an earlier version?

If you ever run into any issues with a beta or regular update and want to try an earlier release, here’s what to do:

New to VPN Tracker? Learn more on our website, or contact us directly for a quote or if you have any questions.

Protect your data with VPN Tracker 365 – the #1 VPN client for OS X and macOS:

Download VPN Tracker for free
Buy VPN Tracker
 

Start now! Requires Mac OS X 10.9 or later

Apr 07
4

Choosing the Best VPN Gateway for Remote Work

By | Company, News, VPN Tracker | No Comments

With remote work becoming increasingly more important, it’s critical that you have the equipment you need. Alongside other factors, a good VPN gateway for remote work is essential in enabling your team to securely connect to the office network and work from home productively.

This guide takes you through everything you need to know about choosing a VPN gateway for remote work, as well as how to set up your VPN on your chosen device…

What do I need to move my team to remote work?

Before we begin, let’s quickly review what you’ll need to get your team working from home:

  1. A VPN Gateway connected your internal network
  2. Each employee uses their own Internet Connection
  3. The employee connects via a VPN Client such as VPN Tracker 365 running on their Mac
What you need to get set remote workers up with VPN

What to look for in a VPN gateway for remote work

While there is no “one size fits all” solution, here are some key factors to think about when weighing up your options:

Gateway Type

You can typically find two types of VPN gateways: All-in-one routers with VPN support, or dedicated VPN firewalls.

Dedicated VPN Firewalls typically offer more advanced security features and are designed for larger offices. For a smaller office, an all-in-one router with VPN support is easier to configure but will mean replacing your existing equiment.

Action: Decide whether a router or firewall is better suited to your current network setup.

Business vs. Consumer

VPN gateways tend to vary between business- and consumer-level and offer different features respectively. If you’re a small team with 1-3 people connecting, a consumer-level router with VPN support may be enough for your needs. For larger teams, you’ll want to look for a business-level product that has more processing power to support more VPN users simultaneously.

Action: Weigh up your business’ needs and determine which type of VPN device you are going to search for.

How many users are supported?

Many businesses will have to configure more than one VPN connection to suit different users and their specific use-cases. If this is the case for your business, it is important that you check whether the VPN gateway offers support for multiple connections.

Action: If it is likely that you will be setting up more than one VPN connection, make sure to look exclusively at VPN devices which support multiple connections.

Tech Specs

VPN gateways differ massively in terms of their technical specification. Depending on the size and nature of your business, many of the more advanced features offered may not even be relevant.

Action: List the features which are most important for your company and cross-reference these with the gateways’s spec.

As well as multiple connection support, some other important features to look out for may include:

  • Supported VPN protocols: E.g. IPSec, OpenVPN, L2TP, PPTP, etc.
  • VPN throughput: The higher the throughput, the faster and better the connection will be.
  • Processor: The faster your VPN gateway’s processor, the better. A fast processer will make sure your device can handle the demand and allow remote workers to make full use of their internet connection speeds.

Price

VPN gateways vary in price, costing anything from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on how many users they support, their performance and other features.

Action: Be sure to shop around and compare prices of multiple retailers.

Support

Finally, your VPN gateway is a crucial part of your company’s network infrastructure. Should you encounter any issues, it’s important that you are able to quickly get the guidance you need from the manufacturer so you can get things up and running again.

Action: Check the support options on the manufacturer’s website and try to research customer reviews before making your final decision.

Which options are out there?

When it comes to finding the best VPN gateway for remote work, there are many options to choose from. Below we’ve listed some of the most popular choices among our customers, but of course it’s down to you to find the gateway which is right for your business.

Popular consumer/small business gateways include:

NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 VPN gateway

NETGEAR Nighthawk AC1900 R7000

A solid all-in-one choice that offers OpenVPN support, good WiFi coverage and decent performance. Only supports one VPN connection, so suited for individuals wishing to connect to their office.

Key features:

  • Easy setup
  • Support for OpenVPN connections
  • Supports one VPN connection
  • WiFi: Supports AC WiFI speeds up to 1300 Mbps
  • View it on Amazon
TP Link Safestream small business VPN gateway for remote work

TP Link Safestream TL-R600VPN

A solid, affordable choice for small businesses. This device supports a range of VPN protocols and up to 20 users simultaneously.

Key features:

  • Support for IPSec, L2TP and PPTP VPN protocols
  • Supports up to 20 VPN users
  • Affordable: Under $100
  • View it on Amazon
ZyXEL USG40W Unified Security Gateway for VPN users

ZyXEL USG40W Unified Security Gateway

With support for WiFi and up to 20 VPN users, this is a great all in one VPN solution for small business users able to spend a little extra.

Key features:

  • All-in-one UTM Firewall with WiFi
  • Support for IPSec and L2TP VPN protocols
  • Supports up to 20 VPN users
  • 100 Mbps VPN throughput
  • View it on Amazon
UniFi Dream Machine VPN gateway

Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Machine (UDM)

Also an all-in-one device, this prosumer gateway solution is another solid choice for smaller businesses.

  • Extendable system that offers best-in-class WiFi coverage options
  • Easy-to-use cloud-based management solution
  • Powerful 1.7 GHz Quad-Core Processor
  • View it on the UniFi store

Popular business/enterprise gateways include:

ZYXEL ZyWALL 110 VPN enabling Firewall

ZyXEL ZyWALL 110 Business Firewall

ZyXEL’s ZyWALL series offers great performance, robust VPN support and can be easily extended with ZyXEL wireless AP solutions for WiFi coverage.

Key features:

  • Support for IPSec and L2TP VPN protocols
  • Supports up to 100 VPN users
  • 400 Mbps VPN throughput
  • View it on Amazon
DELL SonicWALL TZ400 VPN enabling Firewall for enterprise level

SonicWALL TZ400

As one of the most popular choices amongst VPN Tracker customers, SonicWALL’s TZ-series is a great choice offering excellent performance and advanced security features.

Thanks to SonicWALL Simple Client Provisioning support in VPN Tracker, your VPN will be set up in no time.

Key features:

  • SonicWALL Simple Client Provisioning makes connecting with VPN Tracker really easy
  • Supports up to 25 VPN users
  • 900 Mbps VPN throughput
  • 4 x 800 MHz processors
  • View it on Amazon
SRX550 Enterprise VPN Firewall

Juniper SRX550 Enterprise Firewall

The Juniper SRX550 is a high end, business-level gateway aimed at mid to large branch locations. The impressive spec of this model means it doesn’t come cheap, but there are other lower-spec models available in the SRX series.

Key features:

How to configure a VPN connection for your VPN gateway

Now you’ve chosen your VPN gateway, it’s time for you to configure your VPN connection. With step-by-step configuration guides for 300+ VPN routers, VPN Tracker makes this easy. You can find configuration guides for all leading gateway manufacturers here.

To get set up:

  1. Find your guide in the list,
  2. Download the VPN Tracker 365 app,
  3. Follow the steps to configure the VPN connection for your team.

Learn more about VPN Tracker on our website, or contact us directly for a quote or if you have any questions.

Protect your data with VPN Tracker 365 – the #1 VPN client for OS X and macOS:

Download VPN Tracker for free
Buy VPN Tracker
 

Start now! Requires Mac OS X 10.9 or later

Disclaimer: Some of the links included in this blog post are affiliate links.

Mar 26
8

VPN Tracker 365: Full Support Availability during the Coronavirus Crisis

By | Company, News, VPN Tracker | No Comments

With countries all over the world requiring people to stay at home, the VPN Tracker 365 Team is committed to helping all customers successfully move to remote work.

You can rest assured that we continue to offer full support to our customers and have taken key steps to increase our support capacity during this difficult time.

Support Information

  • Our support team continues to be available for you during this time
  • We’ve updated all FAQs to cover your most common issues
  • The more information you include in your support request, the better. Please include a Technical Support Report (TSR) from inside the VPN Tracker app
  • Support is only available for VPN Tracker 365 customers; Users of earlier VPN Tracker versions will need to purchase a VPN Tracker 365 plan
  • Priority is given to VPN Tracker 365 VIP customers

Upcoming updates

We’re continuing to work on improving VPN Tracker 365 and will be shipping an update in the next few weeks with improved logs and troubleshooting tips for common connection issues we’ve seen over the last few weeks.

Getting Started with Work from Home

We’ve written some posts to highlight VPN Tracker 365 features that help improve work from home productivity:

How to Move Your Team to a Remote Work Setup

How to Work from Home Productively

Working from Home with VPN – Your FAQs answered

Stay safe & stay home!

Your VPN Tracker 365 Team

Mar 16
0

Working from Home? The best VPN for Mac

By | Company, News, VPN Tracker | No Comments

How-to Guide: Connect your Mac to your office network via VPN

Whilst working in the office, secure access to important data is taken for granted. However, with more and more of us now working from home, the need to externally access the office network is greater than ever before. When it comes to accessing sensitive company data from outside of the office, it’s important to know you are going about it the right way. 

Using VPN Tracker to connect Mac to office network
Using a VPN to connect your Mac to your office network helps keep your company data safe.
Read More
Mar 16
0

Helpful Tips for Remote Work

By | Company, News, VPN Tracker | No Comments

Here are 5 of our tried & tested, essential tips for remote work…

The term “home office” is one which almost all of us are familiar with today. Remote work is becoming an essential part of the way modern businesses operate and many large companies now consist entirely of remote teams spread out across the world. However, for many people trying remote work for the first time, it can be difficult to adjust.

Here are five easy to implement tips which we find super useful whenever we are working from home… 

Read More
Jan 30
0

How to set up a VPN connection on your Synology Diskstation for your Mac

By | Company, VPN Tracker | No Comments

If you own one of Synology’s NAS systems, you can also set it up to act as a VPN server, offering a convenient way to securely access the files stored on your Synology, as well as other devices on your network.

Download VPN Tracker to connect to your Synology VPN from your Mac

This is a really useful alternative if your router doesn’t offer VPN-capabilities as your Synology is usually always running.

VPN Tracker 365 offers a really simple way to set up your Synology as a VPN server and connect to it from your Mac.

Download VPN Tracker 365 free to get started

How to Configure your Synology NAS as a VPN server for your Mac

To get started, download the latest version of VPN Tracker 365 – it’s free to try out.

Then create a new VPN connection to your Synology:

  • File → New → Company Connection
  • Choose Synology → OpenVPN from the list of devices
  • Create the connection, then select the Configuration Guide

The VPN Tracker 365 Configuration Guide has detailed step-by-step instructions on how to set up the VPN server on your Synology. The gist of it is:

  • Install the VPN server package
  • Enable the OpenVPN service from the VPN Server app
  • Be sure to give clients access to the server’s LAN
  • Export the configuration

Once you have created and exported the configuration from your Synology, you can simply drop it into VPN Tracker 365.

Once that’s done you need to

  • Set up DynDNS for your router or Synology so they can always be accessed from the internet and enter that as the gateway address in VPN Tracker
  • Configure port forwarding (UDP port 1194) from your router to your Synology

The VPN Tracker 365 Synology Configuration Guide goes into more detail, so we recommend following that closely.

Try out your Synology VPN connection for macOS

Once you’ve got everything set up, you’ll need to get off your WiFi network to test it out (you can’t “VPN in” if you’re already “in”). One quick way is to use your iPhone’s Personal Hotspot feature, or treat yourself to a coffee and hop on your local coffee shop’s free wifi.

Once your VPN is connected, try accessing your Synology or any other devices on your network. Note that they won’t show up automatically in the Finder’s sidebar, so you’ll need to use the “Go → Connect to Server” feature in the Finder.

Download VPN Tracker 365 free to get started

Happy connecting!

Oct 31
0

PPTP VPN for macOS Catalina

By | VPN Tracker | No Comments

macOS Catalina makes several changes to the security architecture, which means that most VPN protocols have had to make some changes to the way they integrate with the system.

With the latest VPN Tracker 365 update, we’re pleased to again offer PPTP VPN support under macOS Catalina, meaning you can continue to use your PPTP-based connections with macOS 10.15.

To get started:

Once you’ve created and configured your PPTP VPN connection, you can test it out with our free demo. Once you’re sure it’s working correctly, head over to the VPN Tracker 365 store to purchase your plan.

Happy PPTP-ing!