“Anonymizer Universal” product suite launched!
I am really excited to announce our new product “Anonymizer Universal” (AU), available starting today. AU represents a totally new architecture for our services.
Not only is it more powerful, faster, and much more capable, but it now also supports Mac and iPhone platforms! With one subscription you can use it across any of the supported devices.
Our new solution is VPN based, and bypasses any specific software support issues. AU works with any browser. Any program that connects to the Internet will automatically take advantage of AU. All connections between your computer and Anonymizer are cryptographically protected.
AU continues to leverage our massively scaleable backend infrastructure that provides the anonymity and daily rotating IP addresses.
AU will replace both our “Anonymous Surfing” and “Total Net Shield products”. “Nyms” is becoming all web based and will soon be upgraded with new interface options and better integration.
Expect to see more new capabilities and expanded solutions going forward as the renewed and expanded resources we are devoting to these products bear fruit.
- Lance Cottrell
February 24th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Lance, I’m being told _flat_out_ by your support that use by someone with a job is not supported. A home firewall is supported, but they won’t talk to me because you are legally afraid of what I might do to my own network.
This product was marketed for privacy in market research…but you won’t provide support.
You give me a toll-free phone number that rings to one individual voicemail box. How does that show that businesses are supported? You have one rep who is not available, and a tech support staff that has their hands tied.
I suffered through the lackluster communication during the Anonymizer Universal beta period. I provided feedback on the issues.
Now, at the official launch, you decide to tell me that I can’t use the software?
If I hadn’t been a customer for so many years, I’d think you were selling snake-oil.
What gives?
February 26th, 2010 at 10:05 am
This raises a critical difference between the Anonymizer Home User and Business departments. The Anonymizer Universal service is designed for home use. The Anonymizer Business department offers services for businesses with a business support department that works with the IT departments of their customers. The beta period of Anonymizer Universal demonstrated that this service is not suitable for business use. I encourage all our home users that are exploring options in their workplace to contact our Business department.
March 1st, 2010 at 5:27 pm
ANONYMIZER UNIVERSAL DOES NOT WORK WITH AVG!!!
I JUST FOUND OUT THE HARD WAY.
NOT A WORD ON THEIR WEBSITE BEFORE YOU BUY — CUSTOMER SUPPORT CLAIMS “WE’RE WORKING WITH AVG TO RESOLVE THIS.” IN THE MEANTIME — TOUGH NUGGIES FOR AVG USERS!!
March 1st, 2010 at 7:00 pm
I would not have put it quite that way, and certainly not with the shouting. This is a bug in the current implementation of AVG. AVG Internet Security 9.0 does not currently allow L2TP connections unless you set your Firewall to “Allow All.” We are in the process of working with AVG as they establish a way to enable custom settings for these types of connections.
It is not normal behavior for a firewall to require you to effectively turn it off in order to enable a VPN. There are many other free firewall options out there.
March 2nd, 2010 at 6:13 am
where can i buy Anonymizer Universal-1 Year Subscription. besides the main store
March 2nd, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Anonymizer Universal is currently only available through the Anonymizer website. Is there some difficulty making that work?
March 3rd, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Tor is free and open source:
https://www.torproject.org/
March 5th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Hello M Cottrell,
I’m a customer of Anonymizer for a certain time now with TNS. I was very surprised to read the new “Anonymizer Universal™ End–User License Agreement.
“ANONYMIZER AND ITS SUPPLIERS PROVIDE THE SOFTWARE AND SERVICES “AS IS” AND WITH ALL FAULTS”
“ANONYMIZER WARRANTS THAT THE SOFTWARE AND SERVICES WILL PERFORM SUBSTANTIALLY IN ACCORDANCE WITH THEIR DESCRIPTION AND ACCOMPANYING MATERIALS FOR A PERIOD OF SIXTY (60) DAYS FROM THE DATE OF PURCHASE. SUPPLEMENTS‚ UPDATES‚ SERVICE PACKS OR FIXES (IF ANY) PROVIDED TO YOU AFTER THE EXPIRATION OF THE SIXTY DAY LIMITED WARRANTY PERIOD ARE NOT COVERED BY ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION‚ EXPRESS‚ IMPLIED OR STATUTORY”.
… “TECHNICAL SUPPORT;CONTACT INFORMATION. In connection with your use of the Software and Services you may choose to access certain technical support (“Technical Support”) that may be offered by Anonymizer. Any such Technical Support shall be provided in Anonymizer’s sole discretion without any guarantee or warranty of any kind”.
I understand that if I upgrade from TNS to the News Universal Anonymizer, the software is provided “AS IS” and it is only warranted for a period of 60 days. The support is provided in sole discretion of Anonymizer.
It seems incredible ! It is a very hard change to your end user agreement. In my opinion users need to trust anonymizer to use this new product. If we use your products it is because we trust to your company and to your products.
I think we need the same quality of support and security we have with TNS.
Thank you for your answer
Regards
March 6th, 2010 at 7:22 am
While I generally avoid making negative comments about other privacy services, and TOR is particularly awkward since I know the authors well, I feel I need to respond.
Yes, TOR is free and run by volunteers, that is part of the reason the performance is so poor. The connections are very slow in large part because reliable high speed network connectivity is expensive. We charge for the service because it costs money to do it well.
TOR uses a security model that I simply don’t buy. With Anonymizer you do need to trust Anonymizer. We have been around almost 15 years and I have been doing this personally for 18 years. You can easily research who I am and my background and history. You can also verify that there has never been a case where Anonymizer has compromised the Internet activities of any of its users. With TOR, all of the servers are run by volunteers, and anyone can volunteer. Many of these nodes will be run by the US Government, many by foreign governments, some by criminals, and of course many by well meaning and legitimate volunteers. If you are using multiple hops, whoever runs the first node can keep track of you as a TOR user. The last node will see your traffic in the clear (unless it is encrypted end to end). This means they can intercept any non-SSL web traffic, inspect it, and even modify it. The recent EFF Panopticlick project shows how easy it would be for the end node to recognize your traffic.
I think it is far better to trust someone you can research and verify rather than trusting a cloud of people you really don’t know at all.
March 6th, 2010 at 7:26 am
I am no big fan of EULA either, but this is fairly standard boilerplate. We are not making any changes to our support policies. This is a subscription service, as long as you are a subscriber we will provide full support. To do otherwise would be business insanity. The EULA is written the way it is because this country is incredibly litigious and businesses need to CYA at all times to prevent frivolous lawsuits.
Anonymizer Universal is far superior to the old TNS product. I strongly encourage you to give it a try.
March 6th, 2010 at 8:48 am
Hello:
Is anyone having trouble with getting Anonymizer Universal to work after upgrading from Anonymizer (or one of the other services)? I get this “Error Code: 789” message EVERY single time I try to connect to the internet (“The L2TP connection attempt failed because the security layer encountered a processing error during initial negotiations with the remote computer. If this error persists, please contact Customer Support. Error Code: 789”)
BTW, I have Norton Internet Security 2010. I’ve tried everything, including completely disabling the Norton firewall (the Windows firewall is of course always turned off), but of course this does not help. I contacted/sent an email to Anonymizer Support but it’s the weekend and I’m not sure how long it will take for them to get back with me. Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks a lot, I would really appreciate it!
March 6th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
After rather sizeable gaps in communication between Anonymizer and the general public, when Anonymous Surfing failed to keep up with Microsoft and Mozilla releases, I didn’t think I’d return as a customer, but here I am. So far, so good with Universal.
Question: Where’s the suggestion box?
When I “connect automatically,” I’d like the application to get sent to the system tray, rather than the current display in the middle of the screen. Thanks!
March 8th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
Anonymizer universal wont even allow my pages to load…I installed it on my laptop replacing the original software , which worked fine by the way, thinking it would be “better” as advertised. I’m very disappointed. Contacted support and all they said was that you will experience slowdowns going through VPN….duuhhh
March 8th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
I have used the “Old version - TNS” of Anonymizer for a year without problems.
The new release of Anonymizer does not work for me (and based on comments - for many more users) !!
There are intermittent error codes, at times VERY slow connections, and rarely more than 15 minutes of use without a lockup or reconnect.
I am using Windows 7 (64 bit), Mozilla 3.6, and McAfee Firewall.
It would be VERY helpful if you would publish:
what is wrong with the new product:
which programs are compatible and a detailed setup for each compatible program:
and a timeline for resolving the bug issues.
In the meantime - is it possible to change an
Anonymyier Universal subscription to a Total Net Security subscription until the bugs are worked out?
Thanks
March 9th, 2010 at 6:52 am
I am seeing slowness, but certainly not a failure of pages to load. I suspect that the adoption curve has been faster than we expected. I am investigating to make sure we have enough new hardware in the pipeline to get back ahead of the growth curve.
March 9th, 2010 at 6:52 am
We are still learning about compatibility issues that did not show up in the Beta period. Good idea about publishing the list in a easy to find location. I will make sure that happens.
March 9th, 2010 at 7:22 am
As a start, let me list a couple of known working product.
The ZoneAlarm Free Firewall and the Comodo Free Firewall both function well.
March 10th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
I am getting this message when I try to connect; I am using Bitdefender Internet security 2010. The L2TP connection attempt failed because the security layer encountered a processing error during initial negotiations with the remote computer.
If this error persists, please contact Customer Support.
Error Code: 789
March 10th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
I like the new product. It is very nice and performance is great. I also trust the Anonymizer brand (I guess because of EFF.org, even though the company was bought by another company.
However I see one “fundamental” issue. When there is an error in the Anonymizer connection (still seems to happen frequently because of server overload?), then Anonymizer switches automatically into unprotected mode. This of course would be a serious flaw for any Anonymizer service.
March 10th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Must admit, Universal does not work for me. Get it up and running for about 5 minutes, then it disconnects, I try reconnecting and get a different error message every time (some listed on your website, some not). Also, only seems to work with FF, not IE8 or Outlook (and as per your troubleshooting guide, no I am not using port 25). And I find it much slower than TNS - strange as I thought it uses the same connection as TNS. Don’t think this is a firewall issue since it runs for a full 5 minutes (using KIS2010). Reinstalling does not work either. Uninstalled Universal, and am back on TNS - working just fine. Perhaps this needs more testing.
March 11th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Wow- I’m surprised that people are having problems. I have been a customer for many years. I happen to think Universal is perfect. It runs on my Mac flawlessly and works just as well on XP. Lance, I can honestly say I am a very happy camper now! I was a beta user and I thought your support was great. Back in the old days, the program would crash for no reason at all. I have been connected to Universal for about 50 days without one broken connection or crash. That’s really cool!
March 11th, 2010 at 10:15 am
I am sorry to hear about your troubles with Anonymizer Universal. Since it is running as a VPN, not as a browser specific plug in, I am surprised that it is impacting different browsers differently. Our support team will follow up with you to resolve this ASAP. Most of our customers are seeing huge improvements, so we need to get your issue resolved. The result you are seeing is obviously unacceptable.
March 11th, 2010 at 10:17 am
Good suggestion. We are trying to strike the right balance with how obtrusive the software is, but it should get in your face when the connection drops. Please follow up with support on the connection errors. Most customers are not seeing that, so it would be very helpful if we could work with you to debug this issue.
March 11th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Thanks for letting me know. I will make sure our engineers follow up with you to identify and resolve your issue.
March 11th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Hi,
It is happy to find a new version of the software. The version brings along with it the ease to use GUI interface, and easy to configure, easy to handle. It encrypts and hides our identity thereby protecting us and saving the traffic from falling into wrong hands. For more information:http://www.eccouncil.org/certification/certified_ethical_hacker.aspx
March 11th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
Lance, thanks for your response. I reported this to support already, so they should be aware of this. I also get “789 errors” here and there. However I somewhat expected this, because every software company has problems with quality after a software launch (unfortunately). I just hope that you guys fix the “switch into unprotected mode when connection drops” problem.
Thanks again also for your pioneer work in this field! It is really appreciated.
March 11th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
We, in Support, appreciate all the help Lance has provided above in fielding software issues and errors. Many of the scenarios described above are known issues that will be corrected in upcoming updates. Please submit all technical questions/ issues to ts @ anonymizerinc.com and comments and suggestions for enhancements or changes to the service are tracked through support @ anonymizerinc.com.
March 12th, 2010 at 5:30 am
Emily, thanks for your feedback. Anonymizer is a great company and Lance contributions to privacy are invaluable! A few bugs in a brand new product are no problem at all for us!
May 7th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Hi, I like your site! I shall be back again.
June 28th, 2010 at 7:45 pm
I really miss the TNS. My connection speeds are awful with AU. I ran a speed test from non-connected to connected and my download speed shot down from 8,343kbps to 418kbps. That’s just totally unacceptable. How can you possibly think AU is an improvement with connection speeds like that?