One of the main advantages of connecting to a VPN account is you can be sure that you’re safe from packet sniffers when you’re connected to a public hotspot because your traffic will be encrypted, hence the sniffers can only see gibberish data. Windows 7 by default supports PPTP and L2TP VPN and it is convenient to connect to a VPN by specifying the VPN server address, username and password without installing any third party software. However, when you’re using a public computer and want to connect to your VPN server, you are risking your VPN login credentials being stolen by a keylogger, and the other problem is remembering the VPN server IP address, and the randomly generated username and password.
One example is CactusVPN generates a random username and password when you create an account. Although the password can be changed, but the random username such as wcwijixu makes it hard to remember. This is when PortableVPN comes into play by allowing you to easily connect to pre-defined VPN connections with a single click.
With PortableVPN, there is no longer a need to manually configure VPN connections on Windows computer and also saving the credentials which will risk being stolen. All you need to do is run PortableVPN, select the pre-defined VPN server that you want to connect and click the Connect button. Of course you will have to first add all the details of the VPN servers and save it before you can conveniently connect.
Upon running PortableVPN the first time, a few folders and files will be auto generated and saved at the same location of the PortableVPN executable file. The first General tab allows you to add your VPN server details. You can type anything on the Connection name as an identifier followed by the VPN Host which is the VPN server’s IP address, username and password. You can check the save passwords checkbox and then click the Save icon to save the VPN details that you’ve just entered. By default PortableVPN automatically detects the VPN type which is either PPTP or L2TP but you can manually set it at the Options tab.
Do take note that you will need to check the “Use external gateway” checkbox at the Options tab if you want to redirect all traffic to your VPN or else you will still be using the direct connection even if PortableVPN is connected to your VPN. PortableVPN a real time saver if you would always want to connect to your VPN servers even when you’re not using your computer.
PortableVPN does not support OpenVPN protocol and it is a shareware that cost €14.95 EUR. The demo version that can be downloaded on the official PortableVPN website only has 1 limitation which is the VPN connection is auto terminated after 180 seconds (3 minutes). However during testing I found that there were a few occasions that the VPN connection is not dropped even after being connected for more than 3 minutes… PortableVPN is compatible with Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008/Windows7.
