Desktop applications release [v59rc1]

menopia

The v59 beta test is over, and the final version is now available on our website. We thank everyone for their participation and inputs. We look forward to adding more functionality, stability with greater speed and transparency for the coming releases. You can find the release here

Today we are launching a new beta version of the Private Internet Access desktop application. This new version features a major overhaul of the internals of the application, with many new features and improvements.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Switched from Titanium to node-webkit for GUI engine.
• New desktop notifications to see when you're connected and disconnected.
• Significant reduction in disk usage, and improved app performance.

NOTES:

The PIA desktop app makes it easy to connect to our service, but also handles configuring your OS settings to further protect your privacy online. The existing client is built on top of Titanium Desktop, a framework to build desktop applications with web technologies. Titanium is no longer maintained and proved to be a barrier for us by slowing down new feature development while hampering the performance of the application, most notably by increasing disk usage.

We made the decision to replace Titanium with node-webkit, another similar framework but with vastly improved capabilities, stability and a healthy, active community. This required a significant portion of the application being re-written while preserving the same experience our users were used to.

We are happy to announce that the transition is now complete and the new version is now available. Due to the significant number of changes we are releasing a beta version which is available for anyone to use and provide feedback.

Even though this is a beta version, we have taken measures to ensure the privacy protection functionality is robust and has been thoroughly checked and verified. You can always verify that your privacy filters are active by visitinghttps://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/whats-my-ip/

HOW TO PARTICIPATE IN THE BETA PROGRAM:

Installing

1. Download the new version from the links at the bottom of this post.
2. Ensure the older version of PIA is disconnected and closed.
3. Run the installer
4. Connect using the new version

Reporting issues

1. If possible, please send a debug log, by pressing <Control+L>.
2. If possible, include a screenshot, and any relavant information about your hardware and software.
3. Send an email to [email protected] Please include [BETA] in the subject so it is directly assigned to the beta support team.

Restoring old version

You can restore the older stable version at any time if you encounter any issues which prevents you from using PIA normally.

1. Download older version of PIA Desktop client
2. Run installer of older version

KNOWN ISSUES

• Multiple processes of "pia_nw" and "pia_nw.exe" (up to 4) can be running on your computer while the application is active. This is due to the multi-process nature of the application, which is derived from Google's Chromium engine. This is not a bug.
• Only 64 bit Ubuntu is supported for this build. 32 bit support is coming soon.

DOWNLOAD

* Windows: https://privateinternetaccess-storage.s3.amazonaws.com/pub/installers/pia-v59rc1-installer.exe

* Linux: https://privateinternetaccess-storage.s3.amazonaws.com/pub/installers/pia-v59rc1-installer.sh

* OSX: https://privateinternetaccess-storage.s3.amazonaws.com/pub/installers/pia-v59rc1-installer.dmg

CHANGE LOG:

v59 RC1 [ 31st May ]:

* Misc bug fixes.

* Removed "ERR_CLIENT_HB_INVALID": A safety feature which was not behaving as expected in some platforms.

* Known issue: On ubuntu 16.04, you might need to log out/log in for the application to be listed in the menu.

* Known issue: Resuming from sleep on some versions of Windows 10 with killswitch might disable your openvpn connection. Re-connecting will restore your connectivity. However this will be fixed in the next upcoming release.

v59 Beta 2 [ 20th May ]:

• This version is tagged v59 instead of v57. Explanation will be provided in a separate post.
• Bug fixes, performance and stability improvements.
• Upgraded openssl version.
• Vastly reduced dependencies for linux. Only libxss and libindicator1 are required
• Added support for 32 bit linux. The linux installer should work with both platforms.
• Added an option to disable debug logs being collected on your computer. These are primarily used by support to diagnose issues. If you have an SSD you can consider turning these off to further reduce writes to the disk.
• A clear message is displayed while connected, explaining that you cannot change settings. The UI is also grayed out more prominently.
• The PIA icon won't appear in your taskbar or Alt-Tab menu, which was the behaviour of the older application. Users requested the older behaviour to be restored.
• Known Issue: In some cases, on Windows 10, if you have VPN kill switch enabled, suspending/hibernating your computer and resuming might break the openvpn connection. This is currently a major priority and will be fixed in an upcoming release. A workaround is to disconnect and re-connect if you encounter issues.

WARNING:

This software is BETA and is presented AS IS.

If you rely on using the PIA app to protect your online identity, DO NOT use this BETA software.

Use one of the versions available at https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/downloads

dakotame

I DID use the download from Microsoft for "Disable IPv6," rebooted and checked a log online to see how I was connecting and I am now connecting via IPv4.

dakotame

I think it is REALLY important that PIA do a better job of letting it's customers know about this problem with its inability to provide VPN service over IPv6.  I've been a customer for over a year with a false belief that my Internet connection was protected through a VPN connection, meanwhile connecting to the Internet through IPv6 and not protected.  Furthermore, the app does not actually block IPv6 traffic, EVEN THOUGH, it has a check box one can select that says that it is blocking IPv6.  This is really frustrating and I feel like I've been running around without my clothes on and having rockin' sex, thinking no one could see because I had my curtains closed, only to find out that my curtains provided absolutely NO privacy and my entire neighborhood could see everything I was doing all along.  You guys need to be A LOT more clear about what your product does and doesn't do and MAKE SURE your customers have IPv6 disabled.  From what I've read Windows 10 uses IPv6 FIRST.  You market to lay people, and we shouldn't have to go reading the fine print or discovering by accident or hacked computer that we weren't actually protected like we thought we were, ESPECIALLY since this is a paid service.  

Toriko

The uninstaller is missing for Windows 10

asanjeev

@Toriko - The uninstaller should be created if the installer finished successfully. Are you on 32 or 64 bit Windows 10? Also are you using a language pack which isn't english?

@dakotame: I'm sorry that the IPv6 leak protection isn't working properly for you. If you can run these troubleshooting steps, it will help us identify why the blocking isn't functioning.

1. Once the app is connected with IPv6 leak protection turned on, open the "Windows firewall and Advanced Security" app in Windows 10

2. In the left pane, select "Outbound rules"

3. Look for a rule beginning with "4xjr"

4. Double click it, and click on the "Scope" tab

5. In "Remote IP Addresses" you will see something like "8000::/1" and "::/1"

Do let me know what you're seeing instead. We are very committed to ensuring your privacy, and ensuring better default settings are an important part of it.

pjnsmb

How disappointing - it still seems to need libjpeg62 on my linux siduction system .

The installer removes  half my system  because of this , as per my previous posts .

Can you list the full dependencies please 

thanks

asanjeev

@pjnsmb: There are some legacy packages that are pulled in. I will make it a priority to remove the dependency of most packages for the next release in 3-4 days.

Since we've changed the underlying infrastructure the good news is all the older packages are no longer required.

moshbeast

Tried the Windows version...I couldn't adjust any of the settings as they were all greyed out and it wouldn't switch servers at all..every time i disconnected I had to restart the computer to get it to reconnect ...I uninstalled it as it still needs work

pjnsmb

@asanjeev

thanks for the update ,it sounds promising 

asanjeev

@moshbeast - you can't change any of the settings when it's actually connected. Were you connected at the time the settings were grayed out? if not, then that is a bug, and it would help us a lot if you could give us more information via a support ticket (all support tickets with "[beta]" in the subject come directly to me.

The rationale behind this is because changing the settings while it's actually connected can cause abnormal behaviour at times. Once a network connection is established, the parameters are fixed. I understand the older version did allow doing this but it introduced some subtle bugs.

One thing that we will do is add a notice explaining why the settings cannot be changed at this time. Please do give the client another chance if you can.

OpenVPN

Is there an Android beta version that has been released? If so I would like to try it. I've been seeing pictures on the Google Play store of a newly redesigned interface. The Google Play store says that the android application was updated on April 14th but mine never updated and I don't see any signs of any new features or improvements to the service. I'm currently running version 1.1.7 from the Google Play store, if anyone has a newer version of the android application please post a link to where I can download it.
thanks!

Running the Mac beta version now for the last three hours and I absolutely love it!

secure4me

Is it really necessary to disable the firewall on a Mac? I know this was the same behavior on the previous builds and I see it still does this  with this one.

WinstonSmith

Does not work with Manjaro as it depends on apt-get being the package manager.
I would assume that it is for Debian based OSs only.

[[email protected] Downloads]$ sh pia-v57b1-installer.sh
Extracting files...
[sudo] password for john:
Installing dependencies...
Running: sudo apt-get install -y libjpeg62 libxss1
sudo: apt-get: command not found
Running: sudo apt-get install -y libappindicator1
sudo: apt-get: command not found
Running: sudo apt-get install -y libgail18
sudo: apt-get: command not found
Installation complete!


Command to delete the broken leftovers ( not sure if I missed anything )

rm ~/.com.privateinternetaccess.vpn/ ~/pia.sh ~/.pia_manager ~/.pia_manager_crash.log -r

WinstonSmith

OpenVPN said:

Is there an Android beta version that has been released? If so I would like to try it. I've been seeing pictures on the Google Play store of a newly redesigned interface. The Google Play store says that the android application was updated on April 14th but mine never updated and I don't see any signs of any new features or improvements to the service. I'm currently running version 1.1.7 from the Google Play store, if anyone has a newer version of the android application please post a link to where I can download it.
thanks!

Running the Mac beta version now for the last three hours and I absolutely love it!

This worked for me...
https://apkpure.com/vpn-by-private-internet-access/com.privateinternetaccess.android

asanjeev

@WinstonSmith - we don't officially support Manjaro, we are reducing the dependencies in the next beta build. 

Can you try directly running this after your installation:

~/.pia_manager/pia_manager/run.sh

This will send any errors to stdout. We have used frameworks which are statically linked which increase the size with the benefit of decreasing OS level dependencies but it also might depend on.

Since you're on Arch, and we run on node-webkit it is safe to say that if you have all the packages node-webkit requires, the app should run safely. I had a look at the PKGBUILD for the user-contributed node-webkit package.

https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=nwjs-bin

It says to install the following packages:

depends=("alsa-lib" "gconf" "gtk2" "nss" "ttf-font" "libxtst" "libxss")

If you get those packages, and run the installer hopefully it might work. Do let me know!

WinstonSmith

@asanjeev Thank you for the suggestion! I will try again and let you know.

w

WinstonSmith

@asanjeev Yes I do understand that you do not officially support Manjaro.  I thought I would try the newest beta just to see what would happen.

I appreciate the suggestions, thank you!


As for the packages suggested "alsa-lib" "gconf" "gtk2" "nss" "ttf-font" "libxtst" and "libxss"...

It appears that all of these packages are currently installed and up to date...
alsa-lib-1.1.1-1
gconf-3.2.6-3
nss-3.23-3
ttf-bitstream-vera-1.10-10 ( If this is the same thing as "ttf-font" )
libxtst-1.2.2-1
libxss-1.2.2-2


When I execute the run.sh script I get the following...

[[email protected] ~]$ ~/.pia_manager/pia_manager/run.sh
pia_nw: no process found
kill: sending signal to 7877 failed: No such process

asanjeev

@WinstonSmith: The stdout is not anything to be concerned about. It just tries to clean up some old processes to prevent any conflicts.

Can you tell me what desktop environment you're using? We've again, only tested on GNOME and not yet on KDE but we're hoping that the common tray indicator system will work across both.

Additionally, while `run.sh` is running, can you tell me if `pgrep pia_nw` shows any output?

sativarg

Dear Trever,

Thank you for the kind reply to my email concerning the long list and scrolling. I like the new divided list. I am legally blind and I use the High contranst black theme and the magnifier in windows seven to see. Unfortunately now with the Beta version the context menu items disappear as I try to use the mouse to see them. They are there until the mouse gets close, then they disappear. This probably does not happen in normal themes but I must use High contrast black or a varient of it in order to see. Another problem I have is that many programs do not conform to the colors I choose. PIA is one of these and the very bright white hurts my one "good"  eye a lot. My retina where both detached  for several years; ecause of this, they are damaged in a way that makes bright white fields with dark text hard to see. Please consider allowing PIA to offer a dark theme.
thanks and blessings
chuck

OmniNegro

Green text on a black background is remarkably easy on the eyes and good for those of us with bad vision.

It also has remarkably contrast for those who have other vision problems.

sativarg

OmniNegro said:

Green text on a black background is remarkably easy on the eyes and good for those of us with bad vision.

It also has remarkably contrast for those who have other vision problems.

I have tried green. It is OK for me but the damage I have makes bright yellow on black better. thanks

UPDATE: I suggest a sound on connect and disconnect. I saw the message box and I like that because the tiny tray Icon is hard to see. A nice sound would help too because the connection could go down while a user in not looking at the screen.

I was going to say I could not change settings... I saw the post about the settings being disabled in this version while connected. A message when clicking the settings when connected? maybe
thanks again
chuck

asanjeev

@sativarg, @OmniNegro,

Thank you for sharing the issues with the accessibility in our software. We hadn't taken the high contrast and magnification mode into consideration. I've made a note and will try to include adding an "accessibility" mode in the software within the next 2 weeks (before the final version is released):

1. The black text on white background can be changed to green text on a black background.

2. The menu will have scrolling disabled and the region menu will have fewer regions so it will be easier to scan with screen readers.

3. connect/disconnect will have sounds (am not 100% sure we can do this but we'll definitely try to include it)

If you wish to be notified by email, or are interested in testing and providing feedback on the beta, please send an email to [email protected] with "[Beta]" in the subject line, expressing your interest to provide early adopter feedback on the accessibility features.

dsmurphy

v57 beta 1 continues the problem of disabling the firewall in Mac OS X 10.11.4.

Please fix this PIA apps behavior so that the workstation firewall may remain enabled.

alex1911

Hey all. I copied my suggestion from previous thread. If it's realistic I want to hear an answer from PIA developers about it:
--------------------------------------------------------------

I have a suggestion that will help PIA as a VPN client be established in gamers minds. My suggestion is to create an option in PIA software where user will have an ability to tick / untick "Gaming Mode" option. This option should exclude from PIA software such programs like Origin, Steam, Uplay, because using VPN while gaming / playing online games or 3D first person shooters are a little bit laggy and games have a bigger ping than with original ISP IP, It will be a very cool option and many my friends from IGN network will recommend your client. On the one hand user will get protection by PIA browsing online, and on the other LAG free Stutter free and PING free online gaming experience.

--
Thank you.

asanjeev

@alex1911: I totally get the importance of what you're saying (I'm a CS:GO player myself!) and latency in some apps can really kill the experience.

PIA works by using openvpn's "tunnel" system which routes all system traffic through VPN. It's not very straight forward at this time to enable specific ports to use your regular connection without pasing it through PIA.

One thing you can do, in order to keep your low ping times and also have your privacy online, is to use PIA's socks5 proxy. You can find the proxy settings inside your client login page. Configure your browser and other apps to use the socks proxy and you'll be able to browse securely online, while maintaining good ping times.

@dsmurphy: we are aware of the firewall issue, and it's something we're actively trying to fix. Hopefully within the next beta, or by v58 we should be able to have a less invasive way to ensure a reliable connection on OSX.

WillP0w

Does this beta or will the one of the upcoming betas or the official v.57 will allow direct access with other devices behind our private networks? With the previous v.56 release, PIA broke different things by having PIA do the forwarding. I don't see anyways, any benefits of having PIA forward connections to other devices under the same LAN.

alex1911

Hey asanjeev, Thank you for the reply and I still hope that maybe this feature will be integrated in next releases

jtcgiants56

Nice! This along with the redesigned android app is a welcome change.

Edit: I'm using a static IP on my LAN, and when disconnecting it does not restore my gateway. In fact, right now when I go to reenter is and hit save, I go back and it is still completley gone. Really weird.

Coach

I have tested the new version, first delete the old V49 completely, and now turns off the Mac firewall in connection to US East, if I turn off PIA VPN the Mac firewall is turned on again THX for Beta V57 works very well with me,

secure4me

Coach said:

I have tested the new version, first delete the old V49 completely, and now turns off the Mac firewall in connection to US East, if I turn off PIA VPN the Mac firewall is turned on again THX for Beta V57 works very well with me,

I see the same on Mac, this is acceptable, where I believe the older app would leave the firewall off, even after disconnecting from PIA.

Toriko

asanjeev 

Yes, installed it properly but I do see the uninstaller link in the start menu but when I click get the missing shortcut message.

Also, this app is using way too much ram and cpu than the previous.