OSX PIA VPN CLIENT DISABLES FIREWALL

brainspire

Hi,

I installed the latest version of the pia vpn client for osx v.63 from the website on OS X El Capitan (10.11.6) and when I launch the pia client it disables my firewall?! I even noticed that the client on startup connects to www.google.com through port 443?!

Can anyone please shed some light this behavior?

Thanks

brainspire

Downgrading to v.53 seems to be the latest version without the osx firewall problem. Let's hope they fix it in v.64 or later.

kenji129

Same issue here. Oddly enough, it was working fine before I had upgraded to OS Sierra. Didn't like Sierra so I reverted back to El Capitan and now the firewalls keeps turning off..

ElBandito

Same for me on macOS sierra. I whitelist all the pia stuff in /private/tmp and when I turn the firewall on all is fine however PIA keeps disabling the firewall when it starts this is rubbish! - v65

OpenVPN

@doaks, You should consider using the computers firewall to set up custom firewall rules to block all leaks such as ipv6, DNS, Webrtc and even Disconnection leaks You could use these firewall rules to ensure that no information leaks outside the VPN tunnel. If you were able to do this there would be no need leak protection anymore.

i90rr

BEAUTIFUL

Almost a year later and I found myself confronting the same problem.

At first I didn't understand what was happening on my systems since my application firewall was being turned off at what it seemed randomly times. Then I noticed it was turned off on every reboot. After doing a bit of research now I see the issue is with the broken PIA client (now on version 72) which is simply unacceptable.

I just opened a ticket since I'm curious about what would be their response since they clearly didn't attend the issue in a whole year.

Thankfully I payed this 2-Year scam with PayPal so maybe everything isn't lost and I still have a chance to get a refund if PIA gives me a canned response or they doesn't seem diligent enough to fix something they should have fixed a year ago.

Goddamnit, I feel so scammed >:(


*UPDATE*

While the following information does not solve the problem with PIA's own Mac client -- which indeed puts customers' systems at risk by disabling the built-in OS firewall -- at least let you use the service (which is very good) without the drawback previously mentioned:

```
We actually support two alternate OpenVPN based set-up for MacOS, Tunnelblick, and Viscosity. Both programs work well, with some minor differences. These can sometimes work when our OpenVPN-based PIA client VPN does not.

There are two options for set-up: Tunnelblick, and Viscosity.

Tunnelblick is a free program developed by Google. Because it is free, it is not updated as frequently as a paid program, and there may be some delays waiting for compatibility with newer operating systems.

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/client-support/#macosx_openvpn

Viscosity is a program developed by a company called Spark Labs. It has a 30 day free trial, then requires the one-time purchase of a license. The trade-off for this Viscosity is updated much more quickly and is always ready to go with even the newest operating systems.

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/client-support/#macosx_viscosity

Once you've chosen which program you want to use, click the appropriate link above to see the set-up instructions.
```

I am using Shimo (https://www.shimovpn.com) and so far no complains; you can check everything is working as expected by visiting ipleak.net. Disclaimer: I'm not sure if MACE feature is accesible by connecting to PIA servers this way. Thoughts?