Hey Johan,
Thank you for getting back to us with this.
AVG is registered in Czechia. it is possible that some of our servers may be located in Czechia. The information that is saved in the databases is sometimes incorrect.
If you have any screenshots or more information regarding this so we can investigate it further that would be very helpful.
Could you please provide a bit more information regarding the payment interception, where was the payment going, and did the payment go through to the correct place?
I hope to hear back from you soon. Regards, Jack
To have the right understanding.
A by AVG-VPN allocate IP is managed by a local ISP. That ISP maintains a DNS server which translates my URL into an IP. The DNS server also can provide other information about that IP like location, ISP and much more.
A local DNS server is necessary as only one global DNS server would collapse in a millisecond. Also, a global DNS server could not define efficient routing.
There are many levels of DNS servers ranging from ISP, region, country, continent and more, much dependent on performance requirements and routing needs. Totalitarian countries maintain their own country DNS server to enable censoring.
There is a global DNS map, and all DNS servers are supposed to synch with that.
Many DNS servers don’t do synching on a regular basis, or even never at all, and as a result URLs are translated to either wrong IP or wrong location or both.
The ISP used by the AVG-VPN in Miami is one of them.
I understand that the used DNS server is the responsibility of the ISP. But it is AVGs responsibility to provide a reliable VPN service. 99% correct for a VPN service is just not good enough.
When AVG started with its VPN, there have been many mis-match problems and I have strongly advised AVG to take DNS responsibility. Probably matching the ISP DNS map with the Global map and push the ISP to fix problems. That was understood but has not been done. That might be the cheap solution in the short term but in the long-term, AVG customers will seek a better and more reliable option. I do not like to switch for now but as an example, I cannot select Miami as my VPN server and for now I switch to Jacksonville to circumvent the problems. There are many VPN service providers each having their own peculiarities.
If Netflix can not detect is a VPN being used to break geofencing, then that is very good of AVG-VPN. For sure USPS has not the systems in place, or even the need, to detect a VPN is being used. In fact, I have not encountered anyone who detects a VPN is being used. I am pretty sure you are aware of that.
USPS has apparently a problem with the outcome of the Miami VPN DNS server that they cannot handle. USPS is happy with the AVG Jacksonville VPN server.
If using the Miami VPN server and webpages are translated into a non-English language, then for sure the Miami DNS server is telling that the VPN IP is not in the USA. That is wrong and a pronlem. I will blame AVG for that because not taking responsebilitynfor a good and reliable service.
My recommenadation is that for each of the used ISPs, an ISP DNS extract to be made and compared with the global map. Any mis-match should be communicated to the relevant ISP and demanding a fix.
Dear Johan,
Thank you for getting back and please accept my apologies for not being able to get back to you sooner.
I shared your observations, concerns, and feedback with our specialists and developers and I'll let you know what they said as soon as I receive an update from them.
Thank you for your patience and understanding. All the best, Jovana
Hello Johan. My name is Jovana and I'm writing to you on behalf of our senior support team.
Please accept my apologies for the delay.
We appreciate your detailed clarification and explanation of the issues with the Miami server and your overall experience. Thank you for your recommendations.
We've shared it with our developers and the appropriate teams so we can continue to make improvements in the future. Whether the feedback is positive or not, we always consider it and use it to advance our services.
Thank you for taking the time to point this out to us. If you need any future assistance, feel free to write back.
Enjoy your day and take care. Jovana
Thanks for your extensive response.
Good to hear you are managing your owns DNS. I assume most problems will be over soon.
I do not keep detailed track of incidents so at this moment I cannot help you with recalling specific incidents. To give you an example: In September 2020 I tried to use PayPal to transfer money to a seller in Miami. After checking the executed transaction, I found the transaction apparently was intercepted, the recipient changed, and money went else were. It turned out that interception was done by someone in Czechoslovakia. I was on AVG VPN in Miami. My bank blocked my credit card, later accepted it was not a credit card fraud and reversed the transaction. In 2021 the exact same transaction was repeated even me doing nothing. Again Czechoslovakia. My bank reversed that transaction also. I had to replace our Credit Cards to be sure.
I analyzed the 2020 incident and found my PC was compromised between starting the PC and before security was up and running. I found on the PC thousands of files all called “Facebook.png” “Facebook. icon.png” etc. Without harm I could delete them mostly. Left were those who were put in protected folders to which I have no access. I think there are still some there as I have no idea how to get rid of them. Most of them are gone somehow, I see now. Either that was a hacker or Facebook thinking my PC is theirs. My next step is simple deleting all with Facebook in the file name.
Now I start the computer without Internet and start Internet when all is running including cleaning as much as possible. Temp files, history, recycle, log files, super cookies etc. Bad thing was that one of the Microsoft modifications did not honor “Connect automatically when in range” which was set to Off. That was fixed later. Anyhow that is the background of me asking AVG to have the option to block internet until VPN is up and running.
Dear Jovana,
Thanks for your response.
FYI, I now also have sporadic problems with the Jacksonville server.
My recommendation to check the DNS servers from all ISP's is correct.
I checked my log files and saw for Miami non resolvable DNS requests. That for me is an indication that the routing goes awry. Probably that is also the reason for the performance problems. I think you really should be worried. If a DNS request for the same URL can be resolved correct and quick or is resolved wrong or is resolved slow or cannot be resolved, then that could be an indication of that the server is compromised.
If I try to access my bank in the Netherlands and then detect being hacked out of Czechoslovakia, then you can do the math. If my bank after that is processing fake PayPal Credit card transactions out of Czechoslovakia then the bank has a problem and in the long run, I will become a reliability for the bank.
I detected a problem with Windows 10. I define my network as not to start automatically. I do that manually after all my shields are up and running. After a specific Windows 10 update, the network was always activated immediately regardless of what I had defined. That created a security hole that was abused once. It took me a while before Microsoft fixed that. My bypass was to pull the cable.
It would not be a bad option that AVG, wherever, blocks internet at boot time until all AVG systems are up and running. With AVG-VPN, that should not be too difficult. A kind of service routine, part of boot-up that disables internet. Internet temporally enabled by AVG-VPN when appropriate. The difficult part is the what-if.
Dear Johan,
Thank you for getting back and please accept my apologies for not being able to get back to you sooner.
I shared your observations, concerns, and feedback with our specialists and developers and I'll let you know what they said as soon as I receive an update from them.
Thank you for your patience and understanding. All the best, Jovana
Hello Johan,
Thank you for reaching AVG Support Community.
We sincerely apologize for the difficulties you are currently experiencing.
We'll certainly look into it and help you.
Some websites may have VPN restrictions. In this case, we recommend you to try the different VPN servers/locations in AVG Secure VPN.
If possible, please share the screenshot of the error message which you get while accessing the website.
Please confirm whether you're facing this issue on a specific website or all the websites.
Are you able to access the website in a different VPN location?
Regards to the language concern, If you surf the internet while connected to your account, it can trace your online activities back to you. Since a VPN changes your virtual location, it might look like you're accessing the websites from a different region. Hence, you might face this problem.
Please change the location in the AVG Secure VPN to P2P/ Streaming servers and let us know the status.
If the issue persists, please try those websites on different browsers and try the incognito mode.
Also, let us know the operating system of your device.
Thank you.
I am getting ever more problems with your VPN.
Checking USPS tracking:
You do not have permission to access this page
If you have found this page in error, please contact support
Reference:126341888307825584331721972348758842099320034968299102359
My VPN IP is: [Ip address removed], Miami Florida is selected, said to be the most optimal connection.
Other websites can complain also.
Sometimes I am being switched to strange languages.
Many times, the Miami VPN gives no or slow response.
I detect attempts to break into my computer.
If I switch to Jacksonville, then no problem.
Hey Johan,
Thank you for getting back to us with this.
AVG is registered in Czechia. it is possible that some of our servers may be located in Czechia. The information that is saved in the databases is sometimes incorrect.
If you have any screenshots or more information regarding this so we can investigate it further that would be very helpful.
Could you please provide a bit more information regarding the payment interception, where was the payment going, and did the payment go through to the correct place?
I hope to hear back from you soon. Regards, Jack
To have the right understanding.
A by AVG-VPN allocate IP is managed by a local ISP. That ISP maintains a DNS server which translates my URL into an IP. The DNS server also can provide other information about that IP like location, ISP and much more.
A local DNS server is necessary as only one global DNS server would collapse in a millisecond. Also, a global DNS server could not define efficient routing.
There are many levels of DNS servers ranging from ISP, region, country, continent and more, much dependent on performance requirements and routing needs. Totalitarian countries maintain their own country DNS server to enable censoring.
There is a global DNS map, and all DNS servers are supposed to synch with that.
Many DNS servers don’t do synching on a regular basis, or even never at all, and as a result URLs are translated to either wrong IP or wrong location or both.
The ISP used by the AVG-VPN in Miami is one of them.
I understand that the used DNS server is the responsibility of the ISP. But it is AVGs responsibility to provide a reliable VPN service. 99% correct for a VPN service is just not good enough.
When AVG started with its VPN, there have been many mis-match problems and I have strongly advised AVG to take DNS responsibility. Probably matching the ISP DNS map with the Global map and push the ISP to fix problems. That was understood but has not been done. That might be the cheap solution in the short term but in the long-term, AVG customers will seek a better and more reliable option. I do not like to switch for now but as an example, I cannot select Miami as my VPN server and for now I switch to Jacksonville to circumvent the problems. There are many VPN service providers each having their own peculiarities.
If Netflix can not detect is a VPN being used to break geofencing, then that is very good of AVG-VPN. For sure USPS has not the systems in place, or even the need, to detect a VPN is being used. In fact, I have not encountered anyone who detects a VPN is being used. I am pretty sure you are aware of that.
USPS has apparently a problem with the outcome of the Miami VPN DNS server that they cannot handle. USPS is happy with the AVG Jacksonville VPN server.
If using the Miami VPN server and webpages are translated into a non-English language, then for sure the Miami DNS server is telling that the VPN IP is not in the USA. That is wrong and a pronlem. I will blame AVG for that because not taking responsebilitynfor a good and reliable service.
My recommenadation is that for each of the used ISPs, an ISP DNS extract to be made and compared with the global map. Any mis-match should be communicated to the relevant ISP and demanding a fix.
Hi Jonah. Thank you for your patience, My name is Jack and I'm writing to you on behalf of AVG Senior Support.
I see several issues here.
The first one is regarding the quality of some of our IPs.
We are aware of this issue with some of our IPs and we are currently working on improving this situation in general. Some services and websites are adding logic to their websites to block access to their resources from IPs which are known as VPN or if IP is being compromised in some of DB. Examples of services that are blocking VPN: Hulu; Amazon Prime Video; YouTube TV.
To make it extra clear, we have thousands of IPs in our infrastructure, which are shared among millions of users. As we do not track user activities (according to our privacy policy) we can’t mitigate situations where some users are misusing our IPs and compromising them, so IP becomes blocked or blacklisted by third parties. The root cause also might be not intentional misuse, but some websites, might have some specific security rules on the website, so they could take suspicious many requests from one IP and block it (in theory). As a solution to the case you reported, we already working on fixing Miami IPs which are blocked by USPS. I Will let you know once we have an update regarding this.2. “I detect attempts to break into my computer.”
Can you please elaborate on this more? How do you recognize the attempt to break into your computer and why do you think it is related to our VPN? This issue is very important for us, so please put here as many details as possible, so we could resolve it for our VPN in general, in case the weakness is confirmed. 3. “Many times, the Miami VPN gives no or slow response”.
It shouldn’t be so. Can you please let us know the exact date time when it happened? We need the date, time, and timezone. All our servers have more than enough capacity to handle the current userbase, and it is a priority for us to constantly monitor our infrastructure and scale servers in advance to deliver the best service to our users. 4. we really appreciate such a technical and detailed explanation of the DNS problem. Let me comment it in general. The situation is quite different from your perception. We are using and maintaining our own DNS, so if you’re connected to VPN - we are the one, who resolves DNS requests. So in case, some hosts are not working, could you please let us know which exactly, so we could check it on our end?
5. Good idea about blocking all internet until the VPN session is started. We will add it to our backlog. I Will let you know if it is prioritized and ETA will appear. And thanks again for sharing with us all the issues and your ideas on how to improve our VPN service. We always listen to our customers and constantly try to improve. We will keep you posted once we have any updates regarding raised topics.
If there is ever anything, know that we're always here to help!
All the best, Jack.
Hi Johan, We request your patience as we have escalated the case to a higher level of support and they will get back to you as soon as possible.
Thank you.
Hi Jonah. Thank you for your patience, My name is Jack and I'm writing to you on behalf of AVG Senior Support.
I see several issues here.
The first one is regarding the quality of some of our IPs.
We are aware of this issue with some of our IPs and we are currently working on improving this situation in general. Some services and websites are adding logic to their websites to block access to their resources from IPs which are known as VPN or if IP is being compromised in some of DB. Examples of services that are blocking VPN: Hulu; Amazon Prime Video; YouTube TV.
To make it extra clear, we have thousands of IPs in our infrastructure, which are shared among millions of users. As we do not track user activities (according to our privacy policy) we can’t mitigate situations where some users are misusing our IPs and compromising them, so IP becomes blocked or blacklisted by third parties. The root cause also might be not intentional misuse, but some websites, might have some specific security rules on the website, so they could take suspicious many requests from one IP and block it (in theory). As a solution to the case you reported, we already working on fixing Miami IPs which are blocked by USPS. I Will let you know once we have an update regarding this.2. “I detect attempts to break into my computer.”
Can you please elaborate on this more? How do you recognize the attempt to break into your computer and why do you think it is related to our VPN? This issue is very important for us, so please put here as many details as possible, so we could resolve it for our VPN in general, in case the weakness is confirmed. 3. “Many times, the Miami VPN gives no or slow response”.
It shouldn’t be so. Can you please let us know the exact date time when it happened? We need the date, time, and timezone. All our servers have more than enough capacity to handle the current userbase, and it is a priority for us to constantly monitor our infrastructure and scale servers in advance to deliver the best service to our users. 4. we really appreciate such a technical and detailed explanation of the DNS problem. Let me comment it in general. The situation is quite different from your perception. We are using and maintaining our own DNS, so if you’re connected to VPN - we are the one, who resolves DNS requests. So in case, some hosts are not working, could you please let us know which exactly, so we could check it on our end?
5. Good idea about blocking all internet until the VPN session is started. We will add it to our backlog. I Will let you know if it is prioritized and ETA will appear. And thanks again for sharing with us all the issues and your ideas on how to improve our VPN service. We always listen to our customers and constantly try to improve. We will keep you posted once we have any updates regarding raised topics.
If there is ever anything, know that we're always here to help!
All the best, Jack.
Hello Johan,
Thank you for reaching AVG Support Community.
We sincerely apologize for the difficulties you are currently experiencing.
We'll certainly look into it and help you.
Some websites may have VPN restrictions. In this case, we recommend you to try the different VPN servers/locations in AVG Secure VPN.
If possible, please share the screenshot of the error message which you get while accessing the website.
Please confirm whether you're facing this issue on a specific website or all the websites.
Are you able to access the website in a different VPN location?
Regards to the language concern, If you surf the internet while connected to your account, it can trace your online activities back to you. Since a VPN changes your virtual location, it might look like you're accessing the websites from a different region. Hence, you might face this problem.
Please change the location in the AVG Secure VPN to P2P/ Streaming servers and let us know the status.
If the issue persists, please try those websites on different browsers and try the incognito mode.
Also, let us know the operating system of your device.
Thank you.
Thanks for your extensive response.
Good to hear you are managing your owns DNS. I assume most problems will be over soon.
I do not keep detailed track of incidents so at this moment I cannot help you with recalling specific incidents. To give you an example: In September 2020 I tried to use PayPal to transfer money to a seller in Miami. After checking the executed transaction, I found the transaction apparently was intercepted, the recipient changed, and money went else were. It turned out that interception was done by someone in Czechoslovakia. I was on AVG VPN in Miami. My bank blocked my credit card, later accepted it was not a credit card fraud and reversed the transaction. In 2021 the exact same transaction was repeated even me doing nothing. Again Czechoslovakia. My bank reversed that transaction also. I had to replace our Credit Cards to be sure.
I analyzed the 2020 incident and found my PC was compromised between starting the PC and before security was up and running. I found on the PC thousands of files all called “Facebook.png” “Facebook. icon.png” etc. Without harm I could delete them mostly. Left were those who were put in protected folders to which I have no access. I think there are still some there as I have no idea how to get rid of them. Most of them are gone somehow, I see now. Either that was a hacker or Facebook thinking my PC is theirs. My next step is simple deleting all with Facebook in the file name.
Now I start the computer without Internet and start Internet when all is running including cleaning as much as possible. Temp files, history, recycle, log files, super cookies etc. Bad thing was that one of the Microsoft modifications did not honor “Connect automatically when in range” which was set to Off. That was fixed later. Anyhow that is the background of me asking AVG to have the option to block internet until VPN is up and running.