Phenquestions
Freelan is a free, open-sourced VPN software that comes with no GUI but great features and compatibility. Unlike the common VPN software out there which lets you anonymously surf the web, Freelan is bit different. It lets you abstract a LAN network over the internet and then you can use it in any way you want. You can manually configure it to surf the web anonymously, play an old LAN game with friends over the internet or the possibilities are countless.
Freelan VPN Review
Since this free VPN software has no GUI, it is a bit tedious task to configure it as per your requirements. The basic instructions have been provided by the developer. You need to carefully follow these instructions to setup your virtual private network. Once you know how to setup Freelan, you can unleash its full potential. For you ready reference, I've inserted the links to configure Freelan at relevant places in this article.
There are many configurations in which Freelan can be configured. I've tried my best to explain them:
- Client-Server: In this configuration, you can setup a computer as a server and connect other computers as its clients. This is the most common configuration and applicable at most of the network requirements. The server can also decide whether the clients can communicate with each other or not. Also, this configuration is considered fragile as if anything happens to the server, the complete network can be destroyed.
- Peer to Peer: In peer to peer network configuration, each node(device) is connected to all other nodes and if any node is disconnected, the entire network is not disturbed and connectivity at all times is ensured. This configuration also performs better than the other configurations.
- Hybrid Configuration: Hybrid configurations are the combination of client-servers and the peer to peer networks. Basically, in this type of configuration, you can create more than one servers and have nodes connected to each other as well.
With these configurations, you can have endless possibilities of creating your own network.
Here is the link that takes you to the page that describes how to setup Freelan just after you've installed it.
This link will take you to a configuration example that describes how a VPN connection can be established between two computers.
Configuration examples for more complex networks are coming soon, but if you are facing some issues while creating your network, you can write to the developers to receive a solution from the existing users and developers.
Freelan is a great robust tool but a bit difficult to understand and work upon. A GUI would have made it easily accessible by an average user. But still, you can get your work done by studying the tool and finding out a solution to your network. You can easily configure it to unblock websites by accessing the internet through a friend's network connection. Or you can play LAN games over the internet, and the possibilities are unlimited.
Click here to Freelan home page. It is available for Windows, Linux as well as Mac OS. For all the developers, Freelan is open-sourced, and you can easily find the well-documented source code on GitHub.
