Freedome now entirely blocks Ally Bank

NarrSD
NarrSD Posts: 24 Observer
in F-Secure VPN

This is getting to a ridiculous point. Some weeks ago, and for many weeks, Freedome prevented logging in to Wells Fargo Bank's website. 

 

Now you entirely prevent connecting to ally.com, Ally Bank's central website. It simply times out.

 

This is as of the last Freedome update, 2.32.6293.0, the one with the darker blue icons.

 

The process last time was interminable -- weeks went by with 'casual' messages here, until finally you announced 'oh, yes, now it will work, fixed!'  This is not impressive, nor any kind of Finnish demonstration of courtesy or capability. I hope you will at least do better this time.

 

With these regular upsets, I am seriously considering whether to renew your subscription in a month or two. I am looking very carefully at Mozilla's new firewall, which has clear advantages. 

 

In fact, I'm very disappointed in Freedome. It's treated as an unwelcome 'consumer'  stepchild, nothing as I expect from F-Secure. The 'support' is very off-shore, casual, etc.. -- no matter where it its delivered from, it could be crisp, clear, accurate, rapid, and precise. The normal support routes only work for products you hope we will spend much more on.

 

These are not intelligent or aware business decisions, are they.

 

Kiitos...

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Comments

  • NarrSD
    NarrSD Posts: 24 Observer
    I see that the Firefox/Mozilla VPN is actually Mullvad, your apparently excellent Swedish competitor. Again with real technical advantage.

    Maybe knowing this will wake you up?
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  • Jaims
    Jaims Posts: 846 Former F-Secure Employee

    Hi @NarrSD 

     

    Firstly, I must apologize for the trouble you are facing while trying to access Ally Bank. So far, we have not received any complaints where Freedome denied access to this (main) site, therefore this is the first and we shall be looking into immediately.

     

    We tested on several Freedome nodes using Chrome, Firefox and the new Microsoft Edge based on Chromium browsers but was unable to reproduce the issue. 

     

    Could you please throw more light or provide us with the blocked URL and screenshots. Perhaps, the issue was with the login page after entering your credentials? From your explanation, Freedome blocked the main page while we are able to access this main page and subdomains with ease.

    https://secure.ally.com/ and https://www.ally.com/

     

    I am sorry if I missed out any vital part but please help us to understand better by providing us with the affected URL and screenshots so we could check further for you. 

     

    Thank you.

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  • NarrSD
    NarrSD Posts: 24 Observer

    Jaims,

    • the block occurs from initial attempt to open https://www.ally.com
    • there is no login or other activity present, because the site never opens. 
    • It times out, and afterwards each time the browser silently retries
    • If I turn off the latest Freedome, the site works immediately and extremely well
    • I think this is very clearly a technical problem with Freedome, which your engineering department will have to solve -- created in their last released version, or possibly the Bank's response to it
    • There was never any trouble with Ally before, and it works fine without Freedome now.

     

    I've inserted the screenshot; one with a little extra information as I could get.

    Due to the (red) retries, I suspect the ERR_CONNECTION_REST note is actually false, or otherwise just an indication that the browser is giving up.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    ally-blocked.png

     

     

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  • Jaims
    Jaims Posts: 846 Former F-Secure Employee

    Hi @NarrSD 

     

    Thank you for your response. 

     

    We are still unable to reproduce this issue so we might have to ask for a diagnostic log from your computer. 

     

    Did you try using another browser or Chrome normal mode? Did you try using another region or gateway, maybe you can try to lookup the external IP address so we can check that specific gateway?

     

    I presume the issue is only affecting Ally bank so other sites are fine, else I would suggest you if google is accessible using ping 8.8.8.8 and nslookup gogle.com

     

    Kindly disable other VPNs such as Mullvad to stop them from running before testing again? Perhaps, a re-installation of F-Secure Freedome VPN could reset everything back to default as the last option after which we will ask for the logs. 

     

    Thanks for your cooperation.

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  • NarrSD
    NarrSD Posts: 24 Observer

    Hello Jaims,

     

    Well, I looked into this farther in technical ways, and then with the bank, after what appeared there.

     

    - what was going on with the ally.com site wasn't a simple block -- it was a deliberate, silent delay, and then a dropped connection, consistently.

    - the IP address matched ally.com

    - no Mullvad etc. was involved

    - my cellphone gives the same block as the laptop, so it's not an install problem with Freedome

    - The Ally.com website recommends using VPN...but...

    - I called Ally, and indeed they're aware that VPNs  are now blocked. That's the problem, and they caused it

    - we had a little conversation about getting the website advice to match reality, but also how  this is a nonsensical thing for a bank to do, as it won't stop any serious bad guys, and it very much upsets customers and their overall safety as well - when they leave the VPN off after while at Starbucks, etc..

     

    So, Freedome is off the hook for this one, except:  how could you and F-Secure Technical  assert that ally.com was not a problem, when indeed it is certainly a problem when accessed by Freedome??

     

    Thank you,

    Clive

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