Here are some frequently asked questions. If your question is not listed below, take a look at the wiki or just contact us.

FAQ

What is freelan ?

Freelan is a free, open-source, multi-platform, highly-configurable and peer-to-peer VPN software, designed to easily connect remote hosts and mainly focused on security and performance.

So, what is freelan exactly ?

Freelan is a software that creates a virtual private network between several computers, making them act as if they were in the same physical network.

Isn't there already other VPN softwares ?

Yes, plenty actually. But they do not serve the exact same purposes.

For a comparison of freelan against other major VPN softwares, see the comparison grid.

What are freelan top features ?

Freelan is/can:

Emulate transparently a physical local area network.
Is based on UDP and can work with most NATed routers.
Simple, efficient but more importantly: secure.
Free software and open-source
Working on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
Runs as a Windows service or a Linux daemon.
Capable of connecting both IPv4 and IPv6 hosts.
Use different certificates/private keys for encipherment and signature.

What are the planned features ?

We have plans to include the following features in the next releases:

A graphical user interface so that everyone can use freelan, and not just people who do computer science for a living.
More NAT traversal techniques.
A rendez-vous mechanism so that hosts can discover each other automatically.
An extension of the protocol to provide zero-cost realtime encipherment.

What are the differences between freelan and others VPN software ?

Here is a comparison grid between freelan and other major VPN softwares:

Software	Pros	Cons
OpenVPN	Mature code base. Runs on a wider range of operating systems (for now ¹).	Does not allow direct client-to-client communication. Cannot use different certificates for encipherment and signature.
Hamachi	Easy to configure. Provides fallback when direct communication is not possible. Has a nice user interface².	Proprietary closed-source software: can't be trusted. Not free: the trial version has very limited functionalities. Depends on a central server whose reliability is unknown.
n2n	Easy to configure.	Has severe security flaws (sensitive to replay attacks). No authentication mechanism: you can't be sure who you talk to. Relies on a common shared secret: if the secret is compromised, the whole network is.
tinc	Runs on a wider range of operating systems (for now ¹).	Has security weeknesses regarding IV predictability and use of non-padded RSA cipherment/signature. Cannot use different certificates for encipherment and signature.
Social VPN	Has a nice, easy-to-use web interface. Makes uses of well-known social networks to ease clients interconnection.	Written in C#: requires Mono to work on Linux. Relies on 3DES for data encipherment³. Does not emulate completely a physical network (doesn't have FTP support).
¹ Freelan's source code was written from the start with portability in mind. As time passes, freelan will run on more and more platforms, including embedded systems and phones. ² We plan to add an user interface soon. ³ Freelan uses AES-256 for encipherment.

Why should I use freelan ?

Freelan was designed with a great care for security. We believe that having a secure private network is more important than having a easy to use software that only gives an illusion of security. That does not mean that we do not work on freelan's usability, but only that this usability will never become the most important aspect in decision making.

Freelan is free, will always be, and is open-source software that can be trusted. You can get the source code, build your own version, integrate it in your own software or anything that the GPL licence allows. You are free, and most importantly: you are safe.