Today, we experienced a brief main server outage, lasting approximately 1 hour and 5 minutes. We are investigating the cause still, so far we suspect it was a datacenter side issue, no hardware problems with the main server have been recorded in the server logs.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

It seems the Firefox developers have decided to release a major version of Firefox every month, despite the fact there are no real major differences…

Anyway, this decision caused several Firefox Extensions to become incompatible, the Identity Cloaker one including. Technically, however, there are no differences and the “fix” we had to apply in order to make our Firefox extension compatible from Firefox 7, was to change the maximum version number of compatible Firefox browser.

The previous version was set to 6.9, meaning it was not compatible with any Firefox version beyond this number. We have now set this number to 12.9, hopefully Firefox 13 will not be available for a few months…

Anyway, here is what you need to do if using Firefox:

A new, Firefox 7 compatible, version is now available in the member area for downloading. It’s also available at:

http://www.identitycloaker.com/download/IDC_Setup.exe

This version is compatible with Firefox 7, that is the only difference between the older release an the today’s one so if you are not using Firefox, there is no need to update. The version number of the Identity Cloaker application is the same still but the Firefox Extension number, as reported in the Firefox addons manager list, has increased from version 1.3. to 1.4.

This version will not be available via the standard update as it caused some complications in the past and it does not add any new features so it’s not necessary to upgrade for those using Firefox 3.x – 6.x still, or other web browsers only.

After the new version is installed, it should only be necessary to restart Firefox. If that does not work, please try the below process:

If upgrading from Identity Cloaker version 1.1.9 and older:

These instructions are important only if you are using Firefox:

1) Run the current/old version of Identity Cloaker

2) Click “Firefox Extension Uninstallation”

3) Restart Firefox

4) Install the new version of Identity Cloaker (you do not have to uninstall the previous one first)

5) Click “Firefox Extension Installation”

6) Restart Firefox

Today, we have been experiencing connectivity issues with our German DE 2 server. It is currently possible to connect to the DE 2 server in the non-encrypted mode only as standard SSH connections are not working. The datacenter is working on it already. I apologize for the inconvenience.

UPDATE: The DE 2 server is working normally now.

Good news for our Mac users! The current beta version for Mac is now OS X Lion compatible. You can download it at:

http://www.identitycloaker.com/download/osx/Identity%20Cloaker-v0.9.6(b201).zip

This version will work on the older Mac OS X versions too, including Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard.

I apologize for the delay. We will now be working on improving the Mac version so that we are finally able to release a “public ready” version as soon as possible, although I am hesitant to give any firm date for the time being.

A new server in the United Kingom, UK 9, is now online. UK 9 is connected to the Internet via a dedicated Gigabit port and has huge 100 TeraBytes/100 000 GiGabytes per month bandwidth allocation. Because of the size of the allocated bandwidth, there are no download limits on this server.

To connect via the new server, scroll down the proxy server list in the Identity Cloaker client application and double click one of the IP addresses with “UK 9” in the comments field.

Also, if you have suggestions for new countries where you would like us to have servers, please submit a support ticket or submit a comment to this blog post.

We have been informed by a few customers that Firefox offered update to version 5 and that the Identity Cloaker extension was disabled, because it was marked by Firefox as incompatible. I apologize for the inconvenience and believe the programmer will have an updated version available later today.

Once the current version of Identity Cloaker is Firefox 5 compatible, an email will be sent to customers and an update will be posted on the blog too. In the meanwhile, it may be better to wait with the Firefox 5 update or contact us via helpdesk and we will send you our development version of Identity Cloaker (called simply Identity Cloaker 2 for now), which is already Firefox 5 compatible.

UPDATE:

OK, a new version is now available in the member area for downloading. It’s also available at:

http://www.identitycloaker.com/download/IDC_Setup.exe

This version is compatible with Firefox 5, that is the only difference between the older release an the today’s one so if you are not using Firefox, there is no need to update. The version number of the Identity Cloaker application is the same still but the Firefox Extension number, as reported in the Firefox addons manager list, has increased from version 1.2. to 1.3.

This version will not be available via the standard update as it caused some complications in the past and it does not add any new features so it’s not necessary to upgrade for those using Firefox 3.x or 4.x still, or other web browsers only.

After the new version is installed, it should only be necessary to restart Firefox. If that does not work, please try the below process:

If upgrading from Identity Cloaker version 1.1.9 and older:

These instructions are important only if you are using Firefox:

1) Run the current/old version of Identity Cloaker

2) Click “Firefox Extension Uninstallation”

3) Restart Firefox

4) Install the new version of Identity Cloaker (you do not have to uninstall the previous one first)

5) Click “Firefox Extension Installation”

6) Restart Firefox

I hate to repeat myself but I want to remind everyone that BitTorrent traffic – or more namely downloading or uploading copyrighted video files or similar via BitTorrent networks is stricly not allowed via our US servers as per our TOS!

I have said this many times before but it seems some of our users are ignoring it. If you have noticed the US3 server being offline, the reason is it was abused for BitTorrent traffic and we are looking for a replacement now.

Anyone found abusing our TOS by using BitTorrents on the US servers will have their accounts terminated without right for any refunds and will be denied access to our services in the future! It is necessary in order to protect the service for the rest of our valued customers.

As you may have noticed, there have been new servers added to our network recently. Due to high demand, we have added an Australian server as well as a Swiss one. Both servers are performing as expected and any customer with a valid subscription can use them now.

We have also added another server with Irish and Italian IPs as some customers have reported the Irish IPs on our older Irish server were not detected properly on some websites. In less than a month we also expect to have available some Spanish and perhaps also Portuguese IP addresses, however, this depends mostly on the demand.

Also, I would like to apologize for not posting enough updates lately. We are developing a new version of Identity Cloaker and time has been very limited.

Tomorrow, I will post an update about other issues, some good news for our customers so do not worry 😉

The current version of Identity Cloaker 1 is currently not working properly with Firefox 4 due to significant changes in the Firefox 4 code. The programmer knows about this problem already and is working on a new, Firefox 4 compatible, addon.

We expect it to be available sometime during this weekend. An email will be sent to all customers once it is available and this blog post will also be updated.

Thank you for your understanding!

Yesterday we were notified of a problem with our London datacenter (one of the largest DC in the UK). While the connection was stable, it was quite slow too. We asked the datacenter support for an explanation and were told there were problems with their fibre optic backbone provider. A few hours later the problem was resolved.

Unfortunately, it seems the problem is back today, we will share more information with you as we receive it. In the meanwhile, please connect via our UK7 server which is hosted in our Newcastle datacenter.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you. Please rest assured we are working on resolving the issue as soon as possible.