Relakks is a VPN connection provider based in Sweden, that allows you to mask your internet activity. Why would anyone want/need such a service? Simple: privacy. Relakks doesn’t keep any records since it is not required to and will only hand information (such as an email address) to authorities if, and ony if, a crime punishable by 2 years in jail has been committed.
I came across Relakks because I wanted to stream a couple of TV channels from JumpTV that are not available in the US because of licencing restrictions. My logic there was that if I was able to make my connection appear to come from another country, I should be able to stream those video feeds.
Signing up
Signing up is easy, only an email address is required, and for my testing purposes I paid for a month of service, which is 5 EUR which comes out to roughly US$10 (you can also purchase 12 months in advance, for 50 EUR).
Setup
Setting up the VPN connection on my Windows XP machine was simple enough, following XP instructions on the website, but I was unable to connect my Macbook Pro running OS X Leopard, it simply kept timing out. I emailed support but after 2 days I haven’t gotten a response.
Speed and connectivity
The VPN connection does not remain connected for long, it disconnects at random times, where it can last anywhere from 2 minutes to about 20. Reconnecting at times would take a bit too, up to 2 minutes. The speed is not what is promised by Relakks, I have a 10 MB cable connection but was only able to get about 200KB, but it was sufficient to stream the TV channels at the lowest bitrate. My guess is that Relakks is currently oversold and have reached maximum capacity.
After-thoughts
Relakks sort of works for my original intention, I was able to stream the content I was after, but the stream kept rebuffering and reconnecting due to the constant drops of the VPN connection. This service might be ideal for those who are concerned with their privacy and wish to spend about $10, but I wouldn’t recommend this service if your intention is to download media since the speeds are way to slow . I am not going to purchase another month of service, I will instead keep looking around for a similar service that will satisfy my need.
