TG VPN Firefox extension barely usable

[Sergus]

The new updated browser extension "TorGuard VPN Extension" for Firefox (haven't tested it in Chrome) is barely usable!

Following bugs/problems make it really hard to use:

1. Copy-Paste of user credentials is not possible. When clicked on the TG icon on upper toolbar, the application opens as a popup. When focus is lost, all entered data is deleted. Thus, when I try to copy&paste my credentials from a password storage, I can only do one entry at at a time: either the username or the password, because otherwise the popup closes and the data is lost. Which means I HAVE to enter it manually -> this encourages to use simple passwords.
2. If for some reason the connection fails and the status is stuck with "Verifying IP", the Disconnect-button is deactivated, so the only way to get rid of this is to restart the browser or to click "clear".
3. Excluded Websites doesn't seem to work at all. I just cannot save anything there: all entries are deleted once the popup is closed.
4. In Firefox Private Mode the application doesn't use credentials from the main window nor it saves entered credentials.

 

The 1.* version had its problems, but it worked. The 2.0 version in current state does not 😞

 

Or maybe I'm doing something wrong?

 

Tested in Firefox 87.0 with new profile.

[TinyCheetah]

Sergus: Your problems, above, are mostly consistent with the previous version of the Firefox extension.

1. Copy/paste has never worked. I've always had to paste my cryptic password, and manually enter my long email address. The same is true for the new 2.0 release of the Firefox extension.

2. The "Verifying IP": This too is an old issue; I typically have gotten around this by checking to see if it connects quickly the first time. If it doesn't click outside the pop-up window, then re-click the extension button, and it should connect.

 

VERIFIED NEW DEFECT

3. The new extension did not save any of the saved sites from my old extension. I have been able to reproduce this problem, with Firefox 87.0.

ANOTHER VERIFIED NEW DEFECT

4. The new extension (2.0) is not, currently, saving credentials. Every time I reboot my laptop, I must re-add my login credentials. This is very annoying!

[TinyCheetah]

(could not add this to the previous entry, as the Web UI/JS failed)

NEW DEFECT

* I cannot change the country from ro.secureconnect.me - despite the interesting view of a down arrow.

I have used the multiple country logins for both security and availability of sites that are country-specific. This is no longer an option.

Support: Where can I download the OLD Firefox extension?

 

[tg201611]

I am having all of these issues too! Please fix

[Tagasaste]

I am also having all of these problems with the new version (I very much prefer the functionality and look of the old extension).

Additionally (and currently trying to work through with support) the new version 2.0 extension no longer works in Firefox private windows. Username and password are saved but when connecting to a proxy a "Login Failed!" message is displayed.

[SamTG]

Same issues here, the extension is not very usable with these. New gui ok as long as the extension works but alas it doesn't. TorGuard please correct this.

[public-name]

 Same issue here. Can't select any country. Last version used: 2.2 from 31.3. 2021

Very unsatisfying.

[BleakRed]

Same issue, FF on Win10, VPN add-on fails login no matter how I go about it. My login credentials are correct and my account is active.

[BleakRed]

Since the above post, the plugin has been updated, and it's still janky.

It often says it's connected when it doesn't, the overlay buttons don't respond, can't change the preferred location/country.
 

[149027_1511348148]

30 minutes ago, BleakRed said:

Since the above post, the plugin has been updated, and it's still janky.

It often says it's connected when it doesn't, the overlay buttons don't respond, can't change the preferred location/country.
 

Support doesn't care. If you create a ticket they have you doing a bunch of things that make no difference and tell you thousands are using with no complaints. I bet most don't bother since they're using the network client.

Don't bother asking to go back to v1.5 that seemed to work with minor aggravation. I don't understand why addon can't just have username and password saved as a setting IN THE ADDON. Then we can get on with the server connection issue that now is popping up.

[Support]

1 hour ago, 149027_1511348148 said:

Support doesn't care. If you create a ticket they have you doing a bunch of things that make no difference and tell you thousands are using with no complaints. I bet most don't bother since they're using the network client.

Don't bother asking to go back to v1.5 that seemed to work with minor aggravation. I don't understand why addon can't just have username and password saved as a setting IN THE ADDON. Then we can get on with the server connection issue that now is popping up.

 

Of course we care, some things we cannot reproduce, we will fix every problem we can reproduce - many problems are due to conflicts with other proxy or ad block extensions, the credentials are saved in the browser currently as it is but correct me if im wrong you had ccleaner constantly clearing all cache on every restart of the browser? we use the add-on daily to constantly monitor for any defects - as of now any issues we have seen reported has been due to cache, third party extensions or security software.

[BleakRed]

3 hours ago, Support said:

 

Of course we care, some things we cannot reproduce, we will fix every problem we can reproduce - many problems are due to conflicts with other proxy or ad block extensions, the credentials are saved in the browser currently as it is but correct me if im wrong you had ccleaner constantly clearing all cache on every restart of the browser? we use the add-on daily to constantly monitor for any defects - as of now any issues we have seen reported has been due to cache, third party extensions or security software.

I'm running FF 87.0 64 bit w/ TG plugin 2.4
For privacy, I'm blocking 3rd party cookies, tracking content, miners, and fingerprinters
I'm blocking pop-ups and alerts, and I clear cache and history every time I stop FF

When I open the add-on at the top right, the new screen comes down and spends a good amount of time trying to connect.
Despite their being an arrow next to the "Country" selector, nothing happens when I click there - nor anywhere in those three lines.
When I start up, it goes randomly janky - initially not giving me a new IP despite saying "connected" - I fight the interface to disconnect then reconnect, and it eventually seems to work after much difficulty.
 

[149027_1511348148]

5 hours ago, Support said:

 

Of course we care, some things we cannot reproduce, we will fix every problem we can reproduce - many problems are due to conflicts with other proxy or ad block extensions, the credentials are saved in the browser currently as it is but correct me if im wrong you had ccleaner constantly clearing all cache on every restart of the browser? we use the add-on daily to constantly monitor for any defects - as of now any issues we have seen reported has been due to cache, third party extensions or security software.

Please give us access to v1.5. I turned off ccleaner temporarily and it still worked sometimes or behaved the same way as described. New version randomly disconnects after having been connected. It does this while browsing leaving pages to stop loading. Try to disconnect so I can continue browsing without it but it won't let me do so. There's a circle over the disconnect button and you can't even disconnect. Have to go to addon settings and turn off Torguard addon.

There were same problems with previous v2 builds even when creating a completely vanilla Firefox profile. Support ticket replies almost seemed to troll by repeatedly asking same questions about what I was doing to try to help..... except to the point I was being asked to do things I had already done and had talked about and laid out what I'd done.

I want to help. Truly I do. At some point though, giving access to a previous version that worked for the most part would be good until the new version gets whatever bugs worked out. I don't wanna be harsh either but hoop jumping is getting old since each new version still has same bugs.

[Support]

6 hours ago, BleakRed said:

I'm running FF 87.0 64 bit w/ TG plugin 2.4
For privacy, I'm blocking 3rd party cookies, tracking content, miners, and fingerprinters
I'm blocking pop-ups and alerts, and I clear cache and history every time I stop FF

When I open the add-on at the top right, the new screen comes down and spends a good amount of time trying to connect.
Despite their being an arrow next to the "Country" selector, nothing happens when I click there - nor anywhere in those three lines.
When I start up, it goes randomly janky - initially not giving me a new IP despite saying "connected" - I fight the interface to disconnect then reconnect, and it eventually seems to work after much difficulty.
 

 

Could you individually disable other extensions to see if things improve and which ones appears to conflict?

It would be very helpful.

Regards

[BleakRed]

1 hour ago, Support said:

 

Could you individually disable other extensions to see if things improve and which ones appears to conflict?

It would be very helpful.

Regards

I have only one other add-on which is a CSS tool. I disabled it and restarted FF.
Same issue - opening the panel says "connecting" then "connected" - but it's not connected.
If I close the panel, the icon is red, and re-opening it, I get "verifying IP" until it says "Connected" again - but it's not connected, it's my regular IP.
And during all of this, the ability to select the country or location remains unresponsive when clicked.

For clarity, the only way to make it work currently:
Open panel and leave it open
Wait until the false connection completes (disconnect is disabled during this process)
Once it's connected, manually disconnect
Then hit reconnect and leave the panel open until it's reconnected

Other symptoms - the app verifies IP every time I open the panel.
 

[Ashutosh]

On 3/27/2021 at 2:22 AM, TinyCheetah said:

Support: Where can I download the OLD Firefox extension?

You can download it from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vpnetworks-proxy/versions/

 

On 4/12/2021 at 2:37 AM, BleakRed said:

the overlay buttons don't respond, can't change the preferred location/country.

Buttons don't work when the IP verification is in process. And in order to change location/type/port, you have to disconnect first — just like the desktop client.

I can confirm that there is some issue. But I am not sure if it is solely because of the TorGuard extension. I only use the desktop client so I am not really affected by this, but I was trying to reproduce this issue:

1. I had to try multiple times to log in even though I was using correct login credentials
2. It took forever to connect and verify IP
3. Browser Icon was green even though the connection setup was incomplete

But when I tried to reproduce these issue in a new profile, I couldn't, even with some blocking extensions (uMatrix, uBlock Origin, DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials are a few to name.) Maybe it is happening because of some browser configuration tweak and I have made a lot of changes in my default profile. I will try to find more in my free time. In the meantime you guys should create a new profile and see if you are able to reproduce this problem. And in case you have switched between Firefox editions, i.e., moved from stable to beta/dev/nightly or the other way around, you need to create and use a new profile, it is a known problem with FF profiles.

One interesting thing I noticed was that with my default profile, some remote requests to TorGuard servers had no response in the browser console, but in case of a new profile, I was able to see the responses.

I tested the extension in the latest nightly edition — 89.0a1 (2021-04-12) (64-bit)

[149027_1511348148]

2 hours ago, Ashutosh said:

You can download it from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vpnetworks-proxy/versions/

 

Buttons don't work when the IP verification is in process. And in order to change location/type/port, you have to disconnect first — just like the desktop client.

I can confirm that there is some issue. But I am not sure if it is solely because of the TorGuard extension. I only use the desktop client so I am not really affected by this, but I was trying to reproduce this issue:

1. I had to try multiple times to log in even though I was using correct login credentials
2. It took forever to connect and verify IP
3. Browser Icon was green even though the connection setup was incomplete

But when I tried to reproduce these issue in a new profile, I couldn't, even with some blocking extensions (uMatrix, uBlock Origin, DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials are a few to name.) Maybe it is happening because of some browser configuration tweak and I have made a lot of changes in my default profile. I will try to find more in my free time. In the meantime you guys should create a new profile and see if you are able to reproduce this problem. And in case you have switched between Firefox editions, i.e., moved from stable to beta/dev/nightly or the other way around, you need to create and use a new profile, it is a known problem with FF profiles.

One interesting thing I noticed was that with my default profile, some remote requests to TorGuard servers had no response in the browser console, but in case of a new profile, I was able to see the responses.

I tested the extension in the latest nightly edition — 89.0a1 (2021-04-12) (64-bit)

Thanks for the link to the old versions. I've repeatedly asked support for it and all I ever got was them wanting me to try something else even though I'd tried everything and then some. I'm back to v1.5 now thanks to your help and I've turned off auto updates for it. I'll monitor forum to see if things appear to be fixed.

I created a brand new profile with no addons and it behaved the same way as with my regular profile. Issue that it doesn't save credentials if it fails to connect. The fact that there is no way to save your credentials so they don't get lost if the app fails is just sad. V2.4 did work for me for a few days and then it started dropping the connection so pages stopped loading. It wouldn't allow me to click disconnect(circle w/slash instead of finger icon) so I could at least surf without it. I had to disable the addon altogether as the only way to continue. I don't see how any of this can be blamed on anything else other than the Torguard app. V1.5 worked well enough. Not sure why it got broke just so the graphics can look snazzier.

Thanks again for the post!

[BleakRed]

8 hours ago, Ashutosh said:

Buttons don't work when the IP verification is in process. And in order to change location/type/port, you have to disconnect first — just like the desktop client.

Incorrect as a suggestion - the bug I experienced rendered the buttons inactive regardless of whether I was connected, disconnected, or in the process of doing either. However, I dig your self confidence!

 

8 hours ago, Ashutosh said:

One interesting thing I noticed was that with my default profile...

THIS got me thinking. I don't use profiles in FF, but it lead me to reset FF to factory default (Help > Troubleshooting Information > Refresh Firefox)
After that I reinstalled the TorGuard add-on, and suddenly everything works - connection time was faster, less wonky in the connect, AND the buttons work!

I started slowly reconfiguring my settings, testing the TG connection and interface at each step, and this lead me to a fix (for my machine, if you're reading this, I hope it works for you.  IT WAS HTTPS-ONLY

Options > Privacy & Security > • Enable HTTPS-Only Mode in all windows
If I Enable HTTPS-Only, the buttons in the TG panel interface go unresponsive (regardless of state). IF I select "Don’t enable HTTPS-Only Mode" - all the buttons work properly, and the connection process is much smoother.  I was able to repeat breaking and fixing this more than three times before writing this up. Hope it helps those who come in the future.

 

[Ashutosh]

50 minutes ago, BleakRed said:

I started slowly reconfiguring my settings, testing the TG connection and interface at each step, and this lead me to a fix (for my machine, if you're reading this, I hope it works for you.  IT WAS HTTPS-ONLY

That makes sense, TorGuard (surprisingly) uses HTTP connections to receive data (that's what is happening for me on Firefox) which also means that you would experience unresponsiveness because the app (popup) is waiting to receive data from the remote. And if they have not added proper error handling, UI would basically stay in a disabled state.

@Support Some (if not all) servers are using HTTP and do not support HTTPS, e.g., http://34.193.205.205/proxy/update/blackurls.list is only available over HTTP and HTTPS connection fails. It would be highly appreciated if this gets changed to use HTTPS. And at the same time, it would still make sense to show a warning if a remote connection fails or timeout occurs in case of any other network issues.

 

6 hours ago, 149027_1511348148 said:

Issue that it doesn't save credentials if it fails to connect.

I was able to reproduce this problem on Chromium and I couldn't get it to work, so I actually uninstalled it initially. But I decided to check it later on. Chromium isn't my primary browser, the extension is built using react and I have next to no experience in debugging either, so I couldn't check most of the code, but I found one problem @Support

The extension was trying to connect to (using HTTPS proxy): https://updates.torguard.biz/cgi-bin/whatismyip.pl
And I received ERR_PROXY_CERTIFICATE_INVALID on Chromium, but it is working on Firefox. HTTP proxy worked for me. I think Chromium uses OS cert store for verification, not sure though.

BTW, looking at the behavior and monitoring the local storage I can tell you that the credentials are cleared if you click on the "Dismiss" button when the error screen is displayed. Otherwise, it tries to reconnect if you open the popup again. But at the same time, if you are facing any problems because of remote server connectivity, you still have to click on the "Dismiss" button, enter your credentials again and try to change the settings.

@SupportIn short, these may fix most of the problems that are related to extension:

1. Use HTTPS connection instead of HTTP & show warning messages when remote connections fail.
2. Do not remove user credentials from Local Storage, at least not in the case of connectivity issues.
3. Fix certificate issue on Chromium when using HTTPS proxy (if you can do anything about it.)

OS: Fedora 33
Chromium: Version 89.0.4389.114

[Support]

On 4/13/2021 at 10:22 PM, Ashutosh said:

That makes sense, TorGuard (surprisingly) uses HTTP connections to receive data (that's what is happening for me on Firefox) which also means that you would experience unresponsiveness because the app (popup) is waiting to receive data from the remote. And if they have not added proper error handling, UI would basically stay in a disabled state.

@Support Some (if not all) servers are using HTTP and do not support HTTPS, e.g., http://34.193.205.205/proxy/update/blackurls.list is only available over HTTP and HTTPS connection fails. It would be highly appreciated if this gets changed to use HTTPS. And at the same time, it would still make sense to show a warning if a remote connection fails or timeout occurs in case of any other network issues.

 

I was able to reproduce this problem on Chromium and I couldn't get it to work, so I actually uninstalled it initially. But I decided to check it later on. Chromium isn't my primary browser, the extension is built using react and I have next to no experience in debugging either, so I couldn't check most of the code, but I found one problem @Support

The extension was trying to connect to (using HTTPS proxy): https://updates.torguard.biz/cgi-bin/whatismyip.pl
And I received ERR_PROXY_CERTIFICATE_INVALID on Chromium, but it is working on Firefox. HTTP proxy worked for me. I think Chromium uses OS cert store for verification, not sure though.

BTW, looking at the behavior and monitoring the local storage I can tell you that the credentials are cleared if you click on the "Dismiss" button when the error screen is displayed. Otherwise, it tries to reconnect if you open the popup again. But at the same time, if you are facing any problems because of remote server connectivity, you still have to click on the "Dismiss" button, enter your credentials again and try to change the settings.

@SupportIn short, these may fix most of the problems that are related to extension:

1. Use HTTPS connection instead of HTTP & show warning messages when remote connections fail.
2. Do not remove user credentials from Local Storage, at least not in the case of connectivity issues.
3. Fix certificate issue on Chromium when using HTTPS proxy (if you can do anything about it.)

OS: Fedora 33
Chromium: Version 89.0.4389.114

 

Thanks, I just wanted to let you know we are looking into these issues 1 by 1.

Regards

[149027_1511348148]

5 hours ago, Support said:

 

Thanks, I just wanted to let you know we are looking into these issues 1 by 1.

Regards

I'm now running Torguard addon on Firefox(v1.5), Chrome(v2.3), Brave(v2.3), and Opera(v2.3 and had to add a chrome addon to be able to run it). When opening all browsers, the addon icon is red(orange). When clicking icon it usually shows connected. Have to disconnect and reconnect to get icon to get it to turn green, Does this on all browsers and always has and with Firefox, even with v1.5.

 

On 4/13/2021 at 4:22 PM, Ashutosh said:

BTW, looking at the behavior and monitoring the local storage I can tell you that the credentials are cleared if you click on the "Dismiss" button when the error screen is displayed. Otherwise, it tries to reconnect if you open the popup again. But at the same time, if you are facing any problems because of remote server connectivity, you still have to click on the "Dismiss" button, enter your credentials again and try to change the settings.

Thanks to Ashutosh mentioning the above, I've not lost my credentials when there's a connection issue because if "Dismiss" comes up I don't click it. I click within the browser to get the Torguard GUI to retract. I then click icon again and have been having luck getting it to at least appear to connect. That's hopefully going to be addressed. I have had connection drop issues at times also where I can't get icon to produce GUI and I've had to go and disable the addon completely. I then close the browser and open it back up and re-enable it. It appears that the "Dismiss" is certainly a major part of the problem with losing credentials.