EncryptMe for Mac

"Cloak" was a good name.

Sorry to see it being replaced.

Thumbs up for Cloak!

I travel the around the world on business and pay for three VPN services. Anonymizer, Cloak, and VPN Unlimited. Over the years I have found that in certain locations, one of the VPN's will work and the other ones will not. I don't know why. I am not a VPN geek and I don't want to delve too deeply under the hood to learn how to tweak these apps. If one doesn't work I try the next. Bottomline is that I simply can't afford to browse unsecured so it is worth it to me to pay for three seemingly redundant services.

But this review if about Cloak. Cloak positives include the utter simplicity of the app. It feels very lightweight and fast. I also have it on my iPad and iPhone. It just works!

I am writing this review in Dubai on my Macbook Air. For some reason, Cloak was the only VPN of the three to make it through the Dubai JW Marriott wifi on this business trip. The other two would connect for about 10 seconds and then disconnect. Yea Cloak! I used whatismyip.com to verify it was working. Curiously, none of the VPN's (including Cloak) were able to connect on my iPad on the same JW Marriott wifi in Dubai.

One of my concerns with Cloak is whether their IP addresses change on a regular basis. Anonymizer and others change their IP addresses regularly. I like that. This is important in certain countries that track VPN IP addresses and then block them. Probably not an issue to most users, but important to me.

The simplicity of this app automatically connecting to the VPN whenever connected to a not-whitelisted SSID is a lifesaver. I never have to worry about remembering to trigger my VPN connection when I have to go online at a coffee shop, library, hotel, etc. As for the service itself, it's fast for a VPN, and I have never had any trouble with it. Overall, Cloak is $2.99/month well-spent just to keep it around for the few times I might need it.

I am just curious to know how you know if apps like this actually work and do what they say they do? Why would I trust a service like this instead of a hotel wifi network? Couldn't companies like this collect data by having it beamed to them directly through their apps? Anyone can make a front end GUI that says "Your IP address is being hidden." How can I test this to make sure?

Works well - instantly signed up after the trial. Worth the $8 / month.