Geek Software of the Week: Shrew Soft VPN Client!
So, maybe this is something that hasn’t irritated you, but it does me. When I need to download the FREE Cisco VPN Client, to get the latest version, I have to have a Cisco customer account to do so! Come on guys! It IS FREE! Well, I got so frustrated recently, I decided to do something that I normally do anyway. Find out if there is a FREE (truly free) alternative. And, guess what? There is!
“Windows Platforms
The Shrew Soft VPN Client for Windows is a free IPsec Remote Access VPN Client for Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7 operating systems ( x86 and amd64 versions ). It was originally developed to provide secure communications between mobile Windows hosts and open source VPN gateways that utilize standards compliant software such as ipsec-tools, OpenSWAN, FreeSWAN, StrongSWAN, isakmpd. It now offers many of the advanced features only found in expensive commercial software solutions and provides compatibility for VPN appliances produced by vendors such as Cisco, Juniper, Checkpoint, Fortinet, Netgear, Linksys, Zywall and many others.
Linux and BSD Platforms
The Shrew Soft VPN Client for Unix is a free IPsec Client for FreeBSD, NetBSD and Linux based operating systems. This version is distributed under an OSI approved open source license and is hosted in a public subversion repository. It supports most of the features available in the Windows VPN Client version with the exception of those which are not cross platform compatible.”
If you ARE using Cisco VPN, and have a .pcf file from the site that you are trying to VPN into, you can simply import it into the Shrew Soft VPN Client! Awesome!