AFT - Use your free webtexts from your mobile - costs a fraction of a cent per text!

d_regal_jester

Thanks Commander,

So I can only send to other mobiles in Ireland

Ouch....is there anything Else I can do with this? Any other apps you know about I can try and use for international on the meteor network?

Ta

Random

You could try voipbuster or smsdiscount d_regal_jester and see if you have any luck. I've not used them myself though so I can't comment.

voipbuster is currently supported by AFT with smsdiscount support coming soon.
MT will support both in the next release.

quintron

voda has not worked for me for the past 3 days. Error returned is "invalid login details" even though I know they are right. They have not been changed. So it looks like its the server alright. AFT/Multitext/JSMS/Google Gadget have all stopped working.

Webmonkey

donutface wrote:

guys - bad news

looks like Vodafone has blocked my new server, when I log in from home it works fine but when I log in from the dedi it gives me one of their custom error messages.

Tonight ill make it route all vodafone messages through my home machine (which they cant block as it has a dynamic IP) but in the mean time id suggest giving vodafone an email and tell them to unblock
78.129.128.132 from their lists

My question is has vodafone ever worked with the new server? I know for definite that its a fault at their side and not at ours as o2/meteor works fine.

heres a picture for the skeptical

Hey Donut, have you stopped using the proxy stuff?
I don't think there is much point in emailing vodafone as they blocked it for a reason and no doubt one of them came across AFT by now.

dal

Webmonkey wrote:

Hey Donut, have you stopped using the proxy stuff?
I don't think there is much point in emailing vodafone as they blocked it for a reason and no doubt one of them came across AFT by now.

Did the new server ever work with vodafone. Maybe they haven't blocked your ip address specifcally, but block a whole set of ip addresses (and have always done so)?
It would be strange that they have not blocked AFT before but suddenly do now as soon as it moves to a new server.

egan007

Hey Lads I just tought of an extention for your already great applet.

How about a CAR mode.

Which replys to a text (maybe eventually missed call )with a saved text - something like 'I'm in the car i'll call you back when I stop'

Like a 'voice mail' for texts

Webmonkey

Well my server was blocked from O2 and i started using proxies that worked but they wern't that reliable. Then moved to donuts server and from there i don't know what happened

Edit - by the way O2 unblocked the server there recently.

egan007 wrote:

Which replys to a text (maybe eventually missed call )with a saved text - something like 'I'm in the car i'll call you back when I stop'

Doubt that possible as you need to work with the phones OS. Even if you got it working it would definetely have compatibliltiy problems but i'm no expert on java sides of things. Thats for dal to answer

egan007

True that, would be nice though

Tzetze

I'm still getting the error "Invalid account", when I try to send a text using AFT through Vodafone 3g pay as you go. I installed opera mini to test if that would work and it seems to be working fine.

Is it because VF are blocking the IP mentioned above that I am receiving this error, or is it caused by something else?

Random

"Is it because VF are blocking the IP mentioned above that I am receiving this error"

yes.

Tzetze

The gits!

Sorely tempted to switch back to o2 now. Thanks for the speedy reply, Ciaranfo.

Random

It was only a matter of time I guess, VOdafone has been so solid for webtexts for the most part with the Meteor and O2 websites giving trouble.

dal

Webmonkey wrote:

Well my server was blocked from O2 and i started using proxies that worked but they wern't that reliable. Then moved to donuts server and from there i don't know what happened

I know, but they only blocked your server after they noticed that thousands of messages were coming from the same ip address. Just seems strange that as soon as AFT moves to a new server (and ip address), they suddenly block it (when they hadn't done so before).

Webmonkey wrote:

Doubt that possible as you need to work with the phones OS. Even if you got it working it would definetely have compatibliltiy problems but i'm no expert on java sides of things. Thats for dal to answer

Unfortunately its not possible as AFT doesn't hook into the phone's inbox.

donutface

vodafone support is back up, bit slow but ateast it still works

In the mean time id recommend all vodafone customers to please give them an email (only vf customers please!) explaining to them the importance of AFT to you

detritus

Hardly what I would call a smart move.... for those in Vodafone NOT aware what AFT is, it will soon get on their radar... (and the numbers of people who are using this 'service')

and put it this way, ~1c vs ~10c isn't really going to push their buttons to unblock it.

Rockson

detritus wrote:

Hardly what I would call a smart move.... for those in Vodafone NOT aware what AFT is, it will soon get on their radar... (and the numbers of people who are using this 'service')

I gotta agree with this. Say nothing to them and hopefully they'll ignore your application. Btw, detritus, you can get voda texts for 5c each if you buy the 20eur text add-on! I think you can basically get 5c texts with all 4 networks now in one way or another.

quintron

nice one on voda back up! Working fine now here.
Cheers.

keithmcgrane

I just tried AFT on Voda, i get "Invalid Account".
Voda must be blocking again.

Keith

donutface

Thank you for contacting us with your query. Please accept our
apologies for the delay in responding to your query.

Whichever way your are trying to log onto the website when your
Webtexts do no work, the Vodafone website does not support that
method.

If you have any further queries, please call us on CallSave 1850 20
87 87 between 08:00hrs to 22:00hrs and we will be happy to assist you.

Yours sincerely

thats their response, they are blocking for definite. tonight ill work on proxies, it should be workign again within a half an hour anyway EDIT: as soon as the DNS updates on my home box vodafone will be working again.

Unfortunately ill have to use proxies which means reliability might go down, id rather keep it away from my home machine for fear of them complaining to my ISP over it, last thing i want is my home broadband cancelled.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

You could try someting like TOR so that the IP address changes constantly and you can be assured reasonably reliability albeit not at a great speed.

detritus

ok, now im getting worried.

its significant enough that to keep bandwidth down that my username and password are probably being transmitted in plaintext to the aft server. (dont know, havent seen code/config to qualify otherwise)

And im sure in good faith the owners of this server are not breaching any of the terms of the data protection act & probably the P&T act, around inspecting or using information contained in these messages in any way they deem fit. That said, if my information is compromised and someone decides to send a message to everyone in my addressbook (and others who are not) saying, well, whatever they feel like, then I'll feel pretty upset, and it wont be vodafone's (or appropriate operator's) fault.

but when it comes to using home broadband's, with the risk of their isp shutting them down at any moments notice, and more significantly, accessing the service via randomised proxies, totally untrusted with absolutely no visibility of what they are doing with my information.... i have to say.. eh, no.

Yes, the product is good idea, but, its using a service in the way it wasnt designed to be used as such, the service provider is fully entitled to take action to limit such behaviour.

To be honest, Im surprised that all operators havent taken steps to shut this service down before hand.

donutface

detritus get over it - its a mobile phone username/password, its not like its your bank details or email addresses. Practically worthless information.

I suggest you dont use the service if you have such fears, nobody gives a damn about some strangers addressbook, and as far as it being sent plaintext, the ISP's involved dont have the time or reputation to be monitoring activity such as this and then going and harrasing strangers. People who have the power to do something like it arent a bunch of immature 10 year olds.

The ammount of traffic going through randomised proxies in general also makes it hard to see what traffic is significant and what isnt, pllus ontop of that you can only text to irish phone numbers and these proxies are located abroad, once again making your vf username/password useless to these people.

Pay the extra 9c a text to get peace of mind, no ones forcing you to use AFT.

Go spread your fud somewhere else

brophis

Tried it out on Meteor PAYG and it's free (minus the 1c or so ISP charge)

Also tried it out on Voipbuster, one thing to note. It seems as though either the server or the proxies are outside Ireland and hence resulting in a charge of 2c for sending text messages to Irish numbers. You're probably aware of that already but just making sure
If the server is Irish then maybe you could have the script forget about using proxies for voipbuster. I don't think voipbuster block addresses for their php script??

Great job by the way, much appreciated.

yapyap

Loads of people have their own webspace.

Would it be possible to have a version of AFT where one puts in one's own server address and for the server code to be shared?

This would eliminate privacy concerns of some individuals and would mean less texts coming from any particular IP

donutface

yapyap thats an excellent idea, and I think thats the path i'll take with AFT 2.0

Obviously it will require some changes in the client to make that part dynamic, but that should be able to be done easily.

After the leaving cert ill work on an ultra simplified version of AFT - the current source base is a complete mess with dependence on MySQL which wouldnt be neccesary for something like this.

Vodafone proxy support is almost done, ill have it up tonight

brophis

Sweet, I was going to try something like this myself but didn't fancy learning how to make and compile java aps for phones. Great news!

donutface

ok the proxy code is done, but first im going to try and use tor for a while

So tor is implemented, dont know how often ip's change, but hopefully often enough to make it hard to block

its slow, but reliable (which o2 didnt really have)

Akula

I posted about this before but I'm still having problems with AFT.

After I upgraded to the last version I started getting an error "uncaught exception: java.lang.IndexOutofBounds Exception" on my blackberry 8700g every time I tried to go to settings. I tried everything but figured it was something strange with my setup.

Recently had a problem with the phone so sent it off and got a replacement, so had a completely fresh install, installed AFT and am still getting the same problem.

Any ideas?

Sam Vimes

Akula wrote:

I posted about this before but I'm still having problems with AFT.

After I upgraded to the last version I started getting an error "uncaught exception: java.lang.IndexOutofBounds Exception" on my blackberry 8700g every time I tried to go to settings. I tried everything but figured it was something strange with my setup.

Recently had a problem with the phone so sent it off and got a replacement, so had a completely fresh install, installed AFT and am still getting the same problem.

Any ideas?

are you getting the latest version from:
http://killarneyonline.eu/o2text/aft.jar


also try the midp1 version:
http://killarneyonline.eu/o2text/midp1/aft.jar

Akula

Yep, downloaded the midp2 version. I'm certain the bb supports midp2 and I had it working perfectly before the last upgrade (the one that added support for voipbuster...etc)