How to Install Private Internet Access VPN on a Chromebook

I recently signed up for Private Internet Access – a well regarded VPN service for just $7 a month and $3 a month if you pay for a year in advance. It’s easy to set up, gives me access to a large number of servers across the world, has excellent bandwidth, and the provider keeps no logs of user activity. Perfect for privacy conscious people especially in today’s world where snooping seems to be the norm.

But I had some trouble getting it to work on Chrome OS with my new Chromebook  – mainly because I’m new to the whole VPN scene and didn’t know how to go about it. I finally got it to work in the end and it was pretty easy. You just need to know how.

Generate the L2TP Username and Password

First sign into your Private Internet Access account using your VPN username and password. Towards the bottom, you’ll see an option to generate an L2TP username and password combination. This was the key step I missed in my initial efforts. We’re not going to use the VPN login details, but these. You can regenerate it as many times as you want. Here’s a screenshot:

Generate L2TP username and password
Generate L2TP username and password

Create the VPN on Chrome OS

On your Chromebook, click the “Settings” option on the pop up on the taskbar. Under the “Internet Connection” section, hit “Add Connection” and “Add Private Network”.

Add Private Network
Add Private Network

Next, fill in the details as in the screenshot below. Change the “Server hostname” to any one of the VPN servers available in the list here. In my example, I’m connected to the US-EAST server. Change the “Provider type” to L2TP/IPsec + Pre-shared key and in the “Pre-shared key” value, type mysafety . Finally, enter the username and password that were generated for you in the first step.

VPN Details
VPN Details

Hit “Save identity and password” and click “Connect”. When successful, your Wi-Fi icon at the bottom right should change permanently to include a little “chain” underneath it like in the following screenshot:

Connection Successful!
Connection Successful!

And that’s it! You can now safely use your Chromebook at any unsecured Wi-Fi location, happy in the knowledge that you have an unbreakable private high speed connection to a number of servers around the world!

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43 thoughts on “How to Install Private Internet Access VPN on a Chromebook”

  1. I just purchased PIA and I’m trying to access it with my Chromebook. I think I’ve followed all the steps correctly for the PPTP/L2TP/SOCKS Security procedure for non-supported devices, but I’m getting an error that reads “Network Connection Error Failed to connect to network ‘US East VPN’: Connect failed”. I was successfully able to connect to the proxy on a Windows desktop though by downloading the program. Any ideas on what the problem may be? I have a bad feeling that I just wasted $40 :(

    Reply

  2. I seem to be having the same problem as Mike.

    PIA works fine on my main laptop which is windows based, but on my chrome book, it tries to connect and i get the message ‘Network Connection Error, Failed to connect to network ‘us-california’, unknown connection error’.

    I am not in the U.S right now and I really need the VPN for security as well as accessing restricted sites to my location.

    Any suggestions?

    Reply

    • In reply to Jay

      I set it up on my chromebook and you are correct, it does leak DNS to google servers.

      While this isn’t great, what are the real implications of this? If I understand Basically Google is able to see whatever DNS requests I make. But really, this can only be associated to my IP through the VPN, correct?

      Is there any way of fixing this on a chromebook if I wanted to?

      Reply

  3. Thanks! Worked like a charm on my HP Chromebook 14. I picked up PIA as a Front Page deal on Slickdeals and right after I bought it had the “doh” no software download moment. Looked at the Chromebook help and once again realized why I was not an EECS major. Your steps were a godsend! I went ahead and set up 3 of the servers in different regions. Thanks!

    Reply

  4. Hi Bhadwad, Thanks for writing this up. One thing you didn’t explain is where you obtained the “pre-shared key”, i.e., “mysafety”.

    I initially configured for US-West and tried the same key, but it did not work. So then I set to US-East — exact same settings as you (obviously using my own User + Password) but it still doesn’t work. So, I’m assuming that I don’t have the correct pre-shared key.

    Where can I find the pre-shared key–and are they different for each server?
    I did not see anything on PrivateInternetAccess website.
    Thanks!

    Reply

  5. So do I need to generate a new L2TP Username and Password for each server? I followed your instructions and it worked great for a Canada server but not for a NL one. Makes me wonder if need to generate new credentials but I’m also afraid I’ll invalidate my old ones if I do so

    Reply

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