With revelations that the Americans are being tracked by their government’s National Security Agency all over the internet, individuals have become more concerned about their privacy. Before the US government said they were only watching non-Americans for potential terrorist threats but the truth has come out that actually, phone calls, text/SMS messages, email, browsing histories and anything else that can can be logged when someone is connected to the network.
The majority of people don’t think about it, but many companies are tracking you. For example,
Amazon–
Tracking you for what you are purchasing, where you are shipping to, and if you use their Kindle products, they can even tell what you are reading and what page you are on.
Apple-
Knows how many iOS devices (iPod touch, iPad, iPhone) you have, what location you are using the devices, what your music and movie preferences are, and who you are communicating with.. if you are using their iPad service they no the IPs of where you are using the devices. The new iPhone 5s even has a processor dedicated to tracking your motions or movements.
Google-
Although a wonderful company, Google is probably biggest threat to online privacy according to security experts, Google knows a lot about a lot of people by offering ‘free’ services that track and profile you. Every internet connection has an IP address. Sign up for Gmail and they can correlate your searches with whom you are communicating with and what you are talking about. Other Google services track your location, your face, your docs, and even the IP addresses of where you work and where you live. If your kids school users Google Apps, they know where you live and where the kids go to school.
This is where VPN services come in. Signing up for a VPN service will allow you to show log your computer into a remote server and have a bit more privacy as you browse, email, or communicate with people through there. You browsing shows as the remote computer’s IP.
All the remote profiles and trackers see is the IP address of the services router your traffic is coming from. This means if you are a foreigner living in a foreign land, you can use a VPN service in your home country to view the TV shows contents and other things that are blocked if you hit their sites from a foreign IP address.
What are some VPN Services Available?
There are many VPN services available. Like web hosting, it’s relatively simple to set up a server, connect it to the internet, and offer services. Some frequently seen VPN services are
IPVN.net
HideMyAss.com
StrongVPN.com
Private Internet Access
BTguard
StrongVPN
The list is constantly growing. Much like web hosting, it is a service that people into with many varying levels of throughput and support.
What do you need to look for in a VPN service?
Throughput
Reliability
Privacy
Most of these services are inferior. If you are on a Tokyo fiber to the home connection and you use Strong VPN for example to access US sites, you are going to lose a lot of throughput.
If you use HIdeMyAss.com and are working from a suppressed country, there is a possibility that they will share your information with the government.
If you want a consistent connection in another country, be assured that the majority of the services will constantly disconnect you as they just aren’t that good.
In our testing, we liked IVPN.net the most. It’s a company based in Malta, they don’t keep extensive logs on their users (although if you are doing something illegal there is no hiding even behind a VPN service), and their rates are reasonable. There is no chat or telephone support. There responses to our questions in the presales stage were next day.
Lots of choices on services.