The cost of living is going up. People are working as many jobs as they can to make ends meet. The creature comforts we have all grown accustomed to, are fast becoming more and more expensive. The internet is not immune to this. More and more people are paying higher and higher prices to internet access.
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With government sanctions to limit access and spy on your activity, people want to be able to access blocked sites without having to pay more on top of the cost of just having the internet. So a VPN connection is the way to go, but what is a VPN connection?
What’s the Connection?
VPN (Virtual Private Network) connections are rapidly becoming the ‘in thing’ for internet access these days. People are getting fed up with government spying, corporate and educational institutions blocking site access, and cyber criminals tapping into systems stealing information and ruining lives. VPN connections are much like a conventional internet connection with one tiny little difference—a tunnel. A VPN connection is like and underground tunnel.
Rather than go outside to get from one building to the next, an underground tunnel hides and protects those who need to be hidden and undetected. A VPN connection is much like this; it hides your IP identity (address) and its location from a server that is set up to detect it and block it from access. Many VPN providers offer comprehensive packages for their VPN connection services, but are there any for free and are they any good? We will take a look at a few of the best and what they offer.
Wi-Fi Protector
Wi-Fi Protector offered by CNET, WIFI Protector offers a basic VPN service that allows access to blocked sites and videos with a bank-level 256 bit encryption. The basic package offers an intrusion protection which warns the user of any unsecure security settings on a particular site trying to gain access to your system. Sites can be accessed from the site server and if access to other outside sites is desired, then they also offer a paid packaged for that.
VPN BOOK
VPN Book offers both a free PPTP and Open VPN service. The PPTP (Point to Point) service is easy to use, however not exactly secure. If your government or ISP blocks PPTP protocol, then this free service will not work for you. That is why they offer an Open VPN service. This is also free and uses open source client information and Open VPN certificate bundles.
TOR VPN
Tor VPN free users have an all access pass to all available ports. This free service allows a limited amount of traffic (1GB). Once the traffic quota has been reached, users can either purchase a paid package or use their ‘transparent tunnel’. They also offer paid packages as well if a user wishes more traffic size.
PrivateTunnel
Offered by Open VPN Technologies, this free VPN service has servers located in the US. It supports Open VPN and uses dynamic IPs. This is a trial version that offers 100 MB of traffic for the first month.
HideMyAss!
As well as a paid package, HideMyAss! Offers a free proxy service that allows users to access blocked content in the US, the UK and the Netherlands. It works with all web browsers and hides your location and identity across the web.
The Verdict
There are no guarantees with a free VPN services. Always do your homework. Many so called free VPN services are cloaked hackers trying to gather your information. The ones presented here offer free and paid packages. These providers are featured in many tech publications as well. Make sure you know who you are dealing with before you deal with them, “for a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet”.
