Hello, one and all. I just discovered VPN. For those of you who already know all about this, you can probably just skip the rest or feel free to add your own information as a comment.
I found out VPN stands for Virtual Private Network and basically it hides your identity on the internet. It's a great privacy tool but it has an additional benefit, especially for those of us now live in another country than where we are used to getting media. I can live in Ecuador and the website I'm looking at in the US will think I'm in the US and will let me access media it won't let me access without it.
I wish I knew more about the technical parts but there's a ton of information about it on the web if you want more geek speak stuff. I just ordered a year's worth of it for under $60 and felt that was a good price for what I want. It's around $5 a month and that's certainly less than a lot of things I can do very nicely without. It's on sale for the next day or two so I jumped on it before the price went up. Oh, the name of the company I went through is HideMyAss.com. Descriptive, eh?
I also signed up as an affiliate. Should you decide you'd like to take a look at it and think it might be nice if I earned a wee bit of money from it, take a look at it here. I love affiliate programs. I love it that companies are willing to pay me to do their advertising for them!
Once I get it all up and running I'll write another little post to let you know how it's working and what I think of it.
Cynthia - thanks for posting this information. There have been discussions about this type of thing on Ecuador Expats but my sense is most of the contributors use Macs. I need to consult with my daughter and son-in-law, both of whom are way into computer technology to better understand what VPN can do for us when we get to Ecuador.
ReplyDeleteKen and Barb - Wisconsin
Yes, I'm still not quite sure exactly what it does but I know it will let me watch those few TV shows I still enjoy and that's a very nice thing. I have windows and this apparently works well with it but I'm glad you have people to talk to who are tech savvy.
ReplyDeleteScott--according to a lovely email I got, you posted a comment here. I'm not seeing it but I want to thank you for it. I'll wait another day or so and if it doesn't show up, I'll post it manually. It was very informative for me and may be for other people as well. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteHi Cynthia! Yes I'm not sure what happened, if it doesn't show up I'll be happy to write it again. :-)
ReplyDeleteHad a chance to go through much of your blog and really enjoyed it. Looking forward to following along.
Have a great day!
So glad you enjoy it, Scott. I truly enjoy writing it. I can hardly wait to get going again!
DeleteHi Cynthia, looks like blogger ate my post so will try this again ;-)
ReplyDeleteIf you look up VPN's online you'll get lots of technical stuff and to be honest it can be pretty technical and used for many complex technical things but for what your doing it's fairly straight forward. In a nutshell you install the VPN on your computer, just like any other piece of software, and and you click "connect" it will create a secure tunnel to a location elsewhere in the world. From that other location, you "popup" on the internet and that is where the world thinks your located. So in your case, you have installed HMA, when you click connect it creates a secure connection from your laptop to the exit point that you can select from a list (to popup in the states you select a location in the states). This is all invisible to you but when you connect to someplace like fox, cbs, nbc or tv.com it sees that your located in the states and gives you access. Without the VPN it would show you as comeing from Ecuador and block you. Same if you select the UK on your VPN, it would block you as your not in the US but the BBC would then give you access as your in the UK.
For most home use, a VPN is not needed and you can turn it off (unless you want TV and stuff like that), this will keep your speed a bit faster. But if your using an unsecured WI-Fi access, or your traveling and using an untrusted network, turning on the VPN will give you a layer of security so that others can't see what your surfing (such as e-mail or your banking). I believe that you can also use the vpn to make skype think your in the states so you can get free calling.
I'm pretty sure that HMA is also for the Mac, and it's a very good program, many people I know use it. But if your not sure if a VPN is for you or want to experience how one works you can download a free vpn (such as hotspot shield) and give it a try. You'll be surprised how easy and invisible they are. But free ones usually have ads and over time will slow down to encourage you purchase one. The one Cynthia is using is one of the best in the world and least expensive.