Well, let’s first see the details of this Google offer.

In fact, it’s an opt-in program that Google has “silently” launched where they invite some testers to opt-in to the program called Screenwise. At optin, Google will credit you with a $5 Amazon gift card. Then Google will keep paying you $5 every three months you keep enrolled in the program – the maximum amount they’ll pay you (in Amazon Gift card currency) is capped to $25 though.

I don’t know about you but I think it’s not enough paid for such a long period of voyeurism from Google (combined with whatever they already know about you). But at least, I have to reckon that it’s quite a great move from Google to be able to put a price directly to the end-user: now, it’s like Google is asking to buy whatever remaining private thing you haven’t sold out yet.

This is how Google present this initiative:

” Google is building a new panel to learn more about how everyday people use the Internet.

The new project is called Screenwise. As a panelist, you’ll add a browser extension that will share with Google the sites you visit and how you use them. What we learn from you, and others like you, will help us improve Google products and services and make a better online experience for everyone.   “ 

Frankly speaking, there’s nothing wrong with Google’s move: they say upfront that the goal is to get a better understanding of your internet behaviour. The Screenwise program dare to say that it’ll be sharing those informations with Google (but hey, do you actually know how many other programs are running on your computer as of now that also share some of your informations with other online assets?). So, Screenwise just shout it out loud that not only will it track, but Google would even buy those data from you. Now the question is, for $25 are you willing to openly share whatever you do on the internet to an internet giant that is Google? I can see a lot of people who wouldn’t even consider that question: they would just say no.

But I can also imagine some other people who are willing to give it a try (because there’s a great book on Amazon they want to buy, for example?). If I were interested in such program (which I am not), I would be concerned about the details that Screenwise will share with Google. For example, how can I make sure that it doesn’t record and share my login credentials on the websites I check. Moreover, when it’s time to terminate the panelist, how can I make sure that there’s nothing left on my computer that will still track my internet behavior.

In fact, as I initially said, although I am not interested with the program, I’m surprised how Google dared put a price on its user’s privacy. Now what about you? Would you optin to that program? Why, or why not?

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Screenwise: Google Is Putting a Price on Your Privacy

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What is a Kindle Fire?

Kindle Fire is Amazon’s tablets who has an agressive lower price (around $199) compared to an iPad2 or a Samsung Galaxy Tab. It is running Android Gingerbread-based Honeycomb variant of 2.3.

Although people tend to compare the Kindle Fire to iPad, it definitley can’t be compared head-to-head. Amazon’s vice-president clearly stated that the Kindle Fire is mainly for media consumption. By the way, he estimates that if you’re planning to watch a movie on it while you are in a plane (though no Wi-Fi yet), the Kindle Fire will last 7 hours.

Despite this initial warning about comparing, the Kindle actually has the nice features of tablets: it comes with  two-finger multitouch, has a “desktop-class” PDF reader.

On the “lighter” options (they had to accept some tradeoffs so as to get into that $199 price: the Kindle Fire has no camera, only comes with USB connection and its browser comes without plugins.

While the Kindle Fire has mail applications, and even it applications like twitter, facebook or netflix are expected to land on this device, the Kindle is mainly geared for media consumption.

Why would you need a VPN on a Kindle Fire?

This is a legitimate question since media consumption can be done with files stored on the Kindle Fire. But in fact, that device has been conceived to tap into Amazon’s large database of media and publications. Moreover, it is a common trend nowadays to host his media on the cloud so as to be able to stream them from multiple devices. Well, this sounds like a gadget technology rather than a must-have device, you may think.

Well, not necessarily. Think about the following scenario: if you are a US customer and you plan to travel outside the US – unless you have loaded your Kindle Fire with all the media and books you want to read BEFORE leaving the country, you’d be in trouble. Chances are that you just can’t connect with your Kindle Fire and download the latest fiction that is available on Amazon Store once you’re away: geolocation limitation, are you there?

No built-in VPN client for Kindle Fire

If you are a regular reader of How-To-Hide-Ip, you know that under such challenge, the usual solution is to fire a VPN to override the geolocation limitation, then you’re set. But the truth is: a Kindle Fire doesn’t come with a VPN client- or at least, it takes some headaches before setting this up.

Use a US-based router

The good thing, though, is that full-color 7″ tablet comes with a Wi-Fi connection. And this means that, if you don’t want to worry about how to root your Android-based Kindle Fire, then you can always configure an internet router to do the VPN setting for you: get it connecting to a US-based VPN router, then have . Once that internet router is setup (make sure it can act as a Wi-Fi access point), then all you have to do is connect via Wi-Fi to that internet gateway, then yit work as a Wi-Fi AP.

Now, all you have to do is connect to that Wi-Fi zone from your Kindle Fire – it will inherit from the internet router’s IP address (US-based), so you should be able to download your favorite book from Amazon via your Kindle Fire.

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How to Run a VPN from a Kindle Fire?

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• You can either use some proxy gateways that will mask your actual IP address and use it own address. This is the most challenging solution to find as the list of proxies change so often.
• You can also use VPN servers. With such solution, you can chose the country where you want to land. Those solutions are especially very efficient for overcoming geolocation-limited services like Hulu, BBC iPlayer, …
• Then, for those who actually wants some “random/parallel” network that will hide them: ToR is one solution.
• For those who are more into browser-based solutions, you can find out addons that will allow you to achieve some kind of anonymity too

Except for ToR, most of those solutions expect you to connect you to one gateway, then this gateway will “mask” your connection before forwarding your request to any internet server that you want to see.

As I browsed the internet, I stumbled on one concept that seemed interesting (at least at first approach), it is called RiccoVPN and it is published by PrivacyProtector.

So I checked on their website and found out that they provide a privacy solution that requires you to install their proprietary client. What popped to my eyes is that it comes with a FREE solution that is called RiccoVPN FREE: while it is expected to be  a “bait” so that a potential user jumps into the paid version, the features can be of use for standard things like: connecting from a public Wi-Fi, from hotels or Airport. The caveat is that the bandwidth is limited to 512kbps and you can’t pretend to be somewhere else: though the free version isn’t a solution for bypassing geolocation-limited services.

As one would expect, most of the argument is stated in a way that you are pushed to opt for the RiccoVPN Plus solution instead of staying with the free solution. So I checked the Plus option and found out that RiccoVPN is implementing an encrypted P2P network instead of relying on a VPN gateway.

The idea is innovative, but yet has to prove how efficient it is. By leveraging on P2P network, internet connections are harder to track indeed (there’s no VPN gateway in the scheme). But since every user in the network is expected to run the RiccoVPN client, I would suspect that if I run the RiccoVPN client on my computer, then it would mean that my computer would also be used for encrypting other people’s traffic.

While this article isn’t a recommendation, I think there’s some potential in that no-gateway concept. With SOPA-like bills, there’s a tendancy to find some technical solutions that won’t allow you to be tracked from your ISP or VPN provider. From the “commercial ad”, RiccoVPN claims that “we do not need to know you“.  What do you think of that approach? Do you think it is something that you would try?

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RiccoVPN, a VPN Solution Without a Gateway

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Like many of us, they are web-savvy people, and they wanted 24/7 access to the web, and so they are likewise always on the lookout for the best VPN service in Japan. Since there are a lot of top sites on the web that they wish to access, but which have apparent geographical restrictions, people from Japan turn to top USA VPN services to provide them access to said websites.

For the people of Japan, VPN is heaven-sent. You may ask, ‘what are its advantages?’ Well, there are a great number of reasons why you need to obtain a USA VPN if you are in Japan. For starters, the service enables a high level of security and data encryption to afford protection and privacy for your important data online.

Unlock restricted sites from Japan

A VPN can provide you the following features and advantages:

• If you are in Japan and you utilize a VPN service, you will be provided an American IP address. It will grant you access to US websites (think Hulu, Netflix, etc. accessible to you while in Japan) that are only available for you if you are in the US.

• A VPN or Virtual Private Network protects your personal information online. It precludes third parties from monitoring your traffic and be able to know where exactly you are located. As you connect with a US VPN, your Internet service provider is unable to perform deep packet inspection. Hence, your actual location is always hidden and protected. Marketers on the web can also be prevented from determining your location for their own merchandising intentions.

• With quality VPN service, you are guaranteed secured VPN protocols. In effect you can make sure your devices are protected. Go for protocols that cater to several devices, protocols such as PPTP, L2TP, and IPsec to name a few are the best protocols for VPN. Should you use your connection in a public place like an Internet Café or local library, you are assured against unscrupulous phishes, hacks, and other cyber criminal activities.

• High-quality VPN providers maintain servers in the USA, Europe, and more. These VPN service providers will enable end users to access the web exactly the same manner as any of the people from  said geographical locations.

If you are traveling outside of Japan or will need immediate access to websites restricted to people in the USA only, a US VPN is the best tool that will enable you to do so. This freedom afforded to you by a VPN will allow you limitless browsing online in Japan without any restrictions.

It is imperative that when choosing for the best VPN for Japan, go with a provider that will not set a limitation on your speed or will not charge you much as you switch between various VPN server locations. Features and advantages as these should be kept in mind when choosing the best VPN that will work for you and meet your needs while in Japan.

Japan VPN servers

On the other side, you may look for VPN services that offer servers located in Japan in order to unlock games or popular Japan sites. Here is a list of VPNs with Japan servers:

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Virtual Private Network Service Use In Japan

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The goal here is simple: do an awareness campaign for How-to-hide-ip readers when it comes to their privacy on the $10 billion social network called facebook.

The tool we’re going to cover here is FBpwn . If you want to know more about the tool, its development as well as ways to contact the developers, then you’re free to check their website.

So what is Facebook Profile?

In fact, it’s a Java-based program that claims itself as a social engineering platform. It can be used on different platforms, and is released under GPL v3 license. Simply said, everyone can copy, modify and distribute it: so expect a lot of your friends using this application so as to make some jokes, or so as to pick some of your photos.

How does it work?

Once installed on the “hacker’s” computer, FBpwn would send some friend request to a list of FB friends. The same program then checks for those who have accepted the friend requests. Once someone accept the friend request, then FBpwn pumps all the datas it can from each of those friend’s profile: all their information,photos and friend list to a local folder

Quoting the official page of FBpwn, this is how the system works:

Typically, first you create a new blank account for the purpose of the test. Then, the friending plugin works first, by adding all the friends of the victim (to have some common friends). Then the clonning plugin asks you to choose one of the victims friends. The cloning plugin clones only the display picture and the display name of the chosen friend of victim and set it to the authenticated account. Afterwards, a friend request is sent to the victim’s account. The dumper polls waiting for the friend to accept. As soon as the victim accepts the friend request, the dumper starts to save all accessable HTML pages (info, images, tags, …etc) for offline examining.

After a a few minutes, probably the victim will unfriend the fake account after he/she figures out it’s a fake, but probably it’s too late! 

Caveats

As a facebook user, you may wonder how you can be protected from such private data pumping? In fact, most facebook users have adopted an approach where they don’t accept friend requests from people they don’t know. Well, it may help on some situations, but if one of those accounts is using FBPwn, then that precaution doesn’t help.

And as you would have noticed, FBpwn even goes further by friending some of your friends so that when you receive a friend request, facebook would show you the common friends you have – this gives you some ” confidence” that this may be a ” good” connection: which is totally a scam, but you’ll only discover it later on – if you’ll ever discover it.

Keep in mind: the purpose of this program is to do a proof of concept. How would you fight against it? That’s another story that probably need some help from Facebook. Anyway, as I always said: never trust that things you post/share on Facebook are private.

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How to Dump Your Friend’s Facebook Profile and “private” Data?

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As you can expect from a service with a large number of users, not everybody is happy. The HMA reviews are mostly positive, but not all. Some of users complain about support, others about the service itself. But, the main concern about HMA, especially after the Lulzsec issue, is related to the anonymity provided to the users and the logging policy.

If you are looking for HideMyAss alternatives, I have selected several VPN services that have an extended number of servers, offer good support and the price is acceptable.

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7 Good HideMyAss Alternatives

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Sadly, there are certain limits to our freedom to use the web and explore, and because of this a lot of people find themselves left out perplexed and looking for answers. But then again, thanks to VPN service providers online, now you can freely do whatever you want albeit any Internet restrictions imposed out there.

PPTP VPN Protocol

VPN can best be utilized with the aid of point to point tunneling protocols otherwise known as PPTP. PPTP is by far one of the most widely known VPN protocols which is popularly employed by the best PPTP VPN providers on the web. A VPN company needs a network protocol as PPTP. The idea of a PPTP as a network protocol is very crucial to the overall efficiency and functioning of any Virtual Private Network provider.

Since, the very essence of VPN is encrypting and safely transporting online data across the Internet, a highly secure manner of transfer is made possible with the aid of PPTP or other relevant protocols. Hence, its efficacy is dependent upon a client server type. Moreover, Microsoft windows incorporate PPTP clients within its many apps in some bundle packages offered online. The PPTP client is likewise made available to certain operating systems as Mac OS X, and Linux to name a few. Although some brand new VPN protocols as IPsec and L2TP abound, yet still PPTP remained the most prevalent protocol of all time.

PPTP stood still and remained as one of the best VPN protocols to date. A great number of subscribers across the world have utilized the best PPTP services offered on the web and they can definitely vouch for its efficacy and overall performance. Overall, end-users are just happy using these PPTP VPN services.

Why should you use PPTP VPN? Fair security, easy setup!

So, why should you use PPTP VPN services? Well, because above all things you value your SECURITY and PRIVACY! The tunnel makes certain that your data is safely encrypted as it traverse two points. Meantime, you are granted a new internet protocol upon subscribing to the best PPTP VPN connection available. This brand new IP address is obtained from a remote server which is based in another country.  This very simple practice enables the end-users to enjoy being anonymous online as no one might be able to locate your identity or specific geographic location for that matter. All this while, your real IP address remains hidden.

Yet another amazing advantage derived from subscribing to the best PPTP VPN is that one can easily bypass any forms of internet restriction compelled upon various countries like Iran, China, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, etc, on their people to a certain extent.

PPTP VPN works on Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, Android

PPTP is one of the few VPN protocols that can be easily setup on any operating system and it does not require the installation of any software. The setup requires some simple steps that can be done by anyone.

There are plenty of VPN providers that offer PPTP VPN. Depending on what you need to unlock you need to select the one that offers the proper server location. For example, if you want to watch Hulu you need a US IP, if you want to access BBC iPlayer select a UK VPN, and so on.

Here is a list of several PPTP VPN services that you can try!

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Easily Bypass Internet Restrictions With PPTP VPN

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Most of the time free VPNs require registration and offer limited service.  Some offer a limited number of MB, others a single server location, limited speed or restrictive usage.

Here, at how-to-hide-ip.info, we have listed several such services (7 Free Online VPN Services, VPN Raptor, VPN Reactor, UltraVPN, etc.), but as they are rapidly changing (some switch to paid version, other simply go away), an update is necessary.

Thus, here are the best VPN services that are available at this time:

ProXPN

ProXPN has the advantage to offering no limitation of data transfer but only one USA IP is available. You need to register and account using an email address and install the OpenVPN of ProXPN to access either the package fee (more IP addresses) or free access.

SecurityKiss

SecurityKiss offers more countries, but data transfer is limited daily.  No registration is needed. You can switch between five addresses (US – UK – DE – PL – FR) and TCP or UDP ports.  Just download the OpenVPN client, to start to enjoy free VPN (no mail, no info required).  Some protocols such as the Usenet are blocked.

ShieldExchange

The creators of famous OpenVPN offer a free VPN that is limited to 100 MB per user. The speed is very good and the one US IP is exposed. Very useful for one-time or infrequent usage.

HotSpot Shield

Hotspot Shield is still widely used all over the world. The ad-based, free VPN service provides one US IP address and does not require registration. There are no bandwidth limitation and the speed is good for general use. Downsides: the ads and the reduced number of locations and IPs. Hotspot Shield is also avaialable in paid flavor as HSS Elite.

Expat Shield

Expat Shield offers the same service as Hotspot Shield with the only difference that it assigns a UK IP address. It is also ad-based and there are no bandwidth limitations.

Conclusion

There are also other free VPN services that can be easily found on forums and different sites, but the ones listed above seem more trustworthy than others. If you are looking for a free VPN, try them all and find out what is the most suitable for you.

It is important to understand that free VPN services can not fully replace paid, premium, VPNs like HideMyAss, HideIpVPN, StrongVPN, ibVPN or IAPS Security Services. A premium VPN service offers unlimited speed and traffic, various server locations, many IP addresses, good support.

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List of Free VPN Services – Updated

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Nonetheless, you cannot stream Netflix US while in Europe. Since Netflix US is only available to pc or devices that operates under an American IP address. So, your only and last recourse would be to utilize a Virtual Private Network or VPN in order to fake your current location.

What exactly is a Virtual Private Network? How can it help me stream Netflix US media and content from my hotel in Europe?

A Virtual Private Network or VPN is similar to a proxy service, in case you have heard of that. You cannot stream US Netflix anywhere in Europe unless you have a VPN. However, you may have heard that due to some constraints, you can no longer stream Netflix content in Europe using a proxy as they are now blocked. VPN’s are in fact the best way that will work for you to obtain access to Netflix instantly outside the US. I personally had a hand at using it when I paid my brother in Germany a visit. He just can’t believe it, but it’s true – he’s seeing USA movies and TV shows right before his very eyes while in Berlin!

For just $5 – $10 dollars a month or so you can obtain a VPN subscription without any problems and have a denominated US IP address for your account. VPN’s are a great way to bypass any internet censorship, which may be attributed to ones geographic location or country IP address. As you cloak your own IP address by getting a new one (all US-based), Netflix will assume your computer or laptop is in the USA, and thereby grant it access to streamed media from the United States.

There is a wide array of cheaper VPN services available on the web today. But only those that have US IP addresses are specifically what you’ll need for this purpose. If you really wish to watch Netflix content where you are at the moment, then VPN’s are the best way to go.

With Virtual Private Network, you can have access to your favorite TV shows and movies online wherever in Europe, whenever you want without breaking the bank. Enjoy!

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Stream Netflix US Even In Europe

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However, there are certain geographical locations that are banned from accessing Skype due to the country ban imposed upon it. Countries ranging from Panama, Belize, Ethiopia, Mexico, Brazil, UAE, and China to name a few are banned from making pc to pc calls with Skype. How can I unblock Skype in these locations?  Easy, use a VPN service!

A VPN or Virtual Private Network is one of the best and secure ways to unblock Skype even in countries where they are banned and have a private network setup for personal communications to anywhere in the world! It is exactly the same as your regular network, only that it mainly utilizes the World Wide Web to make a connection. Moreover, it is one of the best ways to get in touch with your loved ones while having secured private communications wherever in the world.

Skype is by far the most popular VOIP service of all time, with millions of users worldwide and growing. The Skype ban has left a lot of perplexed users in the dark labyrinth searching for the right answers. Until recently, tech-savvy users in banned countries have found refuge with reliable VPN service providers on the web.

Skype VPN

Why pay for expensive telecom service to contact friends and family overseas when you can do it free on Skype with VPN?

A great way to ensure your online security is to frequently change your IP (Internet Protocol) address thru the aid of a secure VPN connection. One amazing feature about VPNs is the fact that along with their highly customizable features, they nevertheless remain cost effective and they can cut communication expenditures immensely. The many benefits that come from using a quality VPN service are just infinite!

Every time you use a Virtual Private Network to unblock access to Skype, the VPN will hide your real IP address and provide you a brand new one. The VPN in turn acts as a tunnel between your pc (where you are making the calls) and the actual server. Consequently, all data passing through it is securely encrypted so VPN hides your internet traffic from your ISP so you may now have conversations in complete privacy.

By using VPN on Skype you can make inexpensive calls anywhere in the world, anytime you want it. No reason to worry about any blocks or bans!

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Access Skype Anywhere With VPN Services

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