But how come that’s possible?

In fact, twitter has rolled out a feature called “Personalization” that allows them to suggest you twitter people to follow based on the websites that you have visited. According to the twitter’s blog, they describe the service with the following wordings:

These tailored suggestions are based on accounts followed by other Twitter users and visits to websites in the Twitter ecosystem. We receive visit information when sites have integrated Twitter buttons or widgets, similar to what many other web companies — including LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube — do when they’re integrated into websites.

Personally, I kind of like the mention of other popular online platforms, as if they meant “Look guys, everybody’s doing it, so why can’t we?”. Truth being told, yes, everybody’s tracking you. But did you know that it’s just a matter of visiting a website that has those platform’s sharing plugins? Do you know that you don’t have to actually click on those sharing buttons so as to be tracked? I didn’t, and I bet a lot of people out there didn’t either.

But this is kind of huge database. Have you ever noticed any “recent” websites that don’t come with some kind of “tweet it” button? (or other platforms, this isn’t limited to twitter)? I bet there’s a very few probability you haven’t.

How can you prevent yourself from being tracked via twitter?

At least, you can opt-out from being tracked. Open your twitter account via a web browser – don’t even think about using your favorite twitter app, you have to go the twitter way, via their web interface. Click on your twitter settings page, then untick the Personalization option where it says “Tailor Twitter based on my recent website visits” as you can see from the screenshot below

Ok, so at the beginning of this article, I bet you thought that browsing some sites that have some twitter sharing widget is “safe enough” so long as you don’t use the button. Now, you now this isn’t true. It’s up to you to update your twitter settings if you don’t want to be tracked by twitter.

Please notice that this article only dealt with twitter, but I guess the same applies to all those popular sharing/social media plugins that most websites are using now. Not surfing those websites isn’t an option, but you can’t find out if those stes have those tracking features unless you visited them, so this is a chicken and egg situation that still need to be addressed on a case-by-case basis althoug some “standards” like “Do-Not-Track” features are now implemented, but not everybody have adopted it yet (do they have any motivation to adopt it? That’s another question).

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How to Disable Twitter Tracking of Your Website Browsing?

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But what are those options actually?

- first you have to be physically in the country where the online service is available. Ok, this isn’t an option per se, but we have to understand that if geolimitation are set on some websites (hulu, spotify, …), it’s because thy have some legal constraints that they have to comply with,

- you can also use proxies. Here you have to go either with free proxies or paid ones. I have a preference for paid proxies since free ones usually come with a lot of annoying ads and popup, and so on an so forth. Those ads just make your browsing experience a nightmare

- you also have some VPN solution. And as it is common with the internet, you have free VPN services and then come the paid VPN services. Once again, I prefer, far more, going with paid VPN services and I will talk more about this option later on. My grief against free VPN services is that they usually have to change frequently the credentials for accessing the services, and most of them has some limitations attached to it.

- then you have the DNS-based solutions that can help you overcome geolocation limitation that most popular online services use. Mainly, those providers are maintaining DNS servers that can help do some rewriting/redirecting of the internet packets. The drawback to it is that, as a customer, you have to configure your device so that it uses the DNS provider’s servers.

So now let’s get back to the title of this blog post. In fact, I love VPN services: HideMyAss, ibVPN, StrongVPN or OverPlay are my top-of-mind choices when it comes to choosing great VPN services. But the reason why I don’t quite like the DNS-based service comes from a personal experience that I recently had.

Why I don like DNS-based services

As a regular contributor to this blog, I sometimes get pitched by services providers so that I can honestly review their services.  Last time, I got one DNS-based geolocation solution provider giving me a credential so that I can test their solution. So I happily went on their website, checked the well-documented website for the instructions on how to set their services with my settings (I wanted to go for the most common ones which is a Wi-Fi based Windows 7 system). I’ve been given a DNS server to setup on my laptop (frankly, they should have gone the extra-mile by providing a simple tool that would do the modification instead of expecting a lambda user to do the “detailed” operation).

Anyway, I did whatever I was expected to, but couldn’t make it work. So I e-mailed the support system mentioning that I am reviewing their service for this blog (you know, I just wanted to give them some “motivation” to treat my case right), but unfortunately I have received no answer so far -I’ve sent the e-mail four weeks ago So I checked their website again looking for some tips that may help me get going, then found out a small fine line saying that the configuration may not work for some settings where some ISP may block some “things”.  I can’t tell you exactly what limitations my ISP is doing, but given that I can work with my standard VPN service with the same settings- there’s no wondering why I prefer going with a VPN-based solution for overcoming geolimitations.

What about you? Have you ever used a DNS-based (sometimes called SmartDNS) solutions? What’s your feedback on them?

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Why I Prefer VPN Services over DNS-based Solutions?

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Ok, I understand that Facebook sells ads and that’s how it mainly generates revenues. But at the same time, when you read that General  Electrics, a big industry player in the US,  just withdrawed a $10 million Facebook ad budget because they were not convinced about the efficiency of the media, I can’t help but wonder.

So could it be that Facebook has some other hidden values that we, as lambda users, can’t figure out? I’m no financial guru, but I can do simple maths. And that simple maths tells me that every Facebook account has generated $16. Simple math I said, since, if we consider that Facebook have probably reached 1 billion users, and that the IPO has been valued to $16 billion, then we get $16/user. Frankly speaking, I don’t know how to put this figure into perspective.

So let’s try to find some comparison, just for the sake of it. On another article, I told you that Google values your private data at $25. With that into mind, can we say that Facebook values similar data at $16? Ok, this is oversimplifying, and I know this is such a crazy comparison, but this is the only example that came into my mind so far. Digging further, we can also think about the $1 billion acquisition of Instagr.am by Facebook that was done recently. But at least, on Instagr.am, there’s not that much sensitive private information that we are actually sharing (at least, before it got integrated to Facebook and other online identities).

So this brings me back to my initial question: have the Facebook user-base been sold at $16billion? Ok, we also have to take into consideration other assets (infrastructures, human resources, patents, …), but still: userbase and user activities are what makes Facebook so powerful- a Facebook without users is just a meaningless empty blue box.

I can imagine that Facebook apps can eventually sell: but from my understanding, Apps get paid via ads. I also know that Facebook have recently been pushing for paid ads that will incrust into the user’s timeline. But as a user of Facebook, have you ever clicked those paid ads? Probably yes, probably no.

Despite all of this, one thing’s for sure: Facebook have gathered a lot of private informations on a billion people all around the world, which is 1/7^th of the total population in the world. Ads probably isn’t the only way to market this database.  I’m sure some smart people out there have found new ways to monetize that huge database instead of relying on an old-and-tested ad-based revenue stream (which still pays, I do agree). But if we reconsider Google’s offer who’s ready to pay $25 for accessing one user’s internet history, I just can’t help but think that there’s a price for everything, and $25 is quite a big investment if you multiply it by millions of users.

So now what? as facebook users, we’ve been sold for $16? What’s your view?  After all, facebook users are at the heart of this busines (as it is common with every social media venture out there). Does it surprise you? Do you think it’s fair enough? Feel free to comment.

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How, You, as a Facebook User, Are Valued at $16?

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As one of the goals of this blog is to review different VPN applications, I will start presenting the most popular and nicest iPhone and iPad apps. The first one that I tested was VPNFire. Here is a short description and a step-by-step tutorial.

VPNFire in AppStore

Let’s start from the AppStore and find the VPNFire app. (The screnshots are taken from an iPad, but the install and usage is similar on an iPhone.)

Choose the version for iPad or iPhone depending on your device and click Install as for any other iOS app. After the installation start the application. You will be shown the main dashboard of VPNFire:

Next, you need to Register a New Account:

Enter your name, first name, email address and password. Press Submit.

After the account creation go to My Account tab and enter your email address and password setup earlier. Press Sign In.

VPNFire Connection setup

The next step is to setup the VPN connection. VPNFire allows manual and automatic setup. If you prefer manual setup you need to create the VPN connection and enter the server credentials manually, but I recommend the automatic setup as it faster and straightforward. Click on the Setup VPN on iPad and then Start Auto Setup. As you are on the free/trial account, only VPN connections for the free VPN server will be created. Later, if you purchase a paid plan you will be to re-run the auto setup.

Make sure you read the warning message, especially the China users. Click Launch Auto Setup.

You will be redirected to the Settings section of your iOS device and required to accept the installation of VPNfire configuration files. As you can see the VPNFire application is verified, so you can press Install with confidence.

The setup creates VPn connections for the active VPN servers, both for PPTP and L2TP.

Start VPNFire

After the installation is completed, you can connect to the servers: go to Settings, VPN tab, select the desired configuration (PPTP or L2TP) and then switch on the VPN.

You should be now connected. Check the new IP address by browsing to xmyip.com or any other IP check site.

When you need to disconnect, just go to Settings, VPN tab and switch off the VPN.

Plans and Pricing

VPNFire offers a trial account with 200MB traffic. After that you need to purchase a plan: either a period subscription or a data plan. You can find all the plans here. The paid plans offer US and UK based servers.

Conclusion

I was pleasantly surprised by the simplicity and the easy installation of this iPhone/iPad app. It does not require any tech skills and it takes only several minutes to get the VPN working and be able to unlock any restricted website. I’m not able to say much about the speed of the servers, but, as far as I tested, it was quite decent. The conclusion is that, if you are not willing to manually configure your VPN connection, VPNFire app and service may be a good choice. Enjoy!

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VPNFire – iPhone and iPad Dedicated VPN App

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I know, it’s kind of “waste of time” since this social media invasion have got us sharing a lot about ourselves, especially about what we’re doing and what are our whereabouts and likes (as well as dislikes). For my own’s consolation, I just feel proud I haven’t surrendered to those check-in services (foursquare and Facebook places) as I think those are the ultimate “tracking” tool that people voluntarily update – as if they had to shout out to everybody where they are -including the burglar standing at the corner who’s just waiting for you to update that you are miles away from your home. (Full disclosure: I have an account on foursquare but I just don’t check-in, I leave tips hours or days later after I’ve been to a place- aaarrgh, when the social media addiction got you).

How visible are you on the Internet?

So I searched the internet (or did I stumble upon it since I’m in one way or another “attracted into this topic”), then I found this nice tool called stay invisible: that tool checks obvious, as well as not-so-obvious information that you “reveal” to the internet based on your current internet connection as well as the cookies that your browser keeps.

Astonishing results

The tool is pretty straightforward to use: you go to the website, then it immediately starts gathering information about your connection and browser – oh gosh, that browser, it keeps old things you wish no one ever knew So as to get astonishing results, the tool is best used when you haven’t yet cleared your browser’s private information, nor have you used the tips I left for leaving no trace when browsing the internet.

So let’s start with the “not-shocking” facts: the tool detects exactly the browser and all that comes with it: version, plugins … How can that be “dangerous”, you may be asking. Well, if a hacker knows exactly what your browser is, they also know what are the security breaches that come along with it. Have you ever wondered why some trojan sites are faking popular websites? That’s because they want you to go to the fake site, once you are there, they know a lot about you.

But apart from that, this site shows a paragraph called “location and language“, and I must say it’s doing a good job identifying where I’m located (at least the country) – ok, most website now has the ability to know where their visitors come from- but anyway, for those who aren’t aware, keep this in mind: websites you visit know where you are physically based – or at least they have a rough idea about it.

Then comes the technical part: the zombie cookie part that is too technical for most users (I have to admit I refuse to try to understand how those cookies can be harmful)- all that I know is that the website I just visited can put some cookies on my browsers and that some of those cookies can act like zombie cookies that can’t be deleted: meaning that those cookies can act like your DNA … This isn’t good, not good at all …

So after checking that website, I don’t feel confident at all on the way the information about me is shared by my browser. Heck, there are ways to delete the cookies from any browser, but having discovered that some are hard to remove is just … insane.

Do you have any tools that can help identify how we are tracked on the internet?

If so, feel free to share and discuss about them in the comment section.

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How to Check What Traces You Are Leaving When Browsing the Internet? Amazing Results – Guaranteed!

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If you haven’t yet, then you’ve saved yourself from some headaches Indeed, most of the smartphones available on the market don’t allow you to manually configure proxies for your browser without having to do some special tricks (rooting your Android, or jailbreaking your iPhone). If you have found some other solutions, I’m eager to know about them – and you’re highly invited to mention it in the comment section of this article – I’m sure you’ll help a lot of our readers out there.

Opera Mini – the most popular browser for smartphones

As of today, the most commonly used solution for “easily” setting a proxy on smartphones was to install Opera Mobile browser. That feature pushed Opera Mobile browser as being the most popular browser that smartphone users have adopted, mainly because it allows some geek smartphone users to get free internet on their phone.

But the battlefield is changing as other browsers are beginning to get into that “market” where users would be able to manually set proxies for their browsers. Recently, Firefox has ported the popular browser to the mobile world, and have introduced a way to sync it with the desktop firefox installation. This is actually a smart move as a lot of desktop users have adopted Mozilla firefox as their primary browser. Competition is going to be rude in this field, especially when Android powers the biggest part of Smartphone market, and that Chrome is the de facto browser for any google device.

ProxyMob – new Firefox addon

So I told you that ProxyMob, a firefox addon has been launched so as to allow users to manually configure th proxy. In fact, the guys at ToR project have developed a proxy manager for Firefox Mobile that comes very handy for us users who love using proxies from our smartphones. It is called ProxyMob and it definitely brings one missing feature to Firefox mobile. Indeed, with the implementation of Firefox on Android devices, there were no easy way to set proxies. This is one of the reasons why Opera Mobile is very popular with Smartphones.

Simply said, ProxyMob is only a GUI interface that allows to access the parameters of Firefox Mobile: it’s a pretty simple feature, and I’m just wondering how come it hasn’t been implemented earlier. Anyway, the race to finding proxies that haven’t been yet blocked by mobile operators can follow-up again.

Now, I can see you asking yourself “how come this topic can lead to having free internet access from mobile phone?“. Remember the trick that most geeky guys use with Opera Mobile for “extending” the free internet Facebook access that most mobile phone operators? Got it? … No clue? … In fact, if you search on the internet, you’ll see that those geeks use mobile opera by manually setting some proxies while they use a data plan that their mobile phone operator give them that has the feature of accessing Facebook freely. By using that trick, not only they can access legitimately Facebook freely, but via the proxy feature, they can also access some other internet resources for free.

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ProxyMob for Firefox – An Alternative to Opera Mini Mobile?

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2. How Do I Hide My IP Address Using Opera?
3. How To Surf Privately Using Opera 10.50

Is it still possible to track how and where my personal information is shared/stored ?

This is a question that I asked myself lately. Indeed, this has become very obvious to me that I no more have control to how the different online accounts I have are tied together.

Let’s take a recent example: I’ve used Google Chrome for a while along with other browsers (mainly Firefox). Each time I go on Google.com, on the upper-right corner, there’s a very well-crafted invitation saying something like “not signed to Google Chrome yet, you’re missing something”. I must admit that it’s very well copywritten: it raises my curiosity, and the call-to-action is very clear: I only have to associate the Google Chrome account to my Gmail account. So after months of ignoring that message (or was it shorter than that?), I finally decided to check what’s at the other side of the fence (ahh, how, we humans, are so curious…).

So, I associated my Google Chrome to my gmail account so that I can sync every Google Chrome settings I have with different devices: it keeps tracks of the autofill, password, extensions, and so on and so forth … Well, this may be a great feature indeed, since I use Chrome on different computers (or at least from the Chrome I use on my Windows 7, and the one I use with my Ubuntu Precise 12.04). I was so “pleased” that I almost missed the point that in order for that system to work, my passwords need to be stored somewhere in the cloud.

My passwords are now stored in the Cloud. Should I be worried?

Well, heck, Google Chrome has a paragraph about passwords, where it says that they are encrypted, but truth of the matter is: I’ve just allowed Google to store my password on its servers. Should I be worried? Definitely yes. I unchecked the option to store my password so that Google Chrome can remember it, but I’m sure most users won’t even go and checkout what they’ve allowed Google to do.

This is just one example in fact, but the same thing applies with other platforms, including Facebook, twitter, Apple and another plethora of platforms. Remember for example whenever you want to use your Facebook account for commenting on popular (or not so popular) website, it always asks for some “permissions”: but since you so want to read that article, or access that online resource, you don’t even care about the questions, all you want to click on is the “allow” button? Isn’t it right? The same thing applies when we click on the “Agree” button on all those “End-User License Agreement” on every software that we install on our computer: raise the hand for those who actually read and took the time to evaluate those EULA…. I bet there’ll only be 1% of people out there.

Frankly speaking, I have to admit that this online identity issue has become such a spaghetti to me that I can’t tell anymore where I’ve “accepted” to store some information about me. The only thing that keeps my mind quiet is that I always take for granted that everything I publish on any place on the internet is something I won’t be ashamed of.

What about you? How do you manage your online  identity?

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Can You Track Where Your Info Is Shared on The Internet?

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Why is Console-Connect useful?

Primarily, the box allows multiple user connections and it’s ideal for those that own a Apple TV, Wii, Xbox, PS3 or other devices that are not VPN-ready.

Thus, by purchasing a single Lamnia VPN account you and your family can connect from all devices in the house. Great feature!

As you probably know, game console can easily connect to online video streaming sites like BBC iPlayer. If you are leaving outside UK, the Console-Connect is an excellent tool to unlock UK restricted sites.

The box comes pre-configured ready to plug and play. The upgrade or re-install process (if something goes wrong) is very simple. Send an email to the support team, they provide you the new settings, save save them to the USB Key (provided) and plug into the box. Console-connect will automatically install new settings and reboot ready to go.

Plans and pricing

The box is quite expensive (at least for most of us):

• Console Connect Unit Only – £139
• Console +12 Months Shared VPN – £199
• Console +12 Months Dedicated VPN – £249

Conclusion

Console-Connect looks promising and it may be the ideal solution for those in need for multiple connections from the same location (most of the VPN providers do not allow multiple connections) and also for those interested in unlocking UK restricted channels on game consoles. Enjoy!

[Console-Connect]

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VPN Console-Connect from Lamnia

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But if we look at how things are moving nowadays, there’s a high chance that the internet (or at least what most people know about the internet) will be limited to some major giants only in the near future. Considering for example how Facebook bought the 50 million user-base Instagr.am for $1 billion; and how Skype, with its hundreds of million userbase (sorry, I couldn’t find the latest exact number, but in 2010, Skype announced 560 million users), has been acquired by Microsoft for $8.5 billion – there’s a lot to worry about.

But Google isn’t to be forgotten too: it has recently merged all the policies for all Google products, and given the supremacy of Android in terms of smartphone shipment (in terms of number), the lambda user has almost no way to live “outside” of those “closed wall” internet that those giants are setting up.

Ok, Google is promoting openness, and I’m sure the others will find a way to “markt” theirs offerings so as not to be perceived as “jailing” you in their own “internet ecosystem”. But truth to be told, we, as users, are all “prisoners” of all those systems. In terms of PR, it seems like services are becoming more uniform and consistent, but at the end of the day, we are all shaping our own “internet” around those major platforms. If you think about it, how many of us are “reading the news” from our social media connections instead of going to the original source of information? If you think about it, we clearly have chosen to center our internet around those platforms.

Some curation tools as well as “discovery” tools exist everywhere if we only consider the raise of Pinterest (it won’t surprise me if one of the giants will buy Pinterest in the two years to come), or tools like Last.fm in the music industry – but again, have you noticed how those tools want to leverage on existing platforms for managing the account? How many websites have you seen lately that ask you to connect your facebook/google account to their authentication system? A lot, I bet.

Now let’s add to that the fact that more and more internet services are now only available to some countries. Ok, VPN services are there to help overcoming those limitations, but still, this just confirms the fact that this “closed wall internet” system is becoming more and more spread.

Finally, Sergey Brin’s point isn’t that paranoid at all (even though his company is also playing the game of “who attracts the more users” game). So this leaves me wondering about how we scour the internet nowadays. I’d b eager to read from how-to-hide-ip users about how you discover new and interesting stuff on the internet nowadays. Do you do it the way most people do now (which is: clicking on a shared link from a social media platform, or finding it via search engines). Feel free to share.

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Are We Moving Toward a Closed-wall Internet?

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First of all,

• this would give a great indicator for knowing how serious are internet users with regard to the safety of  the data they are transferring over the internet.
• But this will also is a great indicator for knowing  which countries are most sensitive to using VPN services. Having these figures would give us an indication of the usage people do on the internet
• finally, it will give an idea on how accessible VPN services can be

Well, those are only few reasons, but depending on your standpoint, there may be other reasons for finding out those figures. If you are a VPN provider, this will give you a good grasp of the market. If you are a simple internet user, this will give you an idea of the number of people who have opted for a VPN service for securing some of their internet transaction- this will surely leave you wondering why they have to do so.

So what do we know so far?

What we’ve noticed is that there’s a lot of offerings in the VPN area. While VPN has mainly be a professional service geared toward big companies with different branches, more specific uses have raised for the SOHO office as well as the simple internet user. Here, on how-to-hide-ip, we tend to focus on the latter category since our users want to chose themselves their VPN solution for their own needs, not for the whole company’s IT system (this is a very different industry).

As I went on the internet searching for figures (I must also admit that I didn’t spend hours searching for it), the most precise figure I could find out was the 700 000 VPN users that Sweden has. This figure was mentioned by a study made by a group called Cybernorms, from Lund University. According to that study, that’s 40% more compared to the 500 000 users they have identified two years ago. That same study mentions that 200 000 of these users are aged between 15 to 25 years old. That’s a pretty awesome figure, and very precise: Sweden being the home to thepiratebay file-sharing platform, one can understand why there’s such a high number of young people using VPN services to anonymize their connections.

Crowdsourcing the figures

When I tried to look for similar figures for other countries, my quick-search didn’t really reveal a lot of things. Then, I just said to myself, we’re in the internet age, instead of trying to figure out where to find those figures by myself, why not ask the readers- they may have some figures too already available; or they may have already found some useful resources that deal with that topic. So, I’m reaching out to how-to-hide-ip readers and ask you to refer us to any online ressource (or actual figures- please mention the source) that can give us an idea of the number of VPN users in this world (or in a particular country, city). So, off to you readers. Let’s share numbers so that we can make this unscientific study a reference in the VPN world

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Do You Know How Many VPN Users Are In The World?

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