Using a VPN Service

VPN Servers are available now at as very reasonable rate these days with some plans coming in at sixty dollars or so a year. That’s really cheap as chips when you realize what is at stake. With all the revelations in the past few years of what internet privacy is like these days it’s easy to see why some might just get into a plan.
First of all, it offers a lot of benefits if you’re using streaming services like Netflix or want to use services not available in your area. A VPN is a stepping stone of the internet, as it were. You connect to the server with your traffic using various level’s of encryption to an end point. From this endpoint you emerge to view websites, regardless of the your origin. Using a VPN service is great for people traveling to China and staying at hotels that limit the access you have to the open internet.

There are plenty of service providers to use. You have to chose one based on your needs. HideMyAss is a great option and if you are using a VPN service for encryption or just to get past geoblocking of content. 12 VPN is great for those in China as they support their users in punching through the ‘great’ firewall. The other great thing about VPN is that your traffic will no longer be in plain site when on HTTP sites. By using one your traffic becomes indecipherable.

I like using a VPN service from my router. It just make it so that all devices can watch the same content behind the firewall. Whether I am on a laptop or desktop or phone. It is easy to configure using tomato and HMA actually has a guide for L2TP or for OpenVPN which are really easy to follow. If one of the servers isn’t working try another end point as sometimes they go down without any indication from support.

Alternatively you could run the application provided by your service provider will encrypt the traffic on that one specific machine. It’s almost instantaneous to set these things up as well. You could sign up and be encrypted within 10 minutes.

It really is that simple. The other option is to build yourself a little Linux based WiFi VPN hotspot so you have an always on encrypted network available for your wireless connected devices.