Hopster is a HTTP tunnel that hides your IP address while chatting or browsing the web.  It’s all about open, safe and uncensored internet access. At home, schools, universities and offices worldwide, even in countries where Freedom of Speech is a political challenge. Hide your real IP address and protect yourself from nosy people and wannabe-hackers.

How it works

First you have to download Hobster. Then, the installation is straightforward. No configuration hassles, no techie-talk or geek-speak. Hopster configures itself, it even knows how to configure MSN Messenger, Trillian, Yahoo and many others.

Once installed, you are prompted to choose the applications you want to anonymize. Then you are free to go.

Hopster works with the following applications:

• AOL Instant Messenger
• Cloudmark SpamNet
• ICQ
• iMesh
• Internet Explorer 5
• KaZaA Media Desktop
• Miranda
• mIRC
• MSN Messenger
• Windows Messenger
• Trillian
• Yahoo Messenger
• any other application that supports the SOCKS protocol

Available Subscriptions

Hobster is subscription based. There are four subscription types (BASIC, PLUS, PRO, XTREME) that you can choose depending on the speed you need.

Important to know:

• Actual speed depends on your Internet connection, Proxy Server, etc
• BASIC service available for min. six months, billed in advance. 

What’s the difference between the demo and the paid version?

There are two differences between the demo and the paid version. The DEMO version

• displays ads
• limits the download speed to approx. 4 kb/second
  (which works pretty well for Instant Messaging)

Here is a list of pros and cons I have identified while testing Hopster.

Pros

• Easy to install
• Auto configuration
• It can be used by any applications that supports SOCKS (chat clients and other applications)
• It hides your IP address 

Cons

• It does not work on Vista (at least at did not work for me; I tried on 2 computers running Vista, one Vista Ultimate and the other one Vista Home)
• It only configures Internet Explorer
• Only English user interface is available

To sum up, Hobster is a nice and useful tool to hide your IP address. It is especially useful for those that need to hide their identity while chatting. As a personal note, I must say I liked the texts on the product site.

Have you used Hopster? Share you experience with us and our readers. Thank you!

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