How to choose a hide IP tool (I) – Free or paid?

When so many hide IP tools are available on the market, it is difficult to choose the one that suits your needs. This guide will present several alternatives and make your choice easier.

The series I start with this post will answer questions that I received on my email from you, the readers of this blog. Thank you for being part of this community that helps people overcome the censorship and blockage on the Internet.

This first post answers the most common question asked: “Should I choose a free solution or a paid one?”

Free or paid hide IP tool?

The answer to this question seems obvious: FREE is always a better choice. But, you should know this is not always true. Let’s see first, what free hide IP tools do best and also what are their disadvantages.

Free tools to hide your IP

I would divide the tools you can use to freely hide your IP address into (1) web proxies and (2) hide IP software (desktop applications).

(1) Web proxies are website that allows you connect to the internet without logging your IP address. It acts as intermediate between you and the site you want to visit. The sites you are connecting to will not see any requests or log entries from your IP address, but from the proxy server instead. Thus, you are able to surf in secrecy and change your IP address.

Advantages of using web proxies

• You don’t have to install anything
• Easy to use: just type in the desired URL and press Go/Submit
• There are plenty of proxies to choose from (e.g. Hide-IP-Proxy.info)
• You can use secure proxies (https) to increase your privacy
• Best way to unblock sites (MySpace, Facebook, YouTube) from school, work or internet cafes

Disadvantages of using web proxies

• The IP addresses of web proxies are most of the time well-known and often blacklisted
• Streaming applications (like online radio or TV stations) are not supported. So you are not really able to watch YouTube videos
• Your personal information can be intercepted by the proxy owner (except for the https proxies)
• You are not able to choose the country or the location of the IP to be used
• Many proxies are full of ads, some of them being quite annoying (pop-ups, pop-unders, banners, etc)

(2) There are several free hide IP tool that have great success and that are used by a lot of people that try to overcome the censorship in their country (China, Iran, etc). Here are the most well known:

UltraSurf - The UltraSurf is a proxy server that beats the rest of the proxy servers on the net by offering features that others do not including login, flash files, java script, orkut, youtube, and file downloads, file uploads.

GPass – The main idea of GPass is to wrap the traffic of your Internet applications in various formats and tunnels and then sent packets through various dynamic channels to its servers.

HotSpot Shield - This small software creates a VPN – virtual private network between your computer and an Internet gateway.  

FreeGate (not FREE anymore) - FreeGate is an anti-censorship software for secure and faster Internet access. FreeGate works together with DynaWeb, a P2P-like proxy network system.

Advantages of free hide IP tools

• They are FREE, so you don’t have to pay anything (no hidden costs)
• They hide your IP address most of the time
• Simple and easy to use interface, suitable for beginners.
• The connection speed is acceptable 

Disadvantages of free hide IP tools

• The IP addresses provided by these tools are from US only (you can not change the country or the proxy location)
• You rarely get support. Most of the time you have to search for answers to your questions on forums, blogs, etc.
• Most of them automatically configure only Internet Explorer. For Firefox and other browsers you have to install add-ons or manually configure them. 
• The IP addresses provided are well known and get blocked by sites (e.g. the IPs provided by Hotspot Shield is blocked by Hulu.com).

Paid tools to hide your IP

Providers of paid solutions have to sell their products so it is expected that they are more concerned about performance, speed, etc. This is not always true, but there are several hide ip tools that are better than the free alternatives. Let’s consider first the (1)private proxies  and then talk about (2) several paid hide IP applications.

(1) Private proxies are proxies that have the access restricted only to paying subscribers.

Advantages of private proxies

• They hide your IP address 
• The speed is good
• The IPs provided are usually clean (not banned by sites or forums)
• You get support and assistance from the service provider

Disadvantages of free hide IP tools

• You get a limitted number of IPs (most of them from US)
• They are usually more expensive than other hide IP tools
• You have to manually configure your browsers. 

Here are 2 sites that offer such services: Sense-IT and NNTime.com.

(2) There are probably tens of paid hide IP tools but most of them come, stay a little while and then go/die. In the next posts I will show what you have to look for when you decide to purchase such a tool. Here are several tools that I tried and I recommend:

IP Hider – IP Hider is one of the most popular hide IP tools on the market as it provides a very good quality/price ratio. This was confirmed by my readers who voted IP Hider and UltraSurf as “The best hide IP software of 2008”.

Anonymizer Surfing is a good software for hiding your IP address. Even though it does not offer as many options of choosing the location of your fake IP, it’s a useful software that hides your IP.

GoTrusted – GoTrusted Secure Tunnel ensures anonymous browsing a high-speed secure tunnel that encrypts all your traffic (E-mail, Web, IM, VoIP, FTP, P2P) at any WiFi hotspot or wired network with SSL.

Invisible Browsing – Invisible Browsing is one of the most complete hide ip software available on the market. One of the nicest feature is the posibility of using the product in 2 modes: Automatic (for average user) and Manual (for advanced users).

Advantages of paid hide IP tools

• They hide your IP address 
• The speed is superior
• You get support and assistance from the service provider
• The IPs provided are usually clean (not banned by sites or forums) and they are refreshed all the time

Disadvantages of paid hide IP tools

• They are not FREE  

Conclusion

The conclusion is very clear: you should try first the free solutions. If they suit your needs you are lucky and you got your problem solved. If not, you should consider buying a product or subscribing to a paid service. In the next posts I will provide tips that will help make an informed choice.

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