How to hide your ip » Polls

70% of Users Are Using a VPN or a Proxy Service (or are Planning to Do So)

Heryzo — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 07:28:47 +0000

15% of US adults file-sharers are hiding their IP addresses, thereby increasing the demand for VPN and proxy solutions. This is the result of a phone interview that “The American Assembly” recently published.

On the other hand, the once called “The Pirate Bay” polled its users about their use of a hide-ip service, and it showed up that 70% of the users are using a VPN or a proxy service(or are planning to do so). The interesting thing is that out of this 70%, 51% are still in the planning phase to use a VPN or proxy service while 4.8% are already using a paid service. From that same study that the Pirate Bay has done, 12% have reported that they aren’t even aware of those concepts of hiding IP, VPN or proxies.

How-to-hide-ip readers, please do us a favor, help those people a bit, redirect them to the multitude of articles that we’ve already written here, and if they are looking for a solution, you’ve got a lot of options that we have already covered here.

Why those figures?

Well, it may be too obvious, but peer-to-peer file-sharing has always been considered as piracy. The concept of legal peer-to-peer is yet in its infancy age. On the other hand, there’s a lot of pressure and legal threats on those kind of services nowadays that leads to users being more conscious about anonymizing themselves when surfing, and especially when launching any peer-to-peer services.

If we consider the US especially, with that SOPA bill, and other threats over internet users, people want to free themselves from the threat of being sued. As the discussion has moved to the legal matters, it all boils down to definitions: and without getting into the details, there will always be a risk that some legitimate use of the internet would be assimilated to piracy.

A growing market for VPN and proxy demand

I can see you thinking that this is great news for VPN and proxy vendors. Well, this ain’t false. The more the threat of being sued will be, the greater the demand for such services. The good thing, though, is that, here, at how-to-hide-ip.info, we’ve reviewed both paid and free solutions thereby leaving to you the decision to opt for one solution or another. Yes, the demand for anonymizing end-user’s internet connection will always grow – especially with all those legal threat to “control” the internet. There will always people who will be rebel enough, or who just don’t want to get into troubles.

As a closing note, let’s be clear once and for all, here, at how-to-hide-ip.info, we aren’t here to promote piracy, we’re here to talk about solutions that already exist for anonymizing your internet connection. As we started with figures, let’s end this article with another promising stat: the report published by “the American Assembly” from Columbia University mentioned that “of the 30% of Americans who have “pirated” digital music files, 46% indicated they now do so less because of the emergence of low-cost legal streaming services. Among TV/movies pirates: 40%”.

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70% of Users Are Using a VPN or a Proxy Service (or are Planning to Do So)

End of Year Review: What Else Do You Want Us to Cover?

Heryzo — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 06:08:19 +0000

December is usually a month for setting back and checking what we’ve done along the year. Here at how-to-hide-ip.info, we’ve shown you how to use VPN services for different purposes. Among other topics, we showed you how to unblock some geolocation-limited services that you may find interesting, we’ve covered services like watching hulu.com, listening to music via Spotify.com, watching replay of BBC broadcast via their iPlayer services, and so on and so forth.

We also talked about proxy solutions: while some articles dealt with free proxy services that may be worth trying, others opened your eyes to the risks of using proxy services from your smartphones. We especially dealt with that trick with Opera Mini on smartphone that allow you to get almost free internet via a special facebook package that GSM providers usually offer to their customers almost everywhere in the world.

Recently, as the news in the industry spread, we also tried to cover them from a privacy perspective. We, then, dealt with the biggest acquisition that Microsoft made over Skype and how it benefits to Facebook; we also covered the recent keylogging issue that smartphones had with this CarrierIQ news. Although those are not necessarily geared toward a technical point of view, we thought that those are news worth mentioning as they relate in one way or another to what we are trying to cover here on how-to-hide-ip.info.

On a more technical side, we began an update of reviews of the VPN services that are the most popular now. Simply put, how-to-hide-ip.info bought a VPN package, then tested them and reported back the reviews on these columns. Thank you for those who suggested to us VPN packages that we needed to review. Along this way, we brought to you our review of free VPN solutions that are available on the internet so far. We aren’t done yet with the round of reviews and we are still testing some of the VPN packages that have been submitted to us, so stay tuned for the results.

My colleagues here at how-to-hide-ip.info rolled up their sleeves and went into explaining the different techniques behind VPN: they talked about VPN protocols (PPTP,L2TP, openVPN and others). You can also find a lot of articles dealing with browser addons that will help you protect your privacy online. Finally, you can find multiple how-to for configuring your mobile devices as well as your computer with the latest techniques/tools.

In fact, we chose those topics either based on our own expertise, or as the news arise. We also wrote about topics that were worth mentioning as technology evolves. While this approach gives us a large choice of topics to cover for articles that will be written on how-to-hide-ip.info, we’d like to take this end-of-year opportunity to ask our readers one simple question: “what else do you want us to cover on this blog?” .

So, again, we’d like to hear you, tell us what do you want to read on this blog – not only will this give us more insights on what you expect from us, but it’s also a way for us to say thank you for being with us for so long. So, go ahead, tell us what you expect from us in the comment section.

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End of Year Review: What Else Do You Want Us to Cover?

Which VPN Service Do You Want Us To Review?

Heryzo — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 06:37:09 +0000

How-to-hide-ip.info has been referring to a lot of VPN services providers along the years where this blog has been running. Thanks to the community of readers, we could help each other for choosing the right provider according to our specific needs. From time to time, we do a roundup of the current VPN service providers, we buy their package and test them so as to give a hands-on honest review of what they are doing.

The purpose of these reviews are simple:

- check if some VPN providers we have recommended before are still worth recommending: you’ve seen it with a lot of service providers: there are high and lows. As a blog who want to establish itself as a trustworthy recommendation source, we want to review from time to time the services we are recommending thereby ensuring our readers that we fully do our homework before putting our “recommended” stamp on one solution;

- identify other VPN solutions that may have emerged since the last recommendations we made: VPN field is an ever-changing place to be- more and more players are getting into the ring, and with the advent of cloud computing, the need for a reliable VPN solution increases. This also means that this VPN market is becoming more and more interesting for other service providers. We want to be on top of what’s going on and give our readers our view/review on those new players’ offerings;

- find out if some new technologies/offers have emerged that are worth mentioning/trying. Our readers have purchased some VPN solutions, and at some point of time, they have to decide if they should ” blindly” renew their contract, or consider other new solutions that may fit better to their ever-changing needs.

In fact, how-to-hide-ip.info is going to purchase some of those packages (so that our readers don’t have to), install them and test them. And we need your help – the help of our readers.

How can you help?

Instead of deciding by ourselves which products to test, we want to hear you; this is the opportunity for you to influence on the services you think that are worth considering to test. If you’ve browsed through the archives of this blog, you have a rough idea of the VPN services that are usually recommended here. Moreover, if you are subscribed to our newsletter, then we have sent you a list of VPN providers that we are recommending. This is the time where you can influence the choice.

Whether you think that there are other services that are worth recommending, or you think that there’s a nice offer you’d like to test but you don’t feel confident enough to make a full review, don’t hesitate to flag it to us in the comment system. We will do the testing for you and we will publish our results on this blog. Isn’t it nice? Think about those offer you always wanted to test but didn’t do because of lot of reasons. Indicate them to us, and eventually tell us in the comment system what feature do you especially want to see reviewed. We will do our best to get some of them properly reviewed and tested.

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Which VPN Service Do You Want Us To Review?

Poll: What VPN services are accessible in China?

HideIP Admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:00:13 +0000

Yesterday, I posted an article on Chinese users trying to access free VPNs and I realized that I didn’t know much about the situation the Chinese users are facing regarding the VPN access. So, the following poll addresses mostly to the Chinese readers of How-to-hide-ip.info and to those that travelled to China lately.

What are the VPNs (free or paid) that can be used in China to bypass the Great Firewall?

The below list contains VPN services that I mentioned on this blog during the last months. There may be other services that could be used to overcome censorship in China. If you know any, let me know and I’ll add them to the poll.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

The results of this poll should be interesting and useful to all Chinese Internet users seeking online freedom.

Enjoy!

PS. By the way, this is the 500th post on How-to-hide-ip.info! Hurray!

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Poll: What VPN services are accessible in China?

The Best Hide IP Software Of 2009 (Poll Results)

HideIP Admin — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 12:00:51 +0000

Here, at How-to-hide-ip.info, we continually evaluate and propose tools to achieve online anonymity and overcome censorship. The feedback from you, the readers of this blog, is an important part of the process. That is why I wanted to find out what you think was the best hide IP tool of 2009.

In a poll started at the end of 2009, I have listed 20 well know products available on the market, both free and paid. The tools selected were the most popular (user- reviewed) applications listed on Hide-IP-Tools.com at the time when the poll has started.

The tools that have competed for the title of “The Best Hide IP Software Of 2009″ were: Anonymity Gateway, Anonymizer Surfing, BananaVPN, Blacklogic, Easy Hide IP, Freedur, GPass, Hide My IP 2009, Hide The IP, Hide IP NG, Hotspot Shield, Identity Cloacker, Invisible Browsing, IP Hider, IP Privacy, NotMyIP, StrongVPN, Ultrasurf, xB Browser and SymVPN.

Poll Results

581 readers have responded to the poll. The results are as expected: this first 2 are well-known free solutions (Ultrasurf and Hotspot Shield). Another 3 tools, this time paid, stand out from the crowd: IP Hider (last year winner), Hide-My-IP 2009 and HideIpVPN (that also offers free accounts).

And the winner is …

The title of ” The Best Hide IP Software Of 2009“, according to How-to-hide-ip.info readers, goes to … Ultrasurf with 13% of the votes (73 votes from a total of 581). Congratulation, Ultrasurf!

Below you can see the complete poll results:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

What do you think of the results? Are Ultrasurf and Hotspot Shield your favorite tools? What paid tool do you prefer?

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The Best Hide IP Software Of 2009 (Poll Results)

Poll: What is the best hide IP tool of 2009?

HideIP Admin — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:16:33 +0000

The end of the year is approacing quickly bringing reflections on the year past and plans for the year to come. Here, at How-to-hide-ip.info, it’s time to evaluate the hide IP solutions that have protected our privacy during last year. I have selected and listed 20 of the most popular (user- reviewed) applications listed on Hide-IP-Tools.com (take a look below), and set up a poll. Now, it’s time for you to decide!

The last year’s winner, IP Hider, is again in strong position, being one of the favorites. There are also several newcomers like HideIpVPN and Freedur.

The tools are listed in alphabetical order. If you think there are other solutions that should be on this list post a comment and I will add them.

And now … start voting!

Update 11/22/2009: SymVPN has been added to the poll!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Poll: What is the best hide IP tool of 2009?

Poll Results: When changing your IP address, what is your desired location/country?

HideIP Admin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:12:55 +0000

For about three months I have asked the readers of this blog about their desired location when changing the IP address. In other words, what is the fake identity that is the most needed when browsing the web.

The voters (1487) made it clear: 42% need US IP addresses and 21% need UK IPs. Other locations that are searched by those that hide their IPs are Germany(7%), France(7%), Japan(6%), Netherlands(6%), China (6%) and Canada(6%). About 8% of the votes mentioned other location, beside the ones listed. It would be interesting to find out what are these other locations. So, if you voted this please provide more details about the desired location.

It results that more that 60% of the users need US or UK IP addresses when browsing anonymously. Are the poll results expected? Yes, they are, because:

Many sites are blocked for users from outside US, like Hulu, NBC, ABC, etc. By getting a US IP address you can bypass the filters. The same applies for UK.
When trying to get unbanned on a forum the most natural way to do it to use a US/UK IP address.
For US/UK users the most trusted servers/proxies are the one located in their countries.
The servers located in US and UK are, most of the time, faster.

What do you think about the results? Why do you need US/UK ip addresses?

This poll should be useful for those that provide hide IP solutions to know what the users seeking online anonymity need. You can se below the complete results.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

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Poll Results: When changing your IP address, what is your desired location/country?

Poll: When changing your IP address, what is your desired location/country?

HideIP Admin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:44:02 +0000

Another poll is up starting from today. After aking about how often you are hiding your IP address, now it’s time to see what is the preffered location of the fake IP address you get. Is it US to unblock Hulu.com, NBC.com or Fox.com? Is it UK to be able to access BBC iPlayer? Or maybe other locations to unban local forums?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

If you have any comments or suggestions of locations to be added, don’t be shy and post a comment on this post or use the contact page.

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Poll: When changing your IP address, what is your desired location/country?

Poll Results: How often do you hide your IP address?

HideIP Admin — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 11:32:33 +0000

This blog is about hiding/changing your IP address for whatever reasons you may have: improved security, unblock sites, get unbanned from forums, etc. With the poll that just ended I was curious to find out how often you need to change your IP. Let’s take a look to the results.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

About 120 readers have responded to my call but the results are a little bit surprising. An important share (23%) say that they never hide their IP address(!). Then I wonder what are they doing on my blog… To be honest I’m a little bit puzzled. Further, 35% rarely need to change their IPs. Only 18% do this all the time.

What do you think? Are the results relevant? Do you (my readers) hide your IP addresses or not?

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Poll Results: How often do you hide your IP address?

Poll: How often do you hide your IP address?

HideIP Admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 08:05:53 +0000

The goal of this blog is to help you, my readers, hide your IP addresses and overcome the censorship and blockage on the Internet. So, it would be interesting to find out how often you hide your IP address. Do you need to hide your IP everytime you access the internet or you hide your IP only when you need to?

This is the topic of the poll that will run during April and May:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Thank you for your answer!

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Poll: How often do you hide your IP address?

How to hide your ip » Polls

70% of Users Are Using a VPN or a Proxy Service (or are Planning to Do So)

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End of Year Review: What Else Do You Want Us to Cover?

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Which VPN Service Do You Want Us To Review?

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Poll: What VPN services are accessible in China?

What are the VPNs (free or paid) that can be used in China to bypass the Great Firewall?

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The Best Hide IP Software Of 2009 (Poll Results)

Poll Results

What do you think of the results? Are Ultrasurf and Hotspot Shield your favorite tools? What paid tool do you prefer?

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Poll: What is the best hide IP tool of 2009?

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Poll Results: When changing your IP address, what is your desired location/country?

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Poll: When changing your IP address, what is your desired location/country?

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Poll Results: How often do you hide your IP address?

What do you think? Are the results relevant? Do you (my readers) hide your IP addresses or not?

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Poll: How often do you hide your IP address?

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