Secure your surfing with a Virtual Private Network (VPN)

One way journalists and activists get tracked online is through their computer’s IP address. This is a very real threat – the Bahrain government for example has spied on the IPs of anonymous Twitter users to find out where they lived and imprisoned them for their comments. One highly effective method of making it impossible to trace you is by using Tor, which we’ve talked about in a previous post. Another way of staying anonymous online is through the use of a VPN (or Virtual Private Network). In this post, journalist Kyle James trials a VPN and discovers for himself the upsides and downsides of using one to protecting his privacy.

Here in Cambodia, where I’m based, the wifi at home is usually OK – the key word here being “usually.”
Sometimes my network decides to disappear for a few hours and if I need online access, I have to hightail it over to the café a block away that has a more dependable connection. And when travelling for work, I’m often using a public wifi connection. But all this network hopping puts me at risk as my data is opened up to prying eyes. I started to think it was high time I began using a virtual private network, or VPN, to keep my data away from people who aren’t meant to see it.
In fact, security folk say that VPNs are a real must for people who travel or work on a network they don’t own, manage or absolutely trust, be it at a school, library, café, airport, wherever.
A little background: a VPN, as the name implies, is a private network made up of a group of computers or different networks spread across the public internet. A VPN creates a “tunnel” though which your data goes over the wider internet, shielding it from others. In addition, the data passing through that tunnel is encrypted, adding another layer of protection against hackers.
You can check out this short video by CyberGhost, a VPN service provider, which gives an overview of virtual private networks. Or for a more detailed look at how VPNs work, this 30-minute video lays things out clearly.
VPNs are used by businesses, for example, to connect to distant data centers or to telecommuting employees. They can access in-house business networks and competitors have a hard time engaging in industrial espionage. Gamers can simulate a local area network over the public internet.
For journalists, the most important thing to know is that a VPN encrypts all the data that you’re sending and receiving, keeping it secure. Anyone who does intercept it – and this is easier than you might think – can’t read it.
Sounds good, right? And there are lots of VPN providers out there that offer solid services, with different levels of security, depending on your needs. There’s more good news: a good number of them are free. Security in a Box has a list of some that are free of charge and the site Make Use Of also lists their top five choices.
The bad news with the free versions is that some feature ads, you can run up against monthly data limits or speed can become an issue. For heavier users and those with a little cash in hand, it might be worth it to opt for a pay service. Subscription prices can be under $4 a month to more than $40. The people at Lifehacker picked their own top five favorites that have paid plans.
Getting virtually private
In my effort to get smarter and make my own surfing more secure, I decided to give Hotspot Shield a spin. It had pretty good reviews, is used by over a million people, and is easy on the wallet. Also, it’s available on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android platforms. The downside to the free version is you’ll be hit with ads. Well, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, they say. Hotspot Shield claims it deletes the IP addresses of those using it, rather than storing or sending them to advertisers. We hope they’re telling the truth.
Installation was a snap. No real technical knowledge required. After a couple of clicks and entering my administrator password, I was up and running. The Hotspot Shield control panel popped up to tell me my surfing was protected. I felt better already.

And indeed, the system had masked my IP address. A quick check with geoiptool.com and my location was shown as being somewhere in Kansas, halfway around the world from my desk in Phnom Penh.

The pluses here were definitely ease of installation and use. In no time you’re browsing will be private, your data encrypted. Hotspot Shield appears to do what it says it does and is an attractive option for those who want a user-friendly interface. But, the free version has some limitations and drawbacks – ones that I suspect are common with free versions. Users might want to check out a few to see which one is the best fit for them.
The downsides
In my case, the most serious drawback to this free version was speed. My connection slowed considerably when Hotspot Shield was turned on. I ran speedtest.net several times at different times of the day, and found my connection speed had been reduced by half, sometimes more. (And since my connection is not that fast in the first place, this was frustrating.) Gmail, for example, took what seemed like an eternity to load and occasionally I would get messages about connectivity problems and have to re-load sites.
Now, this could be due to the VPN connection on the free version set to the US, far, far away from my location. If I had the pay version, I could have chosen Australia at my exit point, which might have sped things up.
For those who are ad-phobic, Hotspot Shield can be a problem. Occasionally banner ads will pop up at the top of other pages. They can be closed with a click, but it gets kind of annoying.
Hotspot Shield does offer a premium, or paid version, coming in at $29.95 a year. That’s pretty cheap for VPN services. After registering, I was given a one-day free trial of the Elite service and the difference was remarkable. My speed problem evaporated, the ads disappeared, and I could set my location to the UK, Australia, Japan or stay in the US.
Again, it would be worth your while to give a couple of these free services a try-out and see which ones are faster and which offer features you wants or have annoyances you can live with, or not. It also depends on your security needs and technical know-how.
Use one, really 

Basically, using a VPN is highly recommended, especially for journalists working in repressive environments or on sensitive stories. And for those logging into networks at a café or other public place with a wifi connection, using a VPN is really essential. If you don’t, the chances of your data and surfing activity being observed are higher than you might think.
Choosing the right VPN for you will take a little research and you might have to try out a few until you find one that you really like. Still, the investment of time and effort is well worth it.