The default client is offered at the TOR Project site for Windows, Mac OS X and Unix variants. The standard client should work fine for most usage scenarios.

Advanced TOR, as the name suggests, improves the capabilities of the TOR client. The free portable software for Windows offers an easier to configure interface.

Users who are in a hurry can connect to the TOR network right away. The program establishes a local proxy port automatically, and offers to restrict connections from certain IP addresses or IP ranges.

On top of that, and this is a feature that TOR is not offering right now, is the ability to force TOR on specific processes in Windows.

advanced tor

Some applications are capable of bypassing proxy restrictions, which would mean that the real IP of the user would be revealed. Forcing those applications to use TOR will prevent this from happening.

The feature is currently labeled beta, and works the following: The application is intercepted by Advanced TOR, and Winsock calls are redirected to a dll of the program.

advanced tor force tor

Advanced users will notice that the software client is highly configurable. It is possible to switch identities with a click, force exit nodes, configure node families, define specific connection details like bandwith rates and the maximum number of connections.

There is a lot to explorer and no setting is further away than two clicks.

Windows users who make use of Tor extensively may want to try out Advanced Tor, especially because of the Force TOR option but also because it’s a little bit more accessible.

Advanced Tor is available for download at the Sourceforge project website.

Only a handful of additional information are known about the service at this time. It is expected to cost about $5 per month which is a more than acceptable price considering the bandwidth requirements to run such a networking service. They state that they do not log traffic data of any kind which would make it impossible to identify the connections made by a user of the service in case of a server seizure.

It is very likely that the new service will come under heavy traffic the minute it becomes public. Similar services such as Relakks were not able to cope with the massive signups after they have gone public.

Interested users can enter their email address to be informed when the anonymous virtual private networking service goes public.

“Unfortunately this video is currently not available in your country or region. We apologize for the inconvenience”. That means that if you live in the United States but are currently abroad you can’t watch the videos at Hulu. Unless, you have found a way to use a service that hides your IP and displays one from the United States.

The following method is unfortunately not free but works perfectly to watch all videos at Hulu. Secure-Tunnel offers a software that tunnels your connection through their service which is located in the United States. This means that you can use their software to watch videos at Hulu plus use any other service that is geotargeted to the United States. This includes Pandora for instance.

Secure-Tunnel offers several packages and all work beginning with the Gold package which costs roughly $8 per month. What I really like about this solution is that the software that you install is recognizing software that is connecting to the Internet and is asking you if you want to tunnel that software.

Besides the obvious effect that you can watch Hulu videos and listen to Pandora Radio streams you also hide your own IP and use an encrypted connection. This increases the security level of your connection as well as your own privacy.

As you can see it is possible to access Hulu from outside the United States and watch all shows without interruption.

Sample Video:

Read More:

Secure Tunnel (aff)

The traffic is encrypted as well which makes it unlikely that someone is able to spy on it including your ISP. I have been writing about Relakks before and they had some serious troubles with their service at the beginning which turned off many users who tried the service initially.

This has changed to the better. I was able to connect and use the service whenever I wanted in the last weeks and had no troubles whatsoever with slow speeds or unreachable hosts. The connection is stable and fast enough for everyones needs. I was able to surf, use emule to try the p2p capabilities, listen to Internet radio and download from the Usenet at the same time without problems.

The maximum speeds are a little bit lower than what I used to get without Relakks. Everyone has to make the decision for himself if the extra bit of security and privacy is worth the slower speed. Slow meant for instance that my Usenet downloads were capped at about 8-10 Mbit instead of the usual 16 Mbit.

Not a big problem for me though. It has to be noted that Relakks is not a free service. It is possible to either purchase a monthly account for 5 Euro or a yearly for 50 Euro. I’m currently trying the monthly account and will switch to the yearly one once it expires.