Everything you need to know about VPN services
In today's interconnected world, where online privacy is increasingly at risk, the adoption of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) has become paramount. Beyond shielding your digital activities from prying eyes, VPNs offer a plethora of benefits tailored to different user profiles.
Whether you prioritize strict privacy measures or seek to enhance your online experiences, incorporating a VPN into your digital toolkit is essential. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the compelling reasons why utilizing a VPN is a wise choice.
What is a VPN?
At its core, a VPN, or virtual private network, is a software application that establishes a secure and encrypted connection between your computer and the internet. By rerouting your internet traffic through a remote server, the VPN shields your online activities and safeguards your privacy.
This invaluable feature not only enables you to bypass firewalls but also grants access to geographically restricted content, opening up a world of possibilities.
How does a VPN work?
With the VPN in action, your internet traffic remains concealed from prying eyes. Whether it's your internet service provider, your employer, network administrators, or even government agencies, the VPN ensures that your online endeavors remain private.
Through a clever technique, the VPN masks your true IP address by replacing it with the IP address of the VPN server you're connected to. Consequently, any website you visit perceives your location as that of the VPN server. This ingenious method facilitates unblocking content restricted by geographical boundaries, expanding your online freedom.
How much does a VPN cost?
The cost of a VPN subscription varies depending on your preferred provider and the duration of the plan you choose. Generally, committing to a longer-term plan proves to be more economical in the long run. Various providers offer yearly plans, two-year plans, three-year plans, and even lifetime subscriptions.
Prices for monthly plans typically range from $10 to $15, while committing to a longer plan can lower the cost to around $2 to $10 per month.
What is the best VPN service?
This is of course your choice, but there are three VPN services that have been doing this for many years and are considered the most secure by many organizations:
- NordVPN
- ExpressVPN
- Surfshark
For a limited time, you can enjoy excellent security features with NordVPN's impressive 59% off deal and receive an extra three months. Alternatively, you have the option of selecting ExpressVPN's 12-month package, which includes three complimentary months to ensure uninterrupted VPN service. SurfsharkVPN provides an enticing pricing offer for its award-winning VPN service, with a remarkable 82% discount and an additional two months.
Why you should use a VPN?
Beyond shielding your digital activities from prying eyes, VPNs offer a plethora of benefits tailored to different user profiles. Whether you prioritize strict privacy measures or seek to enhance your online experiences, incorporating a VPN into your digital toolkit is essential.
Critical VPN users
For individuals with heightened privacy needs, particularly in countries with internet censorship, choosing a VPN that prioritizes security and privacy is crucial.
Evading internet censorship
In nations where access to online content is restricted, VPNs provide a powerful tool to overcome censorship. By rerouting your internet traffic through servers located in different countries, a VPN allows you to bypass government-imposed barriers and freely access the internet.
Bypassing firewalls
Firewalls implemented at workplaces, educational institutions, or within restrictive jurisdictions can limit your online activities.
With a VPN, you can overcome these barriers and regain access to blocked websites, services, and applications, empowering you to navigate the digital realm without constraints.
Overcoming communication barriers
In regions where communication tools are restricted or monitored, VPNs offer a lifeline. By encrypting your internet traffic and masking your IP address, a VPN enables you to securely utilize platforms such as Skype, Messenger, WhatsApp, Twitter, Viber, and Zoom, regardless of any imposed limitations.
Navigating political unrest
During periods of political or social upheaval, governments may restrict access to vital communication tools. In such circumstances, a VPN becomes an indispensable tool, allowing individuals to maintain unrestricted access to these platforms, ensuring vital connections and information exchange.
Casual VPN users
For those whose primary concerns do not revolve around government surveillance or ISP monitoring, VPNs offer a host of benefits that enhance everyday online activities.
Unlocking geo-restricted content
One of the primary advantages of a VPN for casual users is the ability to access geo-restricted streaming content. Whether it's unlocking the vast libraries of Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, HBO, or Disney Plus, a VPN allows you to enjoy a broader range of entertainment options, transcending regional limitations.
Secure access to financial services
When traveling or residing abroad, accessing your bank accounts or financial services can sometimes be a challenge. A VPN ensures secure and encrypted connections, enabling you to access your accounts with peace of mind, regardless of your geographical location.
Enhancing shopping opportunities
Online shopping has become an integral part of our lives, and finding the best deals and prices is always a priority. By using a VPN, you can access websites from different regions, allowing you to take advantage of region-specific discounts, compare prices, and find the best offers available.
Overcoming internet throttling
Internet service providers (ISPs) sometimes throttle internet speeds for various reasons, leading to frustratingly slow connections. By employing a VPN, you can mask your online activities, preventing your ISP from selectively reducing your internet speed and ensuring a consistent and unthrottled browsing experience.
Globalizing gaming experiences
For gamers, a VPN opens up a world of possibilities. By connecting to servers in different locations, gamers can access gaming networks worldwide, participate in international tournaments, and reduce latency, ultimately enhancing their gaming experiences.
Disclaimer: Some of the links added in the article are part of affiliate campaigns and may represent benefits for gHacks.
Missing from the “story”: Ukraine’s agreement to never use Starlink for military purposes. This is why.
Ghacks quality is AI driven and very poor these days since AI is really artificial stupidity.
“Elon Musk biographer Walter Isaacson forced to ‘clarify’ book’s account of Starlink incident in Ukraine War
“To clarify on the Starlink issue: the Ukrainians THOUGHT coverage was enabled all the way to Crimea, but it was not. They asked Musk to enable it for their drone sub attack on the Russian fleet. Musk did not enable it, because he thought, probably correctly, that would cause a major war.”
https://nypost.com/2023/09/11/elon-musk-biographer-walter-isaacson-corrects-detail-about-starlink-in-ukraine/
I posted above comment to:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/08/elon-musk-turned-off-starlink-during-ukranian-offence/
Not to the following article about Geforce where I currently also can see it published:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/29/how-to-fix-geforce-experience-error-code-0x0003/
Well, using Brave, I can see Llama 2 being decent, but it is still not great?
All these AI stuff seems more like a ‘toy’ than anything special, I mean, it is good for some stuff like translations or asking quick questions but not for asking anything important.
The problem is Brave made it mostly for summarizing websites and all that, but all these Big tech controlled stuff, won’t summarize articles it doesn’t agree with, so it is also useless in many situations where you just want it to give you a quick summarization, and then it starts throwing you little ‘speeches’ about how it doesn’t agree with it and then it never summarizes anything, but give you all the 30 paragraphs reasons why the article is wrong, like if I am asking it what it thinks.
SO all this AI is mostly a toy, but Facebook with all the power they have will be able to get so much data from people, it can ‘train’ or better say, write algorithms that will get better with time.
But It is not intelligence, it is really not intelligence all these AI technology.
Article Title: Tech leaders meet to discuss regulation of AI
Article URL: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/]
—
The eternal problematic of regulating, here applied to AI. Should regulations (interventionism) have interfered in the course of mankind ever since Adam and Eve where would we be now? Should spirituality, morality, ethics never have interfered where would we be now? I truly have always believed that the only possible consensus between ethics and freedom is that of individuals’ own consciousness.
Off-topic : Musk’s beard looks like a wound, AI-Human hand-shake is a quite nice pic :)
Haha, oh dear, Tom.
I thought that the comments system issue where comments shows up under a totally different article was fixed. But seeing your comment here, the “error” is clearly still active. Hopefully it is sorted as soon as possible.
Article Title: Tech leaders meet to discuss regulation of AI
Article URL: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/]
—
Hi Karl :) Well, let’s remain positive and see the good sides : one’s comment appearing within different articles (the one it was written form and for, another unrelated one) brings ubiquity to that comment : say it once and it’s published twice, double your pleasure and double your fun (“with double-mint, double-mint gum” and old ad!). Let’s forget the complications and inherited misunderstandings it leads to. Not sure the fun is worth the complications though. Which is why, with a few others here, I include Article Title & URL with comment, to ease a bit the pain.
This said, I’m trying to find a logic key which would explain the mic-mac. One thing is sure : comments appearing twice keep the same comment number.
For instance my comment to which you replied just above is originally :
[https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/#comment-4573676]
It then got duplicated to :
[https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/29/how-to-fix-geforce-experience-error-code-0x0003/#comment-4573676]
Same comment number, which let’s me imagine comments are defined by their number as before but now dissociated in a way from their full path : that’s where something is broken, as i see it.
First amused me, then bothered, annoyed (I took some holidays to lower the pressure), then triggered curiosity.
I’m putting our best detectives on the affair, stay tuned.
Hehe, yes indeed, staying positive is what we should do. Good comes for those who wait, as the old saying goes. Hopefully true for this as well.
Interesting that the comments number stays the same, I noted that one thing is added to the duplicated comment in the URL, an error code, the following: “error-code-0x0003”.
Not useful for us, but hopefully for the developers (if there are any?), that perhaps will be able to sort this comments error out. Or our detectives, I hope they work hard on this as we speak ;).
Cheers and have a great weekend!
Whoops, my bad. I just now realized that the error I saw in your example URL (error-code-0x0003) was part of the linked article title and generated by Geforce! Oh dear! Why did I try to make it more confusing than it already is lol!
Original comment:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/08/elon-musk-turned-off-starlink-during-ukranian-offence/#comment-4573788
Duplicate:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/iphone-12-radiation-levels-are-too-high/#comment-4573788
Article Title: Tech leaders meet to discuss regulation of AI
Article URL: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/]
—
@Karl, you write,
“I noted that one thing is added to the duplicated comment in the URL, an error code, the following: “error-code-0x0003”.”
I haven’t noticed that up to now but indeed brings an element to those who are actually trying to resolve the issue.
I do hope that Softonic engineers are working on fixing this issue, which may be more complicated than we can imagine. Anything to do with databases can become a nightmare, especially when the database remains accessed while being repaired, so to say.
P.S. My comment about remaining positive was, in this context, sarcastic. Your literal interpretation could mean you are, factually, more inclined to positiveness than I am myself : maybe a lesson of life for me :)
Have a nice, happy, sunny weekend as well :)
Correct: AI is certainly overhyped, it’s also advertised by some shady individuals. It’s can also be misused to write poor quality articles or fake your homework.
https://wordpress.com/support/post-vs-page/
https://wordpress.com/support/restore/
16 September 2023, this website is still experiencing issues with posts erroneously appearing in the wrong threads. There are even duplicates of the exact same post ID within the same page in some places.
Clerical error “[It] can also be misused …” you just can’t get the staff nowadays.
Obviously [#comment-4573795] was originally posted within [/2023/09/14/artificial-intelligence-regulation-tech-leaders/]. However, it has appeared misplaced within several threads.
Including the following:
[/2023/09/15/redmi-note-13-specs-release-date-and-more/]
[/2023/08/29/how-to-fix-geforce-experience-error-code-0x0003]
“How much radiation is dangerous?
Ionizing radiation, such as X-rays and gamma rays, is more energetic and potentially harmful. Exposure to doses greater than 1,000 millisieverts (mSv) in a short period can increase the risk of immediate health effects.
Above about 100 mSv, the risk of long-term health effects, such as cancer, increases with the dose.”
This ban is about NON-ionizing radiation limits, because there is too much radio wave power from the iphone. This has nothing to do with the much more dangerous ionizing radiations like X-rays, that are obviously not emitted at all by mobile phones. I invite you to correct your article.
“Aaro.mil makes history as the first official UFO website”
I wonder if it’s just smelly crowdsourcing for the spotting of chinese balloons or whatever paranoia they’re trying to instigate, or if they are also intentionally trying to look stupid enough to look for alien spaceships, for whatever reason. Maybe trying to look cute, instead of among the worst butchers of history ?
“The tech titan’s defense”
“Whether he provides a clear explanation or justifies his actions”
“the moral compass”
You take it for granted that this company should agree being a military communications provider on a war zone, and so directly so that his network would be used to control armed drones charged with explosives rushing to their targets.
You don’t need to repeat here everything you read in the mainstream press without thinking twice about it. You’re not just pointing interestingly that his company is more involved in the war that one may think at first and that this power is worrying, you’re also declaring your own support for a side in an imperialist killfest, blaming him for not participating enough in the bloodshed.
Now your article is unclear on how this company could be aware that its network is used for such military actions at a given time, which has implications of its own.
Reading other sources on that quickly, it seems that the company was: explicitly asked ; to extend its network geographically ; for a military attack ; at a time when there was no war but with the purpose of triggering it, if I understood well. You have to be joking if you’re crying about that not happening at that time. But today you have your war, be happy.