Tag: internet

Hidester Proxy Site offers best Fast, Free & Premium Proxy list Service
I have reviewed many VPN and web proxy services in the past, but you’d find a very few of them offering a free service that can be used conventionally anywhere, on demand. Recently, while I was in Jaipur, India, I encountered an internet service provider which was very restrictive about the websites I visit using their connection; blocking many P2P and media streaming websites. Typically, I would use one of the many VPN services that I am subscribed to, but unfortunately, I didn’t have access to my computer, which means none of the VPN credentials were available at my disposal. I tried using some web proxy services such as Kproxy, Hidemyass and proxy site among many others but sadly, none of them could properly render all the website I visited. Most of the web proxy servers do no process the complex queries required for some section of websites to work in a manner that it would have with our regular internet connection.

This is where I felt the need to use public/premium Proxy IP addresses, which once was my favourite anonymity tool to hide personal data while accessing some websites back in high school. Public/premium Proxy IPs works very differently than VPNs as it is limited to your web browser, while traditional VPNs encrypt all your incoming/outgoing traffic to or from your computer.

What happens when you visit a website without Proxy or VPN services:

In order to access the website, you are connecting directly to the server where the resources of the website are stored. The website and your ISP can log following information that can be used to uniquely identify every user who uses these resources.
- It knows your external IP – that’s a piece of information about you, probably not enough to identify you with certainty, but enough to find out your approximate geographical location.
- It knows the cookies you have on your computer – you may delete them later, but you definitely don’t delete them each time you load a website.
- It knows what browser you’re using and what plugins you have installed. Every time you visit a website, your browser sends the User-Agent string which can be used to identify a browser, its version, OS version, and sometimes installed browser extensions.
- It knows where you’re coming from. An HTTP referrer (sic!) is sent each time you click a link. Basically, when you navigate from one site to another, the target site will know the URL or previous site.
Additionally, there are more advanced tracking algorithms that just won’t be easy to shrug off when you require a total anonymity or bypass your ISPs restrictions. Yes, there are tools that can help you block cookies, UAs, and referrers in your browser, but there are more programs that use HTTP. Most of these programs won’t let you hamper the inbuilt settings and mechanism of their service protocol.

Using VPN and Web Proxy services to lift ISP restrictions and hide personal identity

Online VPN services, VPN providers, Web proxy, Socks Proxy and Proxy sites are some of the most effective tools that can help you get rid of the restrictions imposed by your ISP and help keep your identity safe on the internet.

We have reviewed plenty of VPN services on our website, which can be trusted to handle our precious personal details. At the end, we really have to be careful that the company we choose must be capable of handling the individual information anonymously without any data leak.

If anonymity is not your concern then you can use some of the best free Online VPN extensions for available for your browser, which is ranked according to their reputation and efficiency on digitfreak. These browser extensions work very similarly to the proxy IPs that we are going to use, as they only encrypt the traffic of your browser it is installed on.

How proxy IP helps hide your true identity?

A proxy (technically an open proxy) server is a computer that acts as an intermediary between your computer and the internet. Any traffic routed through a proxy server will appear to come from its IP address, not your computer’s.

Unlike VPN, proxy servers don’t usually encrypt your internet traffic which allows them to handle large user pool with insignificant resource requirements.

If you use Proxy server on your browser, it can alter your internet connection to hide your true identity or remove any ban imposed by the ISP:
- It can replace the User-Agent string with some meaningless string or strip out the referrers.
- It can accept all cookies, but not pass them to you, or it can block them altogether.
- It’s the proxy that’s connecting to the server, not you, so your IP isn’t disclosed.
- A proxy can be set up to work system-wide, so programs won’t be able to bypass it.
There are also some extra features that a proxy can provide:
- It can compress your traffic to save some bandwidth.
- It can cache files to give a little boost to page load times.
- It can strip ads from websites before they reach your computer.
- It can block malicious websites.
And finally, it can be used not only against filters but also as a filter!

HTTP and SOCKS proxy

Web Proxy services utilise one of the two different protocols to connect with the internet. The HTTP and SOCKS work very differently as they are capable of handling a different level of internet protocols.

The HTTP protocol is designed to interpret traffic at the HTTP level, which means that it can only handle traffic that starts with http:// or https://, i.e. web pages*. Whereas the SOCKS servers do not interpret network traffic at all, which makes them much more flexible, but because they are usually handling more traffic, usually slower. The big advantage of the SOCKS protocol is that it supports any kind of internet traffic, such as POP3 and SMTP for emails, IRC chat, FTP for uploading files to websites, and torrent files.

Best Free & Premium Proxy IP list

On my quest to find the best free proxy IP list, I stumbled upon the website called Hidester – “Free Public Premium Proxy List (https SSL, socks 4/5)” among many others which offer useful free tools. Hidester has a section on their website that lists all the active proxy IPs documented according to various categories and efficiency.

The powerful search option and elegant website design make it easier to find the suitable IP address according to our preference. It feels much better and refreshing when compared to other popular proxy lists available on the internet. However, I don’t want you to get confused or mislead by the fact that this website has a fluid user interface and likeable interactive environment with the ability to choose any IP from the list blindly and think that it will work. It is true that Hidester does check all the IP addresses for their availability and performance (especially the premium ones), but not all of them will work. In my test, I had to test out few of them before I found the working Proxy IP that was in the list of filtered IPs matching my search criteria.

One you find that perfect public IP address, you’re good to go. After that, you basically have to put it in your browser and forget about it. Unless you want to browse the internet with your real IP address for some reason.

Surprisingly, I didn’t notice any significant drop in my speed. Maybe, I was lucky to pick the Public Proxy IP that had perfect infrastructure to back it up, or the Hidester does actually make a list that includes only fast Proxy Servers.

You can test it out and let us know in comments whether you had a similar experience. I would love to hear if others get as lucky as I was; If you do, I would love to recommend it on a larger scale and approach them for partnership.

Go to Hidester’s Proxy IP list
June 9, 2016
Editor’s Pick: Golden Frog’s VyprVPN – review
Everything you do over the internet is being monitored, believe it or not, your VPN provider can only do so much to keep your identity private. Many of us think that using a VPN will make you an anonymous ghost on the internet, and untraceable with the click of a button — you’ll be surprised by the fact that everything you’re being told by popular VPN companies is a lie. Yes, it is true that VPNs can hide you from direct tracking/tracing by analytic codes on websites, and it hardens the network security, but it has its limitation. When a VPN company claims that they can give a degree of anonymity and privacy that any VPN service is virtually incapable of, you’re better off without it.

I was able to trace one such example few days ago, where I warned my VPN readers to immediately disable WebRTC on the web browser they’re using on the computer. Google Chrome is your privacy nightmare, because it doesn’t officially allow you to disable WebRTC feature on the browser, and third-party extensions/scripts are not trustworthy. If you are a privacy freak and a guy with ‘tin foil,’ I would immediately suggest you to start using Firefox and remove anything that says “Google” on your computer. Their products and user privacy are shady, and they became data hungry lately – so much for “Don’t be evil.” While there are no evidence or data to back up my opinions, but if you’re privacy freak, I would recommend to stay clear of Google.

See Also: Soon Google Will Search Your hard Drive For Data

Let’s not make this article all about why you shouldn’t rely on VPN, rather we should focus on why we chose VyprVPN and recommending it to our readers. One of the most obvious reason would be the transparency in their terms of service, and trust me there are very few of them who do provide what’s been advertised. Almost all VPN providers would claim at some point that they are capable of providing 100% anonymous internet presence while keeping 0% user data on their server. When they have no control how a simple browser exploit can reveal original IP address, how come they claim to make anyone using their service 100% anonymous? – VyprVPN makes no such claim.

While VPN service providers are competing each others with massive outreach with “anonymous service” they can provide, but the fine print in their privacy policy suggests they log a significant amount of customer data. VyprVPN stands out as a purple cow by informing users what actually a VPN service can truly do for you.

We tested several other VPNs before, and none of them actually proved to be as robust, reliable and transparent as VyprVPN. During 1 months extensive test, we found some uniquely engineered features one can rely on.

The features and state of reliability offered by VyprVPN might change over a period of time, and we can only vouch for the service offered during DigitFreak’s testing phase*. VyprVPN and its parent company GoldenFrog is not associated with DigitFreak and its services. This review is independent, and DigitFreak cannot be held responsible for any personal loss or influence of user decision to purchase their service.

Registration & Price

VyprVPN has incorporated an interesting business model, which allows you to start a free trial of any existing plans they offer. You’ll not find “buy now” button anywhere on their pricing model, rather there is a “Start Free Trial” option that allows you to test the service before making the purchase. However, due to spams and invalid attempts to use their service for free, they need you to attach a payment information during the signup, which includes credit card or Paypal account. It is little limited to the payment options, as you cannot pay by bitcoin, Alipay or any other third party payment gateway, which is little weird considering they have been targeting Chinese market with their proprietary Chameleon encryption technology.

The company is offering a wide range of plans to choose, which includes – VyprVPN Free($0), Basic($6.67 to $9.99), Pro ($8.33 to $14.99) and Premier ($10 to $19.99) — which bends slightly toward the heavy budget for the premium service. We were surprised to see that Free plan is way better than their ‘VyprVPN Basic’ Plan, which only has an advantage of the unlimited bandwidth. If you don’t need high bandwidth, Free option is something that can help you stay anonymous, but again there are plenty of other Free VPNs available for casual users with minimum restrictions, and unlimited bandwidth. One reason you’d probably want to use “VyprVPN Free” plan is to test their service without revealing your credit card information.

We wanted to test their service with full capability, hence, we registered a “VyprVPN Premier” test account. The only difference with their pro and premier plans is the number of concurrent devices you can simultaneously use on a single account. We filled the registration form with required information and credit card details, and before hitting the “start Free Trial” button we were informed that we’ll be charged US$119.99 if we fail to cancel our subscription within the trial period of 3 days. That’s fair, and it is a good thing that they are making it clear that we might get charged automatically if we don’t cancel the subscription.

Dashboard

Once we received the login information and account details, we jumped directly into the ‘Control Panel’ or, the Dashboard. The moment you log into the ‘Client Area,’ you’d know they’re very serious about positive customer experience, everything is so neat and well oriented that it feels like you’re special to them. While most of the VPN providers use similar backend design,

Infrastructure

Golden Frog’s founders are Internet veterans who have owned and operated Internet businesses since the dawn of the public Internet in 1994. Although incorporated in Switzerland, Golden Frog, GmbH, is a global service provider committed to preserving an open and secure Internet experience while respecting user privacy throughout the world.

VyprVPN is one of the few options available right now which has total control over their network; you can literally count the number of services that owns their own tier-1 network — Only other service that I personally know would be IPVanish. This means that no part of the service is outsourced to 3rd parties. Other VPN providers use 3rd parties to host their servers. Golden Frog even owns and operate their own DNS service, VyprDNS, to add further privacy and security for their users. Golden Frog offers a 100% private, no-logging DNS service to complement VyprVPN. VyprDNS is Golden Frog’s 100% owned and operated DNS service available exclusively for VyprVPN users.

server locations and IP acquisition

VyprVPN doesn’t only boast their Tier-1 network and fully private DNS service, but they also excel in server location availability and IP acquisition. This is something you won’t find by services provided by some of the best VPN service providers.

Some VPN services limit user bandwidth, speed, and server switching. VyprVPN does not. Switching between server clusters is easy and effective with over 200,000 IP addresses for its users. It even has a Fastest Server setting so you can automatically be connected to the fastest server available for your location. At the time of Writing this review, VyprVPN offers servers in North America, Europe, Oceania, Central America, South America, Asia and Middle East.

Logging and user data retention can be an issue for those who are involved in illegal activities, and VyprVPN does strictly follow DMCA notices. They claim not to disclose user information to the third party requests, how they do take actions to mitigate the crimes on their network by suspending or terminating the user account under the 3 strike rule.

Software

The software client of VyprVPN is easy to use, and mostly flawless on all platforms. We used it on 2 smartphones and a computer, running Android and Windows 10 respectively. We had few hiccups on Windows 10 powered device, which was quickly mitigated by the support team, more on in later.

The software and mobile apps are streamlined, and you’d find similar options and UI experience on any platform you use it on. It is nice to see that they worked with the developer closely to make sure we get the same features and UI design on all platforms, which makes you feel at home anywhere you go.

We had a little hiccup on both mobile and desktop software, as the connection was automatically dropped without any interference, but it was occasional and didn’t bother us much. Everything else worked as it should, and we couldn’t stress much to point out how much we loved their consistent cross-platform software and apps.

Feature Highlights:
- Autologin/Autoconnect
- Choose Autoconnect server
- Sort servers by ping time, city or country
- Choose server from map view
- Check IP address to verify the VPN connection
- Visual system tray indicator (Blue when disconnected/Red when connected)
- Network Speed Graph
- Manual Port/Protocol Selection Option (PPTP, L2TP, OpenVPN)
- Smart Server Selection by desired use: (Speed, Video Streaming, Gaming, etc)
- DNS Leak Protection
- VPN Kill Switch/ Auto-disconnect on dropped VPN connection
While all of these features are amazing and really effective to ensure a good user experience, I would like to discuss some of them.

Kill Switch

Usually, our internet connection works pretty solid and stable. However, you cannot deny the times when you loose the internet connection simply because your router would restart automatically, or someone turns it off unknowingly. It happens to best connections. Sometimes, we forget to turn on the VPN before surfing the internet and regret doing so when we finally realise that we have been sharing sensitive data without the protection.

The ‘Kill Switch’ is a switch that automatically kills or blocks your internet connection whenever VyprVPN is disconnected. Except for network communications related to running VyprVPN services, Kill Switch will block all other Internet and network communications. The kill switch can be enabled in VyprVPN for Windows and Mac.
Encryption Protocol

VyprVPN offers multiple encryption protocols so one can choose their preferred level of encryption. Each of them varies according to their strength of security and interference with original internet speed. It includes OpenVPN, L2TP, PPTP and Chameleon (proprietary technology).

VyprDNS

Golden Frog doesn’t only boast their Tier-1 Network, but they also offer a private secure DNS server to protect from any DNS leaks and third party reliability. When you’re trusting them for your online security, then it only makes sense that you’d want a single company to handle all your traffic. If you don’t know what is DNS, simply head over to this wiki. In short, DNS (Domain Name System) is a service that translates hostnames (such as http://digitfreak.com) into computer-readable IP address (178.220.123.121), so your computer can communicate with the desired host. It is actually very effective since it protects you from DNS leak over the network. We had a positive test result, which showed VyprVPN is pretty solid service.

VyprDNS is Golden Frog’s 100% owned and operated DNS service available exclusively for VyprVPN users. They developed a zero-knowledge VyprDNS service to increase user privacy and defeat censorship across the world. VyprDNS is built into VyprVPN and when you connect, you will automatically use VyprDNS. Please note, VyprDNS cannot be used separately from VyprVPN.

Speed

GoldenFrog (The company that owns VyprVPN) maintains all their own server infrastructure and utilizes high-speed server clusters. The benefit of all this? Faster speeds and fewer dropped connections.

Vypr is one of the fastest VPN’s we’ve tested. In fact, nearly all the servers we tested maxed out our ISP connection or revoked the throttles put by our ISP. It’s no wonder that VyprVPN made our list of the fastest VPN providers. If you have a faster internet connection than we do, you will actually experience faster speeds than our test shows.

However, When connected to our local nearest server (India), we experience greater latency or ping time that we did with the USA or other server locations we tested, which is little weird as servers in India should’ve had better latency. Other than that, we could easily stream youtube videos and unblock geo-blocked websites without any hiccups.

Without VPN

USA server

UK Server

We were surprised too. UK server test returned false speed test result, reporting higher download speed that our ISP’s restriction. We did experience faster connections while connected to UK & Australia location.

and it was same when connected to Perth, Australia

India Server

Support & Customer Care

usually, we don’t actually contact the support team, unless there are some serious issues that we couldn’t fix on our own. All our systems at the office and my personal computer have been upgraded to Windows 10, that leaves us with some software refusing to cope with the new environment — VyprVPN is no exception. We didn’t face the specific issue right away, but it was only triggered when we used “Connect on Start” features — “Connect VyprVPN when Windows starts up” and “Connect VyprVPN on application launch.”

When these options were turned on, it would throw the error which reads “The VyprVPN Service could not be contacted. Would you like to attempt to start the service?” Even when we choose “Yes,” it didn’t work for several attempts before it would trigger the VyprVPN client. It interfered with our computer default functions, and it wouldn’t let our computer to shutdown.

However, we were able to solve this issue by starting the VyprVpn service manually from “service manager,” but it wasn’t a proper solution. So we pinged the support team without letting them know that it can be easily fixed manually. It could be a great help for them as it would minimize the time required to pinpoint the cause of this error.

We were expecting the delay in response, so the review team shifted the focus on different tasks. When we checked back after few hours, we were surprised to see a response from their side within 3 minutes of our query submission.

They finally pinpoint the error, ensured us that they informed the developers and told us that we should expect the update within few days. We received the update after 2 days, and it solved the issue. 10/10 for support.

What do we think?

VyprVPN is pretty reliable and professional service that will provide top-notch online security and premium quality if you can afford its above-average prices. Their Teir-1 network acquisition and a large number of shared IP address pool are going to capture a huge percentage of the VPN market because it ensures better internet speed than most of the competitor providers. We heard poor reviews about their support team, but we were satisfied with their pleasant customer support. Their limited payment method, keeping logs for a questionable period of time (30 days), DMCA compliance and geo-IP workaround keeps us from recommending it to everyone. However, they do certain things the way that no other competitor really does. The fact that VYPRVPN was recently elected the best VPN for France by VPNmag, just makes it superior to most of its competitors.

The secure protocols, encryption levels, and additional service will keep your data safe and with a widespread server location, your identity will remain secure and private. If you need a VPN service provider that can keep you safe and secure while still delivering the actual Internet speed, you should definitely go for this service.

Get VyprVPN
September 1, 2015
This simple device can convert any flat screen TV to touchscreen

With each passing day we witness technological innovations that revolutionise the way we interact with the world around us. The internet has been a boon to these innovators who leverage this mode to their advantage and develop products that offer a great value to the consumers. Internet also helps these innovators to collate the necessary resources for the purpose of the development of their products and the latest in line has been crowd funding that has been allowing innovators to get the required funding and focus better on the product development.

Another innovative product that has received a highly positive response from the ‘crowd’ is the Touchjet WAVE; a highly innovative idea that uses simple technology. The brilliance of this product is not the technology it uses but rather how it uses the technology. The product has been listed on indiegogo.com, a crowd funding website and within a day it has been able to generate over US$ 131,000, against a target of US$ 100,000 with still 29 days to go! So what makes this product so special and what value does it deliver that it has received funding from over 700 people in 1 day? Let’s find out.

A small device that the company has named WAVE can be clipped on the top of the television. It has an infrared sensor and an HDMI output that needs to be plugged into the HDMI port of the television. The infrared sensor senses the movements of the hands or a stylus that is supplied with WAVE and sends the signal to the Light Processing Unit or the LPU of the device. The data received from the infrared sensor is translated to the taps and gestures that can be understood by the Android operating system.

The device runs on Android 4.4 Kitkat and effectively converts your flat panel television into a giant touch screen. You can operate your television using your hand gestures or a stylus. Likewise, you can also connect your mobile phone wirelessly to the device and control your television from your smartphone. The smartphone can also be connected to the device to browse the internet and t download data and apps or to stream the internet live.

Since WAVE functions on Android, users can download and install over 1.3 million Android apps that are available on the play store. The device also has WIFI connectivity enabled for directly accessing the internet.

On the technical front, the device has a 2.0 GHz Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, 1GB DDR3 RAM, 8GB Flash drive, built-in optical touch sensor, WIFI and Bluetooth. It has an HDMI Output, an Audio Line out, 1 Micro USB OTG and 2 USB 2.0 ports.

Since the device runs on Android and not on any proprietary operating system, it has large number of applications. The device can be attached to a flat screen monitor and can be used for presentations, app developments, using Android apps or even for playing games.

Touchjet Wave

August 13, 2015
How to Monitor Internet Speed in Ubuntu

I often use it to monitor the speed while downloading or using internet and stumbled upon a website which takes time to respond — looking at the internet speed indicator tells me whether my internet is working properly or website is not using the bandwidth to load the page, in that case I simply reload the page to make it render properly.

I will be first to admit it that it is quiet easy to do it on windows Operating system, however you’ll be surprised to know that this can be done as easily on Ubuntu as well. In some cases you’ll feel that it’s better and quicker way to implement on Linux distros than on Windows – which involves downloading a software and installing them on your computer.

App and repository based Ubuntu distro makes it fun and easier to use. There sure is a learning curve for new users but, it is worth the effort.

I used Ubuntu 15.04 for this tutorial, but it can be implemented on any version of Ubuntu.

How to Install

Webupd8 designed a package which includes various useful applications in a single package such as radio, hotspot, themes and most importantly our Net speed indicator. We will be using this repository to install our net speed indicator to monitor internet speed.

Step 1.

Open terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and paste the following sudo command.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8

Step 2

Update your repository.
Sudo apt-get update

Step 3

Install netspeed indicator using this command.
sudo apt-get install indicator-netspeed
Tips: You can also check the internet usage by all ports using a simple command “ifconfig”.

May 24, 2015
Install FireChat if you want to chat with people around without any internet!

Nowadays chatting with people is a common scenario but it all requires one thing without which nothing can be done. Its the Internet. But now a new app has been launched in the market which allows people to chat with others around in a particular range even when there is no internet connection.

Firechat is the name of the new app, which sounds quite fabulous. The creators of this app are known as ‘Open Garden’ and using the company;s mesh networking technology this app was made successful.

The app can be easily used wherever there are people around and then a user has the power to chat with them without any internet connection. The capability of this app shows us how limitless are the applications of peer to peer networking. The best places where this app can be used are Beach, subways, At a big game, trade show, camping in the wild or even a concert etc.

First the app was launched only for iPhones but now it has now been made available for Android devices also since it became really popular after it was launched two weeks ago. The app actually broke many records since it is now among the top 10 social networking apps and has already spread across 80 countries.

In the words of Open Garden’s CEO, ” I am proud to say that we are now able to deliver a best-in-class peer-to-peer chat experience to anyone with an Android device. And thanks to its multi-hop capabilities, FireChat may extend the range of peer-to-peer communications significantly.”

One can also consider the importance of this app since it doesn’t require any internet, it can be very helpful during the conditions of emergency, disasters or any other common place where you don’t know if you are going to get a reliable connection.

FireChat has many other features that makes it better than other messaging apps. The app also works as easily with internet as it does without it. One can talk to everybody at a time or only the people present nearby using the different modes. The app is really user friendly since it does not require any email logins, no passwords etc and all of that without any significant amount of Battery loss.

If you are wondering where the hell did this company suddenly pop up on the tech radar, then its important that we inform you that this was the company who won the Grand prize at the GMIC Startup competition in October 2013. Within this small time only, there are about 4 million users of apps made by this company around the world.

April 6, 2014
NetLimiter lets you Limit internet speed of all the applications on your system

Have you ever faced a situation when you are streaming/downloading your favorite TV Episode or Movie from the internet at the maximum speed provided by your ISP, but you cannot enjoy your Facebook Streams, tweeter buzz or other website’s because your internet connection’s max ISP speed limit won’t let you or, you just found out that your limited internet bandwidth provided by your ISP has been exhausted by one of your application? Not anymore!

You can now simply limit the internet Download and upload speed/traffic of any application on your system with the help of a simple tool. NetLimiter is the ultimate bandwidth shaper, which can control your internet traffic and monitor the real-time bandwidth usage.

The interface is simple and effective, where you can monitor the internet usage by all the applications installed on your system. It helps you find out the software, which is responsible for hogging the bandwidth and leaving you with the exhausted data on your account.

You can limit the maximum upload and download speed, which can be used by the particular software or process on your computer and hence, makes it easier to manage the distribution of the bandwidth of your monthly data cap.

The “NetLimiter” can be a real relief for the limited data users, who wants to control the usage of internet bandwidth according to their preference. It can allow them to restrict the internet access only to the handful of apps.

The effective Bandwidth shaper, network monitor, connection blocker and filters, traffic charts and informative statistics can be used to control the every bit of internet bandwidth which can be used on your computer.

February 18, 2014