Kyle Corrie Senior Member United States Joined 4827 days ago 175 posts - 464 votes
| Message 1 of 9 04 January 2013 at 3:35am | IP Logged |
After reading another post I felt the need to share some information perhaps some
people aren't aware of.
VPN stands for 'virtual private network'. Basically, the internet is a huge network,
and whenever you access websites you're relaying packets of information back and forth.
What a VPN does is encrypt that data so that no one else can read it even if it's
intercepted.
You probably shouldn't even be on the internet without utilizing a VPN, but they can
even serve a purpose for language learning.
If you've ever gone to a website and gotten some kind of message like, "Sorry. Content
unavailable in your country." then a simple way around that would be a VPN.
With a VPN you can actually set up where your relay of encryption is going to be.
For exmple - If I were to go to the German television website http://rtl-now.rtl.de/
and I tried to watch a video there they'd tell me it is unavailable to me because I'm
not in Germany. However, all I'd need to do is change my VPN host address to a German
one.
Soooo... when I try to access RTL from my computer I send packets from my computer to a
VPN network based in Germany, they grant me a German IP address and then forward that
information to RTL (the video), the website assumes I'm a German accessing the content,
reroutes it back through the German based VPN and then the German VPN relays that back
to me and then I get the content.
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If that was a poor explanation or you didn't understand it then you can refer to
http://www.howstuffworks.com/vpn.htm for a more precise explanation.
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So, in a nutshell, if you want to access internet content hosted all over the world
from your home country, then a VPN could be ideal for you.
There are a plethora of options available. Some free, some charge, but I personally use
'HideMyAss' and they offer a lot of different country hosts with no advertisements.
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Maybe that will be of use to some people. Peace.
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Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5098 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German
| Message 2 of 9 04 January 2013 at 4:19pm | IP Logged |
That's very interesting. I always wondered how the criminals on TV were able to mask their location.
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tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5451 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 3 of 9 04 January 2013 at 7:51pm | IP Logged |
Kyle Corrie wrote:
There are a plethora of options available. Some free, some charge, but I personally use
'HideMyAss' and they offer a lot of different country hosts with no advertisements.. |
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A couple of years ago I tried some of the free options, but found them all to be painfully slow, so I opted for
WiTopia instead, and have only positive things to say about them.
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Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6901 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French
| Message 4 of 9 04 January 2013 at 8:04pm | IP Logged |
I've been thinking about this for quite a long time in order to get to the geo-restricted content. Have you experienced any problems with that? I tested Security Kiss, as there is a free version of this (with a low transfer limit though), and I still couldn't watch M6 videos (France). I don't want to pay for something and get disappointed.
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tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5451 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 5 of 9 04 January 2013 at 8:25pm | IP Logged |
Julie wrote:
Have you experienced any problems with that? |
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A VPN connection will almost always be a bit slower. A few times I've been disconnected from the VPN server, and
had to reconnect.
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Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6901 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French
| Message 6 of 9 04 January 2013 at 8:53pm | IP Logged |
Is your VPN connection fast enough to enjoy watching streamed content? And what about accessing geo-restricted content - if you use it, do you have any problems with that?
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tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5451 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin
| Message 7 of 9 04 January 2013 at 9:34pm | IP Logged |
Julie wrote:
Is your VPN connection fast enough to enjoy watching streamed content? |
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Yes, it is fast enough.
Julie wrote:
And what about accessing geo-restricted content - if you use it, do you have any problems with that?
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No problems at all.
Edited by tractor on 04 January 2013 at 9:34pm
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Kyle Corrie Senior Member United States Joined 4827 days ago 175 posts - 464 votes
| Message 8 of 9 05 January 2013 at 12:38am | IP Logged |
Julie,
I haven't had any problems streaming content at all. I'd highly recommend 'HideMyAss'
because they've worked well for me.
There is unlimited data transfer.
It is a paid service and they do occasionally run discounted rates. For example, I
hopped
on the $5 a month/1 year deal that expired before New Years.
However, if you go with them and aren't satisfied there is a 30-day, money-back
guarantee.
Edited by Kyle Corrie on 05 January 2013 at 12:39am
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