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Saturday, May 28th
If you're looking for private internet connections at the lowest price, give Private Internet Access a try. Out of all the independent VPN systems we've reviewed, theirs is the lowest at $2.91 per month billed every two years, $3.33 per month billed yearly, or $6.95 billed monthly. No matter how you slice your payments, you're coming out ahead of the other services on costs.
Private Internet Access has an impressive array of recognizable logos on their website intended to give credibility to their service, through comprehensive reviews and their sponsorships of electronic freedom-oriented organizations, as the one that the majority of consumers might prefer. Their one-minute intro video is decidedly non-technical in providing an overview of what it is and how it works, which indicates that they are marketing to the non-technical user.
Like other VPN services, Private Internet Access provides the ability to browse anonymously with a cloaked IP address over any WIFI hotspot, unblocking of censorship filters, and easy setup. They have over 3,000 servers in over 44 locations across almost 30 countries.
Private Internet Access has PPTP, OpenVPN, and L2TP/IPSec. The service blocks ads, trackers, malware and doesn't keep logs of your activities. It has multiple VPN gateways and unlimited bandwidth. However, it is limited to 5 simultaneous connections, but it does support Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, and iOS.
Private Internet Access also can be installed as a Google Chrome browser extension. There are setup video guides and each of the platform options has an easy setup guide for alternate (advanced) configurations if necessary, such as router, SOCKS5 proxies, port forwarding, and regional gateways.
Support for Private Internet Access is 24/7 but only by virtue of the fact that it seems just to be accessible through online support articles, FAQs, email ticketing, and social media channels.
Happy Private Internet Access users write that they are satisfied with the low cost, fast download speeds, no logging, strong encryption, good torrent support, and longevity of the service compared to others. People who didn't feel as satisfied said they didn't like the fact that there's no live chat (email only), the fact that it's located in the US (a privacy problem for people outside the US), and that it doesn't work with Netflix.
Even though Private Internet Access has a shorter money-back guarantee, for the low price you pay even monthly you can walk away without much damage to your bank account. And, with the good service you get as described by positive reviewers, we can recommend it as a great VPN service.
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It does just what it says. It creates a virtual (as opposed to physical) private network for you by encrypting (or scrambling) each and every piece of data that goes from your computer out onto the Internet as well as any data that comes back to you from the Internet.
So, who needs a VPN? If you're concerned about the rising problem of "hackers" - people who infiltrate computers and networks to steal or misuse information - you should be looking at a VPN service. Or, if you think your Internet Service Provider (ISP) may log, monitor, or analyze what you do online, a VPN is for you.
Millions of credit cards can be exposed online at any given moment as people purchase things from popular ecommerce sites. If the ecommerce site you're buying from doesn't bother to encrypt that information, a hacker can "sniff" that information right out of your connection with the website. Anything you type into a vendor's website form becomes fair game for identity fraudsters and thieves.
Furthermore, ISPs have been known to sell their user's information to marketers and advertisers. Or, they can use it to restrict (throttle) your bandwidth and block access to sites they don't want you to see.
Finally, a VPN is useful for people who live in countries where governments regularly censor information not flattering to the state, or that they deem to be harmful to their citizens. Protests, rallies, and citizen actions that get started online usually don't have a chance of being successful without some type of VPN service protecting the organizers from being spied on.
To choose a VPN service, you need to research their features and compare their costs, reputations, security, performance, and customer service. Some of the factors to use when researching VPN services include:
TopConsumerReviews.com has reviewed and ranked the best VPN Services available today. We hope these reviews will help you find the right VPN service to make browsing the Web 100% secure!
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