What is Paysafecard?

Paysafecard is an online payment method based on a pre-pay system. Due to its anonymous nature, Paysafecard is quite famous for paying for VPN and proxy services.

PSC works by purchasing a PIN code printed on a card, and enter this code during the checkout process. Besides, a PIN code can be used multiple times, and multiple PIN codes can be bought. Paysafecards are sold as eVouchers in countries from Europe, Latin America, and North America.

Paysafecard compliance policy

Unfortunately, the Paysafecard compliance policy restricts VPN and proxy services to process payments using Paysafecards directly. Thus, buying a VPN with PSC is not quite easy. But there are workarounds, and several VPN service providers accept VPN Paysafecard payments through third-party payment processors like CashRun or PayPro Global. The downside is that some of these processors may ask for additional personal info to process the payment.

How to pay for VPN with Paysafecard

Solution 1: Find a provider that still accepts payments with Paysafecard directly or using a third party processor.

Solution 2: Use Paysafecard to buy MINT prepaid cards and then use these cards to pay for a VPN. Many VPN services accept MINT cards.

Further, you may find below 3 VPN services that accept Paysafecard (that may have changed since the article was written):

1. TuVPN

TuVPN is a Singapore based VPN service with servers located in United-States, United-Kingdom, Netherlands, Spain, France, Canada, Luxembourg, Romania, Malaysia, Switzerland, Germany.

Also, the cheapest package you may purchase from TuVPN costs €7.95 per month and offers:

• Shared IPs
• OpenVPN, SSH2, L2TP/IPSec and PPTP support
• Unlimited traffic

Also, other packages and options you may find here.

2. ibVPN

ibVPN is a top VPN provider with affordable and flexible options. For $4.95/month you may get access to servers from different locations. Moreover, the main plus is the free access to ibDNS service that unblocks tens of favorite streaming channels from the US, Canada, UK, and France with no speed loss.

ibVPN also offers access to advanced VPN protocols like StealthVPN and SoftEther. You may read more about this excellent VPN provider in our completed review.

VPN Paysafecard payment option is available via PayPro Global.

3. Perfect Privacy

Perfect Privacy, a well-established VPN provider, offers all L2TP/IPSec, OpenVPN, and PPTP VPN, plus proxy related services like SSH2 tunnels, SOCKS5 and HTTP SQUID.

In addition, for the standard price of €24.95 you get a dedicated IP addresses and access to servers located in: Brisbane (Australia), Shanghai (China), Hong Kong (China), Cyberjaya (Malaysia), Tel Aviv (Israel), Bucharest (Romania), Zlin (Czech Republic), Stockholm (Sweden), Moscow (Russia), Kiev (Ukraine), Erfurt (Germany), Basel (Switzerland), Steinsel (Luxembourg), Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Roubaix (France), London (United Kingdom), Southampton (United Kingdom), Montreal (Canada), Chicago (United States), Denver (United States), Los Angeles (United States), Plaza (Panama), and Buenos Aires (Argentina).

Alternative solution: buy MINT prepaid cards with Paysafecard

It is possible that you may not find VPNs that accept Paysafecard. But, there is still hope: you may purchase MINT prepaid cards with Paysafecard that you may further use to pay for the VPN service.

MINT was created by Paymentwall in 2013 as a prepaid payment system for purchasing digital goods and services. MINT was developed as an alternative to credit cards or bank transfers for online payments.

How to get MINT card codes with Paysafecard?

There are several websites where you can buy MINT codes. However, not all accept Paysafecard. Here is one that you may use.

Important! There may be additional fees involved.

The next step is to find a VPN service that uses the Paymentwall payment processor and accepts MINT cards. For example, take a look at ibVPN and PureVPN.

Enjoy! If you are looking for other anonymous VPN payment methods you may try Bitcoin or Ripple.

Do you know other VPN or proxy services that accept Paysafecard payments? Or do you know other methods to buy VPNs with PSC? Share them with us in the comments!

Have you ever tried to manually configure a proxy on your smartphone?

If you haven’t yet, then you’ve saved yourself from some headaches. Indeed, most of the smartphones available on the market don’t allow you to manually configure proxies for your browser without having to do some special tricks (rooting your Android or jailbreaking your iPhone). If you have found some other solutions, I’m eager to know about them. And you’re highly invited to mention it in the comment section of this article. I’m sure you’ll help a lot of our readers out there.

Opera Mini – the most popular browser for smartphones

As of today, the most commonly used solution for “easily” setting a proxy on smartphones was to install Opera Mobile browser. That feature pushed Opera Mobile browser as being the most popular browser that smartphone users have adopted. That is mainly because it allows some geek smartphone users to get free internet on their phone.

But the battlefield is changing as other browsers are beginning to get into that “market” where users would be able to manually set proxies for their browsers. Recently, Firefox has ported the popular browser to the mobile world, and have introduced a way to sync it with the desktop Firefox installation.

This is actually a smart move as a lot of desktop users have adopted Mozilla Firefox as their primary browser. Competition is going to be rude in this field, especially when Android powers the biggest part of Smartphone market, and that Chrome is the de facto browser for any Google device.

ProxyMob – new Firefox addon

So I told you that ProxyMob, a firefox addon has been launched so as to allow users to manually configure the proxy. In fact, the guys at ToR project have developed a proxy manager for Firefox Mobile that comes very handy for us users who love using proxies from our smartphones. It is called ProxyMob (here) and it definitely brings one missing feature to Firefox mobile. Indeed, with the implementation of Firefox on Android devices, there was no easy way to set proxies. This is one of the reasons why Opera Mobile is very popular with Smartphones.

Simply said, ProxyMob is only a GUI interface that allows accessing the parameters of Firefox Mobile. It’s a pretty simple feature. I’m just wondering how come it hasn’t been implemented earlier. Anyway, the race to finding proxies that haven’t been yet blocked by mobile operators can follow-up again.

Now, I can see you asking yourself “how come this topic can lead to having free internet access from a mobile phone?“. Remember the trick that most geeky guys use with Opera Mobile for “extending” the free internet Facebook access that most mobile phone operators? Got it? … No clue? …

In fact, if you search on the internet, you’ll see that those geeks use mobile opera by manually setting some proxies while they use a data plan that their mobile phone operator gives them that has the feature of accessing Facebook freely. By using that trick, not only they can access legitimately Facebook freely, but via the proxy feature, they can also access some other internet resources for free.

iPhone and iPad keep time-stamped track

As I did some “research” on the internet for some facts about it, I stumbled on this one-year-old story that actually demonstrates that iPhone (as well as iPad) keep time-stamped track of every places the iPhone has been to. Well, this, IMHO, is quite interesting (or horrifying, depending on how private your movements should be).

If you read the article above, you’ll see that once someone gets access to specific files stored on your iPhone (or iPad) then they can plot it on some kind of map (here, the example refers to Open Street Map). So, you can get a nice set of points plotted on actual maps showing where the iPhone has been, at what specific time. Duh? I can see you now doing a rewind of all the “lies” you may have said about the location you should be.  You are not that kind of person who says that you’re already “on the way and should be there soon “while you’ve just put your pants and shoes on and locking the door – aren’t you?

But how does phone tracking work?

In fact, if you are a happy owner of an iPhone or an iPad (and gosh, there’s a lot of them out there), I suggest you install this opensource app that will plot your movements into a nice map.  Install it and then see how phone tracking works. Under normal circumstances, this app should draw a nice map of the places where your iPhone (or iPad) have been. You may wonder what’s the point here of this game?

Well, first of all, I just want to get some feedback from actual users if the same thing applies one year after this story has made the front page. Heck, if this has made such a huge coverage last April, won’t it be great to know if things have changed (or not) one year later? And one of the ways to verify it is to test it by yourself. Isn’t it? I have put this article into the “funny” category since the result for each one of How-to-hide-ip readers may be funny (hey, I’d love to hear from your results in the comment section).

I’m pretty sure most of our readers won’t find it funny once their phone (or the app) actually plot correct locations on a nicely Open Street Map. I suggest you view the results alone first since there may be someplace you don’t want your friends to know- if you know what I mean.

What to do?

So why don’t you go ahead and download the app, then check if the map still shows the correct result? One caution though, I haven’t checked if there have been some updates at Apple’s side since that one-year article. So chances are that result may vary depending on if your phone has been updated, or if some privacy settings have been modified on your iPhone/iPad since then. But I bet it’s always interesting to be fixed on that point by actually testing it out.

Hey, in case you’re still too amazed by this “discovery”, just don’t let these results hang around as they may be used against you. And, remember, How-To-Hide-IP readers are eager to know some excerpts of your results: is it still tracking your movements? Is it showing something else?

Using VPNs to ensure absolute anonymity while surfing the web has evolved to become a very common practice these days. There is no denying that there is a rising growth in the number of users utilizing it, and these figures will definitely escalate down the road.

Due to these demands, manufacturers of mobile devices like Apple Inc. have developed high-end iPhone apps that cater to these demands and enable folks to connect to the web safely and in anonymity. These iPhone apps are particularly designed to meet and secure the surfing needs of your iPhones.

The importance of iPhone VPN apps

Should you be utilizing a built-in VPN client within your iPhone, it is a very much favored alternative. Nonetheless, in case you are regularly using VPN, you definitely won’t prefer to spend a great chunk of your time adding in your login credentials on your iPhone if you want to browse the web thru VPNs.

In line with this, the developers made applications that can be easily used for your convenience. You may go on securely – use the web or transfer data via encrypted tunnels as much as you’d want. With a simple click of a button, you are connected, just be sure VPN has configured accordingly.

However, you may need to be aware that free VPNs may not be safe for usage. Take, for example, the Betternet safety issues.

Best features of iPhone VPN apps:

1. An easy one-click connection to the web.
2. Free you from time-consuming manual configurations.
3. Liberty to choose the protocol.
4. Makes the browsing data secured at all times.
5. Keeps intruders within your network at bay.
6. Safeguards your online privacy.

VPN apps for your iPhone

If you are among the loyal users of VPNs then you should know about the following apps:

Now, let us compare each of these VPNs.

123VPN

123VPN is an extremely light VPN app that is simple to install and use. It provides access to about 10 locations that can be easily selected. The app is completely free, but it is ad-based.

ibVPN

The ibVPN app is the one I use most frequently. It has a lot of nice features and options. You must try it if you look for a VPN app.

Hotspot Shield

Next, Hotspot Shield. Hotspot Shield provides you desktop security capabilities via its VPN service. Now, they are available on iPhone too. It will help convert your HTTP sessions into HTTPS sessions, thus allowing you added security instantly. You can now be safe with the idea that you have Malware protection, and you can now block spam and other rogue websites as well as other phishing sites. A trial version of 7-days is available for download online.

VPN One Click

Second in line is VPN One Click. With this app, you can connect to servers from different countries, they will ensure that you keep your identity hidden and so is your real IP address. With VPN One Click, you can now connect to FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter, Skype, or any other blocked websites.

VPN Express

Finally, we have the VPN Express. This app is devised to work not only on your iPhone but also on your iPad and iTouch devices. Top features include excellent availability, affordable price, 99% uptime, unblock any restricted websites, and rendered perfect for use with VOIP. You may also download the trial version to run a test of the app without spending a dime.

Have you made your pick? If any of these excellent iPhone VPN apps work to your advantage, feel free to share your experience and ideas here. We’d love to hear from you!

Do you want to remove the VPN from your iOS VPN app? Here is what you need to do.

If you’re still wondering why it’s a bad idea, this means that either you have nothing sensitive stored on your computer (can it be?), or you are not conscious about the “danger” hanging around. And, gosh, locking your screen will do no harm: depending on your operating system, it’s just a matter of simple combinations of the key pressed and then you can go away with peace in mind- so why don’t you do that?

Things you are leaving behind

Now, let’s consider that you think you have nothing sensitive on your computer and see what another user can see if he take the time to seat in front of your computer and “play” with it. Let’s see the usual things you’re leaving behind when letting access to your computer:

• the open documents: this is the most obvious one. You’ve left some documents open, it’s easy to have a look at them. But even if they aren’t open, you know that most software now comes with the “recently opened document”. So now, you know that you’re leaving some traces behind. Let’s just hope you didn’t watch some “forbidden” movies at work and that your media player “remembers” it, nor have you read some confidential documents,
• the files stored on your hard drive: you surely have photos, music or videos laying around that can be “interesting”.Do you know that some of the guys who repair your computer check for those “hidden treasures” while trying to remove that virus from your computer whenever you ask for their help? Have you ever been suggested something like “we need to bring your computer to our lab for repairing?”.Just think about it: how badly do you want some of the files you keep on your computer unfound? We all have something stored on our computer that we don’t want other to know: either it is the usual ones (adult photos and movies usually), or that photo of you drunk and trying to climb the police’s fences while you’re almost naked on a TGIF night that your best friend sent you (ok, this probably didn’t happen, but you get the idea),
• your browser’s hidden treasure: unless you’re following some of the tips I left for browsing incognito, your browser reveals a lot about your online history. Whether your browser keeps some credentials for accessing some online sites (have you noticed those “remember me” features on most websites?), or your browsing history (oops, you’ve been surfing on some “people news” website while your boss was expecting that important report for … yesterday?).In fact, if it’s only for checking what you did, you can still find a way to “minimize” it. But let’s say that your browser automatically connects you to Facebook (or whatever website), if someone really wants to harm you, it’s very simple to post something on your behalf while you are away. And remember, anything posted online is hard to remove.

Is anyone having access to your computer? Are you comfortable to let someone browsing your private data? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Subscriptions are everywhere nowadays whenever you go to some random internet sites: whether it is for subscribing to newsletters and offer, opening an account on any websites and community sites. Learn about disposable e-mail.

As if it weren’t enough, they even politely invite you to “find your friends” by asking to access your address book so that they check if some of your friends are already using that same network.

Most of the time, the lambda user doesn’t even think about it and, without even considering the consequences of his act, he innocently gives away his e-mail address so as to be able to subscribe to one online service, then …. then he ends up receiving a lot of e-mails that don’t necessarily pertain to his interest. So he ends up deleting (or ignoring) more emails than he reads in one day.

Use a dummy email address for subscriptions

Some more clever user has just created some free internet-based e-mails (from Yahoo, Gmail, …) for all those subscriptions. I, for example, have one e-mail address that is solely used for subscription purposes: whenever I want to create an account on one online service (or I want to get a sneak preview that needs some subscription), I use that e-mail account. In fact, the scenario is almost always the same:

• the online site asks you to fill some information about you (at least an e-mail address and a password),
• then it sends you an e-mail with a link to click on it so as to confirm that it actually is a working e-mail address
• once you activated your account by clicking the activation link, there usually is no critical need to check that e-mail address anymore since you would be able to do everything from inside the online site

So, my dummy address is only used for activation purposes. I recently checked that e-mail address, and I found out that sites I subscribed for keeps on sending me multiple e-mails even though I didn’t check it for a long time.

Better: disposable e-mails

But then I stumbled upon some new services that even get things easier: disposable e-mails. Well, I don’t know what’s the business model for those kind of services, but they are great for testing out those sites: in case you really want to stick with one online site, I guess you can always change the official e-mail address associated with it so that you get the notifications and any other communications.

Disposable e-mail services

If you google for “disposable e-mails” you’ll find plenty of solutions that go from “10-minute mail” (that is actually only available for 10 minutes, which is plenty of times to receive the activation link), to “My trash mail” that is only available for three days.

If we take the SpamGourmet example, it’s quite interesting since you can create temporary and automatically checked for spam e-mail addresses similar to “someonlinesite.3.myaccount@spamgourmet.com” that you can “give” to the site “someonlinesite.com”. It will only handle 3 e-mails from that site (and eventually forward it to your actual address depending on how you configured it)

Frankly, this can be useful, especially for bargain hunters that give away their e-mail address to every site that give them some discount in exchange for some personal information.

What do you think about those solutions?

Do you think they are worth using? or do you think your native anti-spam solution that comes with your current e-mail system is doing fine?

However, there are certain geographical locations that are banned from accessing Skype due to the country ban imposed upon it. Countries ranging from Panama, Belize, Ethiopia, Mexico, Brazil, UAE, and China to name a few are banned from making pc to pc calls with Skype. How can I unblock Skype in these locations?  Use a VPN service!

What is a VPN?

A VPN is one of the best and secure ways to unblock Skype even in countries where they are banned and have a private network setup for personal communications to anywhere in the world! Thus, it is exactly the same as your regular network, only that it mainly utilizes the Internet to make a connection. Moreover, it is one of the best ways to get in touch with your loved ones while having secured private communications wherever in the world.

Skype is by far the most popular VOIP service of all time, with millions of users worldwide and growing. The Skype ban has left a lot of perplexed users in the dark labyrinth searching for the right answers. Until recently, tech-savvy users in banned countries have found refuge with reliable VPN service providers on the web.

Skype VPN

Why pay for expensive telecom service to contact friends and family overseas when you can do it free on Skype with VPN?

A great way to ensure your online security is to frequently change your IP address thru the aid of a secure VPN connection. One amazing feature about VPNs is the fact that along with their features, they nevertheless remain cost effective and they can cut communication expenditures immensely. The many benefits that come from using a quality VPN service are just infinite!

Conclusion

Every time you use a VPN to unblock access to Skype, the VPN will hide your real IP address and provide you a brand new one. The VPN, in turn, acts as a tunnel between your pc (where you are making the calls) and the actual server. Consequently, all data passing through it is securely encrypted so VPN hides your internet traffic from your ISP. Thus, you may now have conversations in complete privacy.

By using VPN on Skype you can make inexpensive calls anywhere in the world, anytime you want it. No reason to worry about any blocks or bans!

Are the files available for real?

I would say those are genuine files (if it weren’t then you know how to scour the internet looking for feedback from people who actually downloaded them). From the time of writing this article, the torrent files were still alive. And due to the conception of torrents, I would expect that this breach has already given the opportunity to hackers and pirates to download whatever they could then share it to the whole internet in a distributed peer-to-peer manner. Which means that even if Sony can technically recover the security breach and close its catalog (or at least bring it back to the normal situation where people would have to buy first before being able to download legal files).

I know you are expecting me to share with you the links for doing so: to be frank with you, I won’t do that. But since it’s very easy to find this out via some search on the internet, I guess you can do it by yourself. For the purpose of writing this article, I just took a sneak peak on what was made available on one of the torrent files so that I can give a more fact-checked information to how-to-hide-ip readers.

Would you download Sony Music for free?

But back to the question I raised as the title of this article which is “Would you download Sony Music for Free?” – my answer is straight simple: I won’t, and I didn’t in fact. Now you may be curious why I won’t?

Well, let’s take a step back first.

As of today, I’m taking for granted that there’s a high number of servers that have been hacked. And if we consider that there’s also a lot of computers from the internet that has been infected so as to contribute to making those attack a “success”, then there’s a high risk that this issue is going to get worse for the next days. This will also mean that hundreds of millions of dollars (if not billions) would account for lost sales from big companies and they would want to recover it in one way or another.

Can you evaluate how much is the Sony’s music catalog worth?

Since the nature of the distribution of the hacked music catalog relies on peer-to-peer (torrent) system, then I can see the legal unit of Sony trying to sue every internet user who would have downloaded those files. Remember, whatever you do on the internet can be tracked in one way or another (especially if you are not as good as the hackers who can create a lot of “untraceable” links from where they can harm whatever system they want).

I can imagine guys from iTunes and AmazonMP3 (as well as other online platforms that allow legal download of music) that can’t sleep anymore since this Sony “open” catalog issue has its way to making part of history, they would think that they can be the next target. On the other hand, I can also imagine a lot of internet users and pirates who are always following the #OpMegaupload hashtag waiting for the next attack where they could profit from it.

Now you know my stand: I truly am amazed how good Anonymous guys can be. They have shown o the world how fragile internet systems can be. And so as to ironically demonstrate it: they have put online for free download Sony’s artistic creations. They’ve made a point.

Would you do it?

But now, for us internet users, it’s another question to ask if we want to download those files. I’ve made my choice, what’s yours? Would you download Sony Music for free?

What is a VPN router?

VPN Router is actually a normal router that has firmware that directly connects to VPN service helping all devices connected to that router to use that VPN service. This helps you pay for one VPN connection while all devices within the network use the VPN connection. Saves money, eh?

Although it is possible to flash (if it runs a variation of Linux) your usual router to become a VPN router, I will suggest you to avoid doing any such thing as it is quite complex and you might end up messing up your already running router.

Recently, a lot of companies have started to launch routers that are capable of connecting to VPN services directly without any hassles. This helps you route all your traffic within your network through the VPN server henceforth hiding your IP address for all the devices inside your network.

Main features

Basic features of such VPN routers:

• Connect to any famous VPN service from around the Internet via the VPN router using VPN tunnel connections.
• Serve the VPN connection to other VPN devices in your network.
• Use wireless network for your network within your VPN router.
• Have the freedom to configure everything yourself using the famous DD-WRT open source firmware or use the pre-built firmware for that specific VPN router.

In the weeks to come, I will review some of the famous VPN routers present around the planet so as to make your life easy. Then you will be able to choose from the best possible VPN routers.

Salman Siddiqui is an expert technical analyst and regularly blogs on his tech. blog CompuWorld. His vast experience of freelance writing is backed by his passion to swim against the tide. You can grab him on Twitter.

Most of the times, as a customer, you are given a plethora of choices when it comes to choosing a VPN service. But this scenario is assuming that you are already convinced that you need to have a VPN solution, which means that you have already done some homework and decided it’d be a great solution to one of your problems.

On this article, let’s assume that you don’t even know that a VPN service creative can be a solution to one of your problems, so let’s see things the other way round – let’s start by problems you may have as a user, and see how a VPN service can come handy.

1- You are living abroad and want to access some online resources that are only available to residents of your home country

We are living in a very mobile world now, and you may be away from your own country (be it for travel purposes, or long-term work). It happens that you are homesick. It even happens that there’s that TV show that only your local TV is broadcasting. Let’s say for example that you are a British person traveling to Canada for a few weeks.

There comes a time where you want to watch your favorite BBC program and where you wish you were in the comfort of your home and ready to watch it…You know that BBC iPlayer TV is giving you a way to watch the last 7 days shows online … but you’ve got to be in the UK to benefit from it…

Now you wish you were in England, that’s your problem. And guess what? You can pretend to be in England by using a VPN service creative. Now all you have to do is choose a VPN service that offers UK-based IP addresses, grab some coffee and whatever you like having while watching TV, launch the VPN client, then launch BBC iPlayer.

2- Participate in online sweepstakes

Now let’s say that you are a regular online-deal-hunter. You are surely aware that there’s a lot of sweepstakes and online deals out there that are only limited to one region (usually in developed countries and in big cities).

Let’s say that you are based in Denmark and that the sweepstake is limited to US people.  You know that you can’t “bid” on sweepstakes where the prizes need to be physically sent to your home address – however electronic gifts (amazon gift cards, coupons, …) are perfect for you since all you get is an electronic code that can be redeemed online…

If only you could pretend that you are a US-based person. Bling bling… VPN is your solution. Have your online e-mail address ready, choose a VPN solution, launch it, then enter the sweepstake – if you won, the instructions for redeeming the prize will be sent to your e-mail address…

Those are only a few ideas for using a VPN service creative, now, tell us how you use a VPN service in the comment section.