Before going further and talk about VPN/antivirus protection here is a useful tip: regularly backup your data! As mentioned above there is no solution that adequately protects you while connected to the Internet. That is why you should backup your private information regularly (at least once a month) and keep the backup files offline, on DVDs or external hard-drives.

Why do you need Antivirus programs/Anti-malware protection?

The question is not whether you need an antivirus software, it’s whether you can afford not have such protection software installed.

You have probably heard about the recent Wannacry attacks. The malware encrypted the data from tens of thousands of computers from all over the World. And the unlocking key was “only” $300 payable in Bitcoin. An earlier version, named WeCry asked users for 0.1 bitcoin (currently worth $259) to unlock files and programs.

According to a recent study, an individual is the target of a ransomware attack every 10 seconds. That is why you need to have an antivirus/anti-malware/anti-ransomware installed on your computer.

Why do you need a VPN?

Using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a must when it comes to online security. Browsing the Internet using unsecured public WiFi networks or even Wi-Fi networks other then the one from your home may be a mistake. A Wi-Fi network can be easily spied, and your sensitive data (passwords, credit card info, browsing habits, and other personal information) can be stolen while browsing the Web. Even your ISP (Internet Service Provider) is able and probably is monitoring your Internet traffic.

By using a VPN, your Internet connection is secured, and all data that is leaving your computer is encrypted. Do I need to say more?

For your protection: VPN and antivirus/anti-malware

Nowadays everyone that is connecting to the Internet should have antivirus and VPN solutions (Virtual Private Networks) installed. It is not something beautiful to have; it is a must. Hiding your IP address and keeping your data private is not an option.

ibVPN summer bundle offer

And now, here is an exciting proposition: antivirus and VPN bundle during the summer of 2017. ibVPN, one of the best VPN (in my opinion) on the market, has an extraordinary summer promotion: buy the annual plan for their UltimateVPN package and get the Bitdefender Total Security Pack 2017 for free.

Here is what you get from both products:

• ibVPN – UltimateVPN:

  • Fast VPN for all devices
  • Advanced security features: DoubleVPN, TorOverVPN, Proxy
  • Easy to use VPN software for PC, Mac, iOS, Android.
  • Advanced VPN protocols: Stealth VPN, Softether, SSTP.
  • Torrent tools: P2P servers, Socks5, Kill Switch
  • A long list of server locations.
  • ibDNS/SmartDNS

• Bitdefender – Total Security 2017:

  • Cross-platform anti-virus (mobile security included)
  • Effective anti-ransomware
  • Unbeatable malware detection
  • Privacy, anti-theft and data protection

Why do you I think this is a great offer?

Firstly, ibVPN is an excellent VPN service. I use them for more than seven years, and I am delighted with the quality of their service and the outstanding support.

Secondly, according to AV-Test, Bitdefender is one of the best antivirus solutions. It provides great Internet security with an excellent level of antivirus protection against a large variety of online threats. Plus, according to recent news, the Romanian security solution is actively fighting against CIA and other types of governmental hackers.

Thirdly, the price is right. For the regular price of the UltimateVPN package, annual plan, which is $58.06 you get the annual license of Bitdefender Total Security 2017 valued at $49.99 for free. It looks like a great summer offer!

What do you think?

How do you protect yourself while connected to the Internet? Do you regularly backup your data? Are you using VPN and antivirus solutions? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

What exactly is Heartbleed vulnerability and why is everybody so worried?

Watch the below video made by Zulfikar Ramzan, CTO of cloud security company Elastica.

To sum up, the OpenSSL protocol that secures a lot of websites can be tricked to provide data (personal info, credit card info, passwords, encryption keys) that should otherwise not be accessible. Further, if a hacker gets the encryption keys of a particular site, he/she would be able, at least in theory, to access all the secured info passed to that site. Just imagine what would that means if the target is a popular shopping site.

Should I change my passwords?

Back to the subject title: should you change your passwords and, more specific, the password to your VPN account or password used to secure the VPN connections.

As far as I understand, the chances that your passwords be compromised are slim, but “better safe than sorry.” It is possible that your VPN provider uses OpenSSL to secure its connections and at some point, a hacker might have access to specific private data including your password. As I said, it is not very likely, but you should change the password or passwords anyway. In case you have distinct passwords for the Client Area and the VPN connection you should replace them both.

VPN Providers Response to the Heartbleed Vulnerability

Heartbleed Reports – You probably heard about the recently discovered Heartbleed problem. If you are using a VPN to secure your internet connection and unblock restricted websites, you probably wonder whether your VPN provider was affected. VPN services that implement PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy) may not be affected.

Find out how VPN providers reacted to this crisis and how they are handling it.

April 8, 2014, Heartbleed Reports

AirVPN replaced on every part of the infrastructure the vulnerable OpenSSL versions and updated the internal SSL certificates. The official announcement is here.

BolehVPN patched the GUI versions and updated the BolehVPN-GUI to remove the threat. Read more here.

VikingVPN performed emergency patching to all VPN servers. More details here.

12vpn tweeted: “We’ve patched our web servers already. The VPN methods we use are not affected.“

GetCloak: “Key portions of the Cloak service were vulnerable to this bug. We have now patched all of our systems”. 

iVPN tweeted: “We’ve patched OpenSSL and reissued new 4096 bit RSA certificates across all servers.” – Recommended reading: Why is OpenVPN handshake key important?

April 9, 2014, Heartbleed Reports

5% of the TorGuard server clusters were found to be using the compromised version of OpenSSL. Read more here.

Identity Cloaker is safe. See more here.

SecureTunnel tweeted: “VPN servers & software are being evaluated and up updated where needed.”

HideMyAss site looks vulnerable.

Mulvad advises you to upgrade to the new client immediately.

LiquidVPN states that: “All of our OpenVPN servers have been patched and new private keys generated.“

TunnelBear on Twitter: “TunnelBear won’t let your #Heartbleed, we’ve updated OpenSSL, revoked and replaced our TLS certificates.”

IPVanish announced that they were not affected by the Heartbleed exploit. You may find more details here.

VyprVPN stated that it used OpenSSL 1.0.1e, which is vulnerable to the Heartbleed Bug, for OpenVPN connections. Hence, they are preparing updated versions of the apps that use non-vulnerable versions of OpenSSL.

April 10, 2014, Heartbleed Reports

PrivateInternetAcces announced that they had applied a patch to their servers in order update the OpenSSL. Proceed for more details here.

ibVPN updated its server network yesterday. However, the website is not affected. Find more info here.

blackVPN on Reddit: “Unfortunately we did find some servers that were vulnerable, so we updated all servers on April 8th as soon as we find out about the bug.“

HideIpVPN announced that is not affected by Heartbleed vulnerability.

StrongVPN patched all of our OpenVPN servers with an updated version of OpenSSL that fixed this vulnerability. Find more details here.

April 11, 2014, Heartbleed Reports

PureVPN remains secured from Heartbleed bug. Find more details here.

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.

The name of the service mocks the new Swedish Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) legislation which empowers copyright holders to get personal details of file-sharing users from ISP’s. The release of IPREDator is scheduled exactly on the same date when IPRED gets into effect.

IPREDator is a network service that makes people online more anonymous using a VPN. It will cost about 5 EUR a month. They say about their service: “the network is under our control. not theirs. the pirate bay likes and knows real optimism. and waffles.“

The service is still in beta

The service is available only for the first 3000 people on the beta-list. Gradually more people will be invited but right knows there are 180.000 (wow!) people in the queue. They estimate it will take about a month to make the service available for all of them. After that, the service will be public (i.e. everyone will be able to subscribe and use the service).

Why Pirate Bay VPN?

IPREDator comes in response to the introduction of Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) legislation which empowers copyright holders to get personal details of file-sharing users from ISP’s. The release of IPREDator was initially scheduled exactly on the same date when IPRED got into effect (1st of April 2009).

According to TorrentFreak, the IPREDATOR service would be more secure than other virtual private networks (VPN), by encrypting a user’s traffic stream. This way, it is theoretically invulnerable to interception by a local ISP or intermediate carriers.

“The weak link in any VPN/anonymity service is always their willingness (or otherwise) to hand over your customer data when pressured under the law. However, with IPREDATOR this should not be an issue since the service is promising to keep no logs of user activity whatsoever,” TorrentFreak said.

The Pirate Bay Trial: Defendants Found Guilty

On Friday, 17th of April, a court in Sweden found four members of the Pirate Bay guilty of breaking Swedish copyright laws and sentenced them to a year in prison and a $3.6 million fine. Learn about the Pirate Bay trial.

The four men – Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundström -were found guilty of having made 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file sharing via the Piratebay.org Web site. Warg and Neij are the founders of The Pirate Bay. Sunde is a programmer and a spokesman there, and Lundström offered technical services to the site in 2005.

The Pirate Bay and its lawyers will appeal the verdict, and the site will continue to function normally during the appeals procedures.

The legislation was based on the European Union’s Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED). During the first day, it was in force, Swedish internet traffic dropped by a third.

IPREDator Pros & Cons

We have compiled a list of pros and cons for the IPredator VPN service.

IPREDator Pros

• It works! IPREDator does what it says: provides total online anonymity and security. Suitable for torrents.
• The speed is great! Now that it seems to be stabilized, the service provides a fast online connection. As the servers are located in Sweden, that may vary, depending on your location.
• Works on iPhone
• All ports are forwarded
• Easy to install
• The price is acceptable (60 euro/year) compared to other VPN services.

IPREDator Cons

• Provides only Swedish IP. This makes IPREDator no suitable to unblock Hulu, Pandora and other sites that are restricted to users outside the US. The same applies to BCC iPlayer.
• Basic site and service. The site (too) simple and not very nice looking. No fancy design.
• Only support PPTP
• Limited use of iPhone due to its Swedish IP address(es)

IPREDator – Good or Bad?

Here, at How-to-hide-ip, there were some interesting, not favorable, comments regarding IPREDator. I’ll just cite Fausty from a comment on 7 VPN Services Launched in 2009:

Just to clarify, iPredator is NOT a new service. It’s just Relakks, with a new name stuck on top of it – as confirmed by Sunde after we caught them trying to pass it off as “new.” [..]

Additionally, Sunde has admitted that because the old Relakks network (which was abandoned, with customer funds disappearing, in 2008 by whoever owns it – they’ve never explained any of that) is built on PPTP proprietary VPN tools, that “IPREDator is very much a political statement more than anything else.” That’s right, this “privacy service” uses technology that’s so badly broken it can’t even promise to protect privacy! Sunde only made this admission after I demanded he justify how they could put forth the re-animated Relakks stuff as a viable “privacy service” despite the many flaws exposed in it.

What do you think of Ipredator released? Have you tried it? Is it a good service? Would you recommend to others?

Pirate Bay VPN (IPredator) alternatives

If you were not lucky to be on the beta list you may still use a VPN service.

There are plenty of good VPN providers that you can use. They offer excellent speed and connection reliability. Here are several such VPN services that I recommend at this time:

Another alternative is to subscribe to a VPN service that offers a free trial. You may find here a list.

>> IPREDator | The Pirate Bay Blog

1. Web Proxies

A web proxy is basically a website that acts as an intermediate between you and the site you visit. You enter the address/URL of the site you want to visit in a text box, press the Submit/Go button and then the proxy asks for the site/page to the webserver where the site/page is located. This way the site you visit is not able to log your real IP address, but the IP of the proxy.

This method is very useful to unblock sites like MySpace, Facebook, Orkut, etc., in schools or at work where such sites are filtered.

There are plenty of proxies you can use. Just google “free web proxy“, “unblock myspace“,  “unblock facebook“, etc. and you’ll get what you need. 

2. Proxies

The second solution involves some manual configuration. You need to set up your browser to use a certain proxy. The configuration is not difficult. Here is how to do it for Firefox, IE, Chrome, and Safari:

• Firefox 3.0: How To Manually Hide Your IP
• How To Manually Hide Your IP Using Internet Explorer 8
• How To Hide Your IP While Browsing Using Google Chrome
• How To Manually Mask Your IP Using Safari 3.x

Now, you need a proxy. There are a lot of sites that list fresh proxies, but finding a good one is a difficult task. Here are several sites where you can start looking:

• SamAir.ru
• Proxy4free.com
• ProxyList.net

3. VPN Services with PPTP protocol

The third option is to look for VPN services that use PPTP protocol, such that they do not require any software installation, just some Windows configuration (you may not have sufficient administrative rights to be able to do this). Here is how to configure Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Some VPN services that use the PPTP protocol are:

• HideMyAss
• ibVPN
• PureVPN

How to test it

If you want to be sure that you can successfully establish a connection before you purchase an account, you may use the following test credentials to log in:

VPN server: connect.swissvpn.net
Username: swissvpntest
Password: swissvpntest

Follow the setup guide for your operating system (see below) and substitute these credentials where it says to enter your “Username and password”.

Important! The test account can only be used to connect to www.swissvpn.net – but you may check the VPN indicator next to the logo (see screenshot below) to verify that your VPN connection was successful (you may have to click the Refresh button in your browser to see the logo).

How do I set up it?

Check the guide your operating system:

• Setup Windows XP
• Setup Windows Vista
• Mac OS X 10.2-10.4 | 10.5 (Leopard)
• Setup Fedora Linux
• Setup Ubuntu Linux

Are there traffic limits?

There is no limit on traffic volume within your access.

Pricing

You can get your Swiss IP address for $5 per month.

Swiss IP address alternatives

If you are not happy with SwissVPN you should know that there are many VPN services that offer access to Swiss IP addresses. The ones that I recommend are HideMyAss, ibVPN, PureVPN, NordVPN.

Have you tried this VPN or other VPNs that offer servers with Swiss IP addresses? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

>> SwissVPN site.

But let’s see first the advantages of using a VPN

A Virtual Private Network (commonly known as VPN) is a layer that allows you to connect securely to a remote server (or network) through an encrypted tunnel. That encrypted tunnel is created on top of the usual internet connection that you are regularly using. Depending on the implementation, the encryption can have many forms (header only, packet, etc.), and different protocols can be used based on the agreement between your computer (or network) and the remote network.

Reasons for using a VPN

Here are few reasons for using a VPN connection:

– For accessing your online bank account: there are few options here. Most of the time, your bank’s IT system will already come with security in mind. But they can only protect what they can control from their end. So as to add some layer of security, you may want to use a VPN that encrypts your internet connection,

– For securing your public Wi-Fi connection: we are now living in a connected world, and most of the time, you’ll be located in places where public Wi-Fi is available. Some cities allow you to connect to a Wi-Fi that they are providing, most hotels make Wi-Fi connections available for their guests, and airports usually have that feature turned on –  I am not even counting cybercafe and other pubs and public places. But Wi-Fi is also a goldmine for information thieves and hackers. indeed, everybody can connect to the same network, and chances are that there’ll always be a “smart” guy who’ll try to sniff the traffic that goes through a Wi-Fi connection so as to reuse that information later on. Tools exist for that sniffing purposes, and they are easily accessible.

Recommended reading: 7 Tips To Keep Your Laptop Secure While Traveling

– For overcoming some geolocation-limited online resources: those online platforms are becoming more and more popular. Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, BBC iPlayer, .. and the list goes on. A VPN connection is a perfect solution for overcoming those limitations. But another use is also about overriding some censorship that some countries are putting on some public online resources. For example, there were times where sites like Youtube were blocked from China. Here again, VPN solutions come in handy.

Our guesses on the reasons why you do not want to adopt VPN solutions

So, what is refraining you from using a VPN? It is only an attempt, but we think that most people don’t consider using VPN connections for the following reasons:

– Because it’s too cheap: most people believe that an affordable service may not be “worth” it. But there are serious VPN players out there that will tell you the contrary; the list includes HideMyAss, ibVPN (read our complete ibVPN review), PureVPN, Private Internet Access (read our comprehensive PrivateInternetAccess review), NordVPN or IPVanish.

– It’s too complicated to setup: well, I fully understand that the protocols behind VPN aren’t sexy enough. However, most of them install like a charm since they come with installers. All you have to do is to launch the installer and enter the credentials.

– Because you don’t care about it: well, I do not argue against that.

As you have seen, those are only guesses, and we’re sure you have some other reasons (or you may want to rephrase it differently).

What is refraining you from using a VPN? Let us know in the comments below.

Google Play is rolling out and given the awesome features it has gathered into one place. Well, it’s actually Google Market store, but they’re kind of re-branding it into Google Play. It’s becoming more and more interesting to get some apps from that marketplace.

The issue is that for some applications, if you are based in China, they just don’t show up in the search results, or you just can’t download and install them. Therefore, you need to find a way to unlock Google Play.

Unlock Google Play with a VPN service

So there are multiple options that you can try out: but let’s see how a VPN solution can be used. For this example, let’s use HideMyAss (in fact, you could use another VPN solution like ibVPN or PureVPN, but it’s just that I need to refer to one solution).

HideMyAss can be interesting in such a way that they provide you a 30-day money-back guarantee. This gives you some kind of insurance that they are trustworthy enough.  From the HideMyAss package, you can get a UK or US or Netherlands-based IP address: this is what you want to get for installing and running applications like Skype or Spotify from your China-based Android device. Now, it’s your call to choose if you want to directly go for a one-year contract, or if you want to choose the three months contract.

Access Google Play from China

So from here, you can do one of the following:

• either directly configure the VPN from your Android device: this is the most obvious way of doing things. HideMyAss has a good setup howto document for configuring it on an Android device. Moreover, we’ve covered it on some how-to-hide-ip articles.
• or configure the VPN on one of your computer (that is running the VPN), have the applications installed from Google Play then have Google Play automatically install the same application on the Android device that you own (that you should have added to your Google Play account)

Please note that you only have to use this VPN workout for some specific applications that aren’t available in China. Anyway, since it’s easy installing a VPN on your Android device, and since it is cheap, why not use it for some other purposes like playing online games with your Google Plus friends, or listen to music that some of your Google Plus friends would have shared with you. Those are new horizons that you can open once you use a VPN solution with your China-based android device.

Conclusion

As you would see, being based in China doesn’t mean that you can’t access all the internet resources that are available to some other users. You just need to have the right tools and know-how to use them. One of the major tools that you should consider when unlocking Google Play is the use of a VPN solution. As I told earlier, I chose HideMyAss for this case, but you could also use another VPN solution (ibVPN has great solutions too).

P.S: I’ve been told that there’s another way around this issue if you are in China: all you have to do is put a US-based SIM (or UK-based, or whichever non-blocked country) into your Android Phone, then just connect through Wi-Fi (not 3G or anything else). I haven’t personally tested it, so if some of the readers could test it from China and tell us the result, that would be nice

We’ve written a lot on this blog with regard to the usefulness of a VPN connection. To sum up, it helps you “hide” behind another IP address while keeping the connection encrypted. This is specifically useful for accessing geo-location-limited online resources like Hulu,  Spotify or some online TV shows. Indeed, VPN is some “secret” weapon for overcoming those geolocation limitations – and they work pretty well.

VPN disconnects – An unpleasant surprise

However, for those experienced VPN users, they have surely noticed that, from time to time, VPN connections are cut-even though your internet connection isn’t. This can lead to the tricky situation since you may still be surfing some restricted online resources, thinking that you are protected behind a VPN- which isn’t the case anymore.

So let’s see first some reasons why those VPN connections can be cut. In fact, there can be multiple reasons to that, here are the most usual ones:

• You’ve got a bad internet connection between your computer and the VPN tunnel. This may happen if your internet connection isn’t steady enough. One rule of thumb is that, whenever possible, you chose a VPN endpoint that is close enough to your computer. For example, if you live in China, and that you have to choose between a VPN that ends in London or in Los Angeles: chances are that you’ll have a better connection by choosing the London VPN endpoint. Well, I’m oversimplifying things here, but one thing you have to remember is that what actually matters when it comes to evaluating how close  VPN endpoint is by counting the number of hops between your computer and VPN endpoint. It’s not about measuring geographically the distance
• Your internet connection is overloaded: if that’s the case, then it may happen that some of your VPN packets can’t go through. This may happen under, at least, two conditions: you have some applications on your computer that are eating all the bandwidth (think of P2P applications and downloads), or your internet link is saturated (check with your internet service provider if they’re fair enough to tell you the truth :).

How to handle VPN disconnects

Now let’s see some options that will help you handle those VPN connections outages. Most serious VPN providers come with an app that has the “VPN autoconnect” feature. HideMyAss VPN and PureVPN, for example, come with that feature enabled. I’m sure there are other VPN solutions that exist out there who implement that feature too. But the purpose of this article is to show you some solution is your chosen VPN solution doesn’t come with that feature.

Now, it would be great if a “program” monitors the VPN connection for you so that it stops your connection and reconnects if your VPN connection is cut. And that’s what the opensource solution VPN Lifeguard do. VPN lifeguard is a Windows program that can help you specify some programs that should only be launched provided that a VPN connection is established. There are few caveats though to VPN lifeguard: it doesn’t support OpenVPN, and it has to be run in administrator mode.

If you are on a Linux system, you may want to try VPN Auto-connect for Linux. I haven’t yet found a similar solution for Mac, but if some of the readers know some, feel free to mention it in the comment section.

Conclusion

VPN disconnects can and will happen to every user. It depends on the VPN service how they are handled. The best case is provided by services that constantly monitor the VPN connection and, in case, it drops the app immediately tries to reconnect to the same server or another one. This is the VPN autoconnect feature.

For once, let’s take some sidewalk in this article and consider one issue that most of our users are facing.

Considering that most of the readers of this blog are located in places where they have to do some tricks – by using VPN services like (HideMyAss, ibVPN, NordVpn or PureVPN are great options, by the way) – so as to access some useful online resources (Hulu, Netflix, iPlayer of BBC, Spotify, and so on and so forth), I thought it’d be interesting to do some extrapolation and see how far we can go with this trick. Learn about buying online from unsupported countries.

So what is the issue we want to address here? It’s pretty standard: let’s consider the guy that lives somewhere in a remote country that don’t have access to “common” things in developed nations, but who want to purchase something online.

What are the obstacles?

Let’s say the guy lives in Madagascar. Well, you can take any country that has the same environment, you get the idea: is an island (not a movie, BTW)  that don’t usually get access to services like Spotify (although I wrote an article earlier showing how I could access it from here). Moreover, considering that I want to buy some physical products online, chances are that the vendor doesn’t ship to this country.

First of all, depending on the online resources that he wants to access, it may happen that the same online resource is only available to people who are physically located in the US (for example).  So he has to find a way to access the online resource first.

Now, assuming he found a way for accessing the online resource (more on that on the following paragraph), he still has to provide a US-based address to ship the product to, then have that same product shipped to him in his own country.

Finally, the chances are that buying online isn’t as evident as it may seem from where he is.

Some solutions (although limited)

Let’s start with the easy one: access to the online resource. In fact, this is easy to solve since, with a VPN solution, he can pretend to be browsing from a US-based city thereby allowing him to overcome the location-limitation. It has a wide range of articles dealing with how to apply that solution.

Now when it comes to telling the vendor where to ship the product, the chances are that it can only be shipped to a US address. But here again, there are a lot of services that allow you to send and forward your products. Those usually are paid services but, solutions exist. You have to Google a bit and find such answers. You can even rent a US-based address and manage the emails online. The “only” requirement is that you send to the service provider a notarized proof of your country’s residential address – but that’s not difficult to have.

Then comes the online payment: more often than not, paying via Paypal should be possible from the country you are based in. At least, some banks will allow him to have an international Visa card that can then be associated with a Paypal account from which he can proceed to payment. In such cases where Paypal isn’t an option, you can still fall back to other solutions like moneybookers.com that is becoming more and more integrated into e-commerce sites.

Conclusion

As I told in the introduction, I’m going a bit sidewalk in this article, but I think this topic addresses an actual need from the readers of this blog. Now, the usual thing: your turn now, wanna share how you do it from your own country?

Feel free to add to the comment section and let us know about your “buying online” experience.