Most of the how-to-hide-ip online anonymity guide are already familiar with the VPN solutions that are available out there. Like most of us, there will come a time where your VPN provider will send you a subscription renewal reminder. Learn what you need to check before renewing your VPN subscription.
My experience with ibVPN VPN subscription
This just happened with my ibVPN subscription. They kindly remembered me that my annual subscription is about to expire and that an invoice to renew my annual subscription has been issued. Frankly speaking, it’s a great sales method: from a sales perspective, it’s easier to sell to a customer who already bought your service rather than trying to convince a new one – and I see nothing wrong with it.
But anyway, I’ve got some weird way of thinking, and maybe because I’m covering VPN solutions on this blog, I tend to reconsider every decision that I make when it comes to choosing a VPN solution. As a disclosure note, I am a fully happy ibVPN customer, and I fully endorse them. Just as a reminder, I went for the US+Canada option with ibVPN, especially because I actually needed to pretend that I am in either of those countries when browsing the internet.
Other VPN providers
But as I went through my research when trying to find something else interesting to write for How-to-hide-ip readers, other VPN providers also have interesting offers, especially HideMyAss. With ibVPN, they are great VPN solutions and what I want to highlight in this article is the fact that, depending on your needs, one provider may provide a much more interesting “package” than the other.
Things you need to check …
So back to the title of this article, the thing is to have a great understanding of what you want to achieve. As for my case, a year ago, when I needed to decide on the VPN solution, I knew I needed US and Canadian IP addresses for overcoming some geo-location limitations; I also knew that I didn’t need torrent support with my VPN package and finally, I wanted to be able to pay via Paypal (without exposing my credit card information). One year later, I am tempted to go for a VPN package that also includes UK IPs so that I can watch BBC iPlayer (they recently broadcasted great documentaries about my country 🙂
As of today, for example, with the introduction of OverPlay’s SmartDNS feature, this may be interesting to bypass geolocation with a simple trick at the DNS side of things. HideMyAss offers a free web proxy that may be interesting for some use (while I think it’s limited for serious people who want something that is more adapted to their actual needs). And with % 43OFF, HideMyAss is doing a lot of seducing to get my money to their accounts.
Now, if I look at StrongVPN, I kind of like the fact that they have packages that are tailored to my current situation. They have a feature on their website allowing you to chose the best VPN package for you based on your current locations. And for once they have a different pricing depending if you want to use PPTP only (which is cheaper), or if you want to use PPTP and OpenVPN (I’m not aware some other providers does this).
Conclusion
At the end of the day, I may end up choosing ibVPN again (or not). But chances are that I would opt for a different package than the one I chose one year earlier. The public offer for VPN services is changing a lot in a one year space. Why would I not consider those new (and usually more interesting) packages when it comes to renewing my VPN subscription?
What is your VPN provider and how many times have you renewed your VPN subscription? Let us know in the comments below.
