Want a Free VPN for Public WiFi Hotspots?

Chris Pirillo Borders Coupons Windows XP SP3 Install Woes Have You Called an Internet Advertising Phoul on Phorm? Do Xbox Live Marketplace Games have Problems?Want a Free VPN for Public WiFi Hotspots?

an ad supported solution and requires your web browser to work. I tried Firefox 3 and Internet Explore 8, Beta 2 several times without success. I even tried re-installing HotSpot Shield, but still had no luck. It does come recommended by LifeHacker andChris Pirillo, so maybe you’ll have better luck. What other options do you have? In addition to searching for other Public VPN solutions, such as PublicVPN or Sonic.net, you can set up your own VPN solution. Of course this wont solve the problem of your ISP

an ad supported solution and requires your web browser to work. I tried Firefox 3 and Internet Explore 8, Beta 2 several times without success. I even tried re-installing HotSpot Shield, but still had no luck. It does come recommended by LifeHacker andChris Pirillo, so maybe you’ll have better luck. What other options do you have? In addition to searching for other Public VPN solutions, such as PublicVPN or Sonic.net, you can set up your own VPN solution. Of course this wont solve the problem of your ISP

Doh! No Linux VPNs?

Chris, If you use a EV-DO device you are fine, they can’t sniff your traffic. Its not like a “WI-FI” hotspot. My main internet connection is my Sprint EV-DO card as thats all i can get. Hamachi is very nice, me and some of my friends use it to play games over the internet w/o connecting to a public server.

Good article. Yes Hotspot Shield and Hamachi are VPN products. But they are VPNs for different purposes. Hotspot Shield is the VPN for the Internet. Hamachi is a VPN for your own private network. But this does beg the question. Are software firewalls that out there (Norton’s, McAfee, Windows Internal Firewall, MACOSX Internal Firewall) totally useless against Sidejackers?

Hey Chris. Just wanted to drop a line. As an employee of a major wireless company (not Sprint, but using similar tech as your sprint broadband card) I wanted to give you a heads up. With our wireless cards (and I would assume sprint uses something similar, if not the same), everything is encrypted with at least 128-bit AES (although, I could be mistaken, it might be 256-bit). From what I’ve read it’s never been hacked. Which, of course, isn’t to say that it’s any more secure than any other internet connection: just that if someone is snooping, it really shouldn’t be through the wireless connection. It would be somewhere farther on down the line.

Thanks for the awesome site Chris.

-J

as far as accessing my home computer remotely, I have used and had great success with the free software found at http://www.logmein.com. It’s simple and -very- secure… and best of all, -free-.

Hey Chris?

This is unusual for you – Hot spot shield installs unrelated software like Dealio Toolbar. Have you read their terms of use?

Wow, I had no idea of that security issue. I tought only websites where harmfull, not the actual connection :O

Thanqz for the info.

[...] Chris Pirillo – When it comes to accessing the Internet when you’re away from home, you never really know what you’re going to get. You have to stay secure to protect yourself. A friend of mine emailed me the other day, talking about this exact situation. He was traveling, and had to check his Gmail from an unsecured public computer. He apparently forgot to [...] read more [...]

I think it’s something that can definitely be utilized. In my opinion, they should be pre-installed with the driver that helps run built-in wireless!

That is a very good topic. I rarely connect my laptop to a public network, but when I do, I really try my best to be secure and do only what I need, then get off.

Speaking of keeping stuff logged in, I work at a school’s computer lab. I see students leave stuff logged in all the time. I have seen their online school work, Myspace, and I have even found someone’s bank account logged into once. When I find these, I just log them out and continue what I was doing.

Everyone should be careful what they leave logged in or what they access. You never know when you are being monitored in a public setting. Back to the school, we use a program called net support school to watch about 80 computers in our library. This program can see any screen, and see anything you type, including passwords. (you have to be intentionally looking for the passwords though). You usually cannot tell when you are being watched by these kind of programs.

This is why I hate using public computers for any reason. I try to carry my laptop with me wherever I go, and use that. I use the https, but have never tried it with VPN, however, I will try it out and see how it works.

-Artanis227

When it comes to connecting to a VPN client away from home, I’ve never had any luck. I’ll be sure and check this out. Thanks Chris. :)

I have been using AnchorFree for a few weeks. However I have had major problems after trying to purchase additional bandwidth. Put wimply, although I made the payment, it does not work. I have contacted both technical support and client compliants and have received zero response. Warning….do not purchase additional bandwidth!!!!

i will like to use your software for browsing coz here in my country we are suffering of charging i mean is very cost. i will like if you can send a site that i can activate sim card that comes from anywhere in this nation or world. i will appreciace if you cat solve this problem for me. am sure the activation sim card site is existing . please and please, just respond to my mail.
your sincerly
abbey q.

here in Nigeria to activate sim card is very critical coz if we call our custmer care they will say the soft were they are using to activate the sim card is not available so we are looking for a softwere that we use to activate the sim card by our self………………………………………………………………………………………….
………………..plz send a softwere that we can use to activate our sim card.

Hi Chris,

It’s great that you are trying to educate the people that need this info the most. Thank you!

I just wanted tot tell you that I use HotSpot Shield regularly. But I use it at home…

HotSpot Shield is a great way to use a VPN that gives you a temporary IP in the states, allowing me to watch TV on Hulu and enjoy music on SpiralFrog. It’s just a great way to avoid having to wait up to 4 or 5 years to see if a tv show or an itune download ever makes it across the pond.

Until entertainment suits start making their goods available to the rest of the world in a fair way I’ll be a pretend American with HotSpot Shield to get it!

Chris,

Hamachi is, and always has been a LAN VPN service. Meant to tie a remote end-user into another LAN or another PC to make it part of their own “LAN” (or private IP addressing).

Internet traffic is not shielded with Hamachi at all!

Means when proxy client re-uses the IP address which Hotspot network assigns for the VPN connection. VPN server doesn’t work with that. Did I get it corretly?

Hi Chris,
Here in Thailand there are more than 3,800 websites banned by the Government. In addition, many wireless ISPs actively block P2P and anything with the word “tracker” in it, as well as providing a piddling 512Kbyte download rate. It’s not even possible to checked tracked messages on forums because of this.
I’ve just installed Hotspot and for now it is working fine. It will be interesting to see if the ISP manages to block it. For now though it’s a great tip.
Cheers,
John
Now following your updates on Twitter too.

It doesn’t sound like Chris (or whoever wrote this) has a clear understanding of what a VPN is.

i used to use hotspot shield to get a usa ip address to watch shows on cbs and nbc etc…. it worked great but i got rid of windows and am now using Ubuntu (linux mint kde) anyone know of something that will do the same job for me in Linux? email me

if any one for any reason know how I can get a VPN settings for my iPhone so I can access some website from anywhere without my computer I have tried all I can please help me

Hamachi does not secure the local wireless LAN, it only allows clients to connect via secure tunnel, but non-Hamachi clients can still connect to and interact with Hamachi clients. This is not a full VPN service at all. you need to get your facts right before posting your advice on Hamachi; even the manufacturers do not suggest that it secures your wireless LAN. Please revise this page so as not to dupe others in missinformation.