Say Goodbye to SMS: The Best Google Hangouts Alternatives

On May 22, 2017, Google Hangouts will lose carrier-based SMS (text messaging) integration. If you currently use Hangouts as your default SMS app, that means you also need a Hangouts replacement.
But the best replacement app depends on your needs.

Why People Used Hangouts

For a while, Hangouts seemed poised to be the iMessage of Android. Hangouts came as the default SMS app on some devices, and others voluntarily made it their texting app. Unfortunately, it just never caught on.

Now, with Hangouts moving towards the corporate scene and away from the consumer side of things, Google has decided to remove the SMS integration. That means no more sending or receiving texts (from your carrier-supplied number) using the Hangouts app.

If you connected Hangouts with Google Voice and use that integration to get free outgoing and incoming SMS messages from your Voice number, you’re in luck. That feature isn’t being killed… yet. But with the revitalization of the Google Voice app, its death might be on the horizon, so why not jump ship early? Google Voice Gets an Update and Is More Useful Than Ever Google Voice Gets an Update and Is More Useful Than Ever Google Voice, long thought abandoned, was just revived by 
Google. Here's what's up with Voice and what you can expect to see in the revamped apps. Read More For one reason or another, it’s probably best for most folks currently using Hangouts to make to other apps.

Backing Up Hangouts Data

Before you start using another service, you should back up your Hangouts data. Hangouts isn’t getting killed off, but you may want to backup your data anyway if you’re planning to leave the service behind. Thankfully, it’s dead-simple.
If you use Hangouts for SMS, this has to be done in two parts.

Part 1: Hangouts-to-Hangouts Messages

Simply navigate to Google Takeout (preferably on a desktop/laptop). Deselect all of the services that you don’t want to back up. Then choose Done from the bottom left of the screen.





On the next screen, the defaults should work for almost anyone. Choose Create archive to backup your data. If you use Hangouts for SMS messaging, this will only save your Hangouts-to-Hangouts message, but not your SMS messages.





Google stores Hangouts chats as JSON data. On the downside, I am not aware of any chat app that can currently important this data.

Part 2: SMS Messages

To back up all of your SMS messages, we recommend using SMS Backup & Restore. If you’ve been using Hangouts as your default SMS app, this will save all your SMS messages, but none of your Hangouts-to-Hangouts messages. How to Delete, Back Up, and Recover SMS Text Messages on Android How to Delete, Back Up, and Recover SMS Text Messages on Android If you need to delete, backup, or restore text messages on Android, this article has you covered. Read More
You can then restore your SMS messages to whichever app you decide to migrate over to.

Website — Google Takeout
Download — SMS Backup & Restore

If You Need an SMS Replacement App

If you used Hangouts as an SMS app, you can replace that function with the stock Android SMS app: Android Messages. Android Messages offers a drop-in replacement for Hangouts. For most newer devices, the app comes pre-installed. On older Android devices, you can simply install it from the Play Store.





However, if the stock app isn’t what you crave, Facebook Messenger offers a compelling alternative. Not only does it centralize your SMS conversations, it also aggregates Facebook chats.

There are also a ton of other replacement SMS options for you in the Play Store, ranging from the simple to the feature-packed. Text Better with These Alternative SMS Apps for Android Text Better with These Alternative SMS Apps for Android Don't like your default SMS app? Try a new one! Read More

Download — Android Messages (Free)
Download — Facebook Messenger (Free)

If You Want Free Wi-Fi Calls and Texts

If you used Hangouts integration with Google Voice, you got free SMS messages and phone calls from your Voice number. If you can see the writing on the wall for Voice integration in Hangouts, you can just go ahead and download the new updated Voice app.
This will allow you to text and check your voicemails from the Voice app, but unfortunately, Voice still doesn’t have a built-in dialer.





On Android, that means that Voice uses your default dialer app — but on the desktop, that means that you still need to make and receive calls through Hangouts. Hopefully they’ll give Voice its own calling feature independent of Hangouts soon, but for now, users are kind of forced to be split between the two apps.
If you’re fine just waiting until Google officially kills Voice integration with Hangouts, though, you can just leave it integrated and continue as normal.
Or, if you find Google’s fragmented messaging strategy too irritating to deal with, try Talkatone.



Not only does it handle calls and SMS for numbers based in the United States, it also comes with a free phone number — provided that you register the app.
Another service, GrooVe IP, offers most of the same excellent services and features as Talkatone. The difference is in their pricing structures. While both offer ad-supported free versions, Talkatone’s in-app pricing runs for $1.99 per month. GrooVe IP charges a one-time fee of $6.99 for the pro version.

If neither of those work for you, try one of these alternatives for getting a free U.S. phone number. No US Phone Number? No Problem – Best Free Apps for Calling to the USA No US Phone Number? No Problem – Best Free Apps for Calling to the USA With these apps, you get your very own American phone number that you can use from anywhere in the world. Read More

Download — Google Voice (Free)
Download — Talkatone (Free)
Download — GrooVe IP (Free)

Temporary Phone Apps

If you want an anonymous alternative to Hangouts, considering trying a temporary phone app.

These apps provide a temporary phone number along with SMS and calling capabilities. You also get the benefit of concealing your identity. Most people use temporary phone apps for conducting Craigslist or eBay transactions. For those interested, we’ve covered 5 Apps for Getting a Temporary Burner Phone Number 5  anonymous messaging apps and reasons to get a burner number.Apps for Getting a Temporary Burner Phone Number If you need a temporary or second phone number, you should download one of these burner apps. Read More

The text messages and calls don’t cost much, and they consume data rather than your phone’s minutes or SMS allotment. There are two main options you might want to try.

Burner

Burner (its name derives from “burner phone“), provides users with a temporary phone number with unlimited calls and texts. It does cost quite a bit at $5 per month, but as such a reliable app, it could be worth it. Sick of the NSA Tracking You? Burn Them with a Burner Phone Sick of the NSA Tracking You? Burn Them with a Burner Phone Sick of the NSA tracking you using your phone's positioning coordinates? Prepaid phones known colloquially as "burners" can provide you with partial privacy.

 Read More

Hushed

Like Burner, Hushed can create anonymous and temporary phone numbers. It also includes a texting plan. Hushed offers several tiers of prices and services. But you can try the service out for free. I personally prefer Hushed — but the Burner app is just as good.
Download — Hushed (Free)
Download — Burner (Free)

Get All Your Messages in One Place

For those of you who use Facebook Messenger, SMS, and Whatsapp, you’re in luck. You can get all your conversations dumped into a single app: Disa. Disa’s developers intend to plug additional chat services into their app later.





Unfortunately, you still pay for SMS. Had it included interoperability with a VoIP app, such as GrooVe IP or Talkatone, it could entirely replace Hangouts (in fact, it’d be better than Hangouts). But for now, it’s just a flexible cross-platform instant messaging service.
Hopefully sometime in the future, Disa might offer a plugin for a VoIP client, and that would make it the ultimate chat app.
Download — Disa (Free)

What’s the Best Hangouts Replacement?

Right now, no perfect Hangouts replacement exists. Fortunately, if you’re done with Hangouts, most of its features can be found in other apps.
If you need a new SMS messaging client, try Android Messages. If free SMS capabilities are your thing, try out Talkatone. And for those who need a temporary number, try Hushed.


Source: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/goodbye-sms-best-google-hangouts-alternatives/

Inside the Dark Web

The Dark Web is supposed to be the Internet's seedy back alley. But the real Dark Web is a lot more complicated than that. From TOR to the Silk Road and beyond, we investigate.

If our popular culture is to be believed, most people assume there's a place online where the worst of the headlines you read about drugs, money laundering, murder for hire, and vast child pornography rings are born. It's called many things, though "Dark Web" is the most dramatic.

Although it's true that this Dark Web exists, it's much larger and more diverse than merely these illegal activities. What's more, the same technology that makes it possible for such marketplaces to operate in secret is also protecting political dissidents overseas and hiding everyday Internet traffic from surveillance. It may be that this digital back alley is the path toward a more secure Internet.

The World of Webs
Most people take the Internet at face value, but what most of us interact with is really just a slice of the information available called the Surface Web. To get to the Dark Web we have to go deeper, away from the world of standard Web addresses and onto the anonymity network called Tor. When you click on a link in Google, you're connected with the target information fairly directly. Someone accessing the same site while connected through Tor would have their request bounced randomly through volunteer computers called nodes before exiting Tor and arriving at the site, making their online movements much harder to track.

Tor can be used to access sites on the Surface Web, but servers can also be assigned special addresses that can only be reached within the Tor network. These are called hidden services, and when we're talking about the Dark Web, we're mostly talking about these sites. Of course, there are other services to hide online activity and even host hidden websites, but Tor is perhaps the most well known and well established.

Surprisingly, the onion routing protocol that powers Tor was originally developed by the U.S. Department of Defense. Tor is now a volunteer-run nonprofit operation, but it makes no secret of its roots. A page on Tor's history reads: "[Onion routing] was originally developed with the U.S. Navy in mind, for the primary purpose of protecting government communications. Today, it is used every day for a wide variety of purposes by normal people, the military, journalists, law enforcement officers, activists, and many others."
Among those "others" are some of the Internet's ne'er-do-wells. Some malware authors, for example, have used Tor to hide communication with their creations. The anonymization of the Tor network is also attractive for people carrying out illicit online activities, such as selling and purchasing illegal merchandise. When you read about illegal websites selling drugs, weapons, and child pornography, it's a safe bet that those websites are hosted within Tor.

The Bad Dark Web
"A few years ago, if you tried to browse the Internet through Tor, it would be a very slow and very painful experience," says Kaspersky researcher Stefan Tanase (pictured). As is often the case with digital security experts, speaking with Tanase and his fellow Kaspersky associate Sergey Lozhkin required a phone call from the PC Magazine office in New York to Bucharest and Moscow. That part of the world produces huge amounts of spam, malware, and cyberattacks, but just so happens to also produce some of the best minds in digital security in almost equal proportions.

Tanase and Lozhkin have a unique perspective on the hidden ecosystem of the Dark Web. Although the Surface Web has search engines to index its contents and connections, there was no map of the Dark Web on Tor. Tanase and Lozhkin set out to create one.
"We started with a list of known hidden websites hosted within [Tor], so we've been crawling, accessing these websites and looking for links to other websites," says Tanase, describing their process of mimicking Google's approach in mapping the Surface Web. Though the number of hidden services on Tor is relatively small compared with the Internet at large (Tanase describes it as containing "thousands but not tens of thousands of websites"), the researchers say the Dark Web will remain a bit of a mystery, even after their explorations.
"There are a number of sites that go offline every day and some that are available for months or weeks," says Lozhkin. "In the next few hours, the sites with the same content can be available on a completely different address." The relative difficulty in simply finding hidden services, in addition to the anonymity provided by Tor, feeds the Dark Web's aura of mystery. Not to mention the exclusivity of its illegal offerings.

But even that's changing. These days, you can download a specially modified Web browser from Tor that requires little to no technical know-how to use. The Dark Web is nearing drag-and-drop simplicity. There's even an officially supported Android client you can use to access Tor on the go. Using tactics similar to those of the Kaspersky researchers, search engines have begun to appear within the Dark Web over the last year or two. "They're like Google," says Lozhkin. "Search whatever you like. I dunno, malware, drugs, stuff like this, and get links right away."

This is what most people imagine the Dark Web to be: an electronic black market where anything is available. And the researchers I spoke with confirm that all that—and worse—is available on websites hidden within Tor. Drugs, guns, and even rhinoceros horn are for sale on the Dark Web, but those still require the physical exchange of goods. The Dark Web is, without question, far more dangerous when it comes to easily distributing illegal digital material, such as child pornography. In 2011, the Dark Web child pornography marketplace Lolita City made headlines when activists from Anonymous knocked the site offline and released information about its patrons. At the time, it was reported that the site hosted more than 100GB of sexual images of children as young as toddlers. When Eric Eoin Marques, the operator of a Tor-based webhosting service called Freedom Hosting (which hosted Lolita City and was also attacked by Anonymous), was arrested in 2013, the Irish newspaper The Independent wrote that Marques' customers used the service to share "graphic images [depicting] the rape and torture of prepubescent children."


How Can You Fight What You Can't See?
Andrew Conway works for Cloudmark, an antispam company that serves more than 120 major communications providers including AT&T, Verizon, Swisscom, Comcast, Cox, and NTT. When I met with Conway, he was sporting a denim outfit and white leather vest, complete with bolo tie. It's an outfit befitting his job, where he and his coworkers go toe-to-toe technologically with the criminal networks behind spam operations. He understands criminal networks, and how money flows through these groups.
Though he was dressed like a cowboy, Conway spoke with a gentle British accent. We discussed how the U.S. law enforcement managed to take down the black market website Silk Road. It was the embodiment of the Dark Web myth: a place where a few bitcoins could get you a fake ID, heroin, or even (allegedly) an assassin.

Silk Road, which was hosted as a hidden service within Tor, vanished from the Internet in October 2013, and its alleged operator, Ross William Ulbricht (who operated the site under the name The Dread Pirate Roberts), was arrested in short order. It's surprising, because the site appeared bulletproof for so long. Conway isn't so surprised the site has vanished. "There are many nation-states or individuals who have the resources to bring Tor down for a limited period, and quite a few who could do it permanently," he says. "Eventually one of them will get annoyed enough by something that Tor is doing and take action against it."
Lozhkin says that in the case of Silk Road and its successor, Silk Road 2, law enforcement probably didn't find a secret weakness within Tor. "They didn't do anything with the Tor network or architecture," he says. Rather, the Feds likely got what they needed from undercover agents.

Or maybe loose lips sank Silk Road's ship. The owners of Tor nodes, says Lozhkin, sometimes chat on hidden forums. "These guys, they like to talk, and what they talk can be used against them," he says. It's worth noting that, as of this writing, another spinoff of Silk Road called Silk Road Reloaded has reportedly appeared on an anonymous network called I2P.

"All the Tor nodes are simple websites, and every website can have a vulnerability," Lozhkin explains. "If the law enforcement find a [vulnerability] they can easily exploit it to get inside the server. If you get access to the server side you can easily identify its location."
In the case of Silk Road, sloppy mistakes almost certainly played a part. Tanase says Silk Road's operator was managing the server from an Internet café and connecting to that server directly, not through Tor. Ironically, these are the kind of simple mistakes that criminals frequently exploit in order to attack companies and individuals.

However law enforcement identifies the server hosting hidden, law-breaking websites, the next course of action is to physically take control of the server. "They usually get the warrant for monitoring the server first and try to extract the information from the server when it's still live to track the criminals," says Tanase. Does this mean that at least some percentage of illegal hidden websites is being operated by law enforcement? "Nobody knows," he says. "I'm always wondering if they're actually sellers [running the sites] or if it's a trap set up by law enforcement.

"But this is why services like Silk Road become so popular; they're like eBay of the [Dark] Web, and offer users the chance to give reputation to each other," Tanase continues. "Law enforcement has to work quite a lot of infiltrate these markets and achieve reputation."
Of course, there are far more exotic attacks to use to expose the machines serving up hidden websites within Tor. Tanase says that if a single entity were in control of the bulk of the Tor nodes, they could trace traffic through the whole system. "No malicious actor or agency can do this, but the more nodes you can monitor, the greater the chances," says Tanase. As of this writing, there appear to be approximately 6,500 Tor nodes.
Tanase and Lozhkin describe an even more audacious scheme to locate hidden services on Tor. It would require selecting all the IP addresses in a certain range—say, all the IP addresses within a country—and methodically flooding them with fake requests in a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. While that's going on, the attackers would carefully monitor the status of a hidden Tor website. When it went down or experienced a noticeable spike in traffic, they'd know they've hit on the right group of IP addresses.
All the attacker would need is some hint as to where the server might be located in order to begin the attack. That's exactly the kind of information that could be obtained from an undercover agent, or from stalking hidden forums where Deep Web operators chat. Pulling off attacks like this would require vast resources and the will to break into Tor. Conspiracy theorists can fill in their favorite nation-state or three-letter agency of choice. Of course, that assumes that whoever would attack Tor would allow it to survive.

To actually bring down Tor, Conway says he'd expect to see a large-scale DDoS attack against the few Tor nodes that exit back to the Surface Web. "As of this morning there are only 1,199 of them, and many are on consumer networks," he tells me. "A DDoS attack on those IP addresses from the regular Internet, without using Tor at all, would limit the ability of Tor traffic to pass through those nodes and render the Tor network unusable."
Even Tor has seemed dim on the future of hidden services. After the U.S. government seized and shuttered more than 400 websites (including Silk Road 2) in "Operation Onymus," an article appeared on the Tor blog that read, "In a way, it's even surprising that hidden services have survived so far. The attention they have received is minimal compared to their social value and compared to the size and determination of their adversaries."

The Good Dark Web
Those adversaries include law enforcement, but not always the kind that's involved in busting drug rings or prosecuting human traffickers. It's spies, the nation-states they work for, and the increasingly capable electronic expressions of force available to those states. That's because the same protection Tor provides to criminals can also be used to circumvent censors and nationally imposed restrictions on the Web.
Though it's U.S. law enforcement that most recently gutted Tor's hidden services, various branches of the federal government and DoD continue to support Tor financially. In 2014 it received funds from the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and the National Science Foundation. Previous donors include the Naval Research Laboratory and DARPA. It's clear that the U.S. government still sees value in Tor, no doubt in supporting this country's continued stated mission to promote free speech (and dissent) abroad. It's also possible that it's a handy, free, off-the-shelf tool for intelligence agents.

"One mark of human progress is the weight given to human rights," Conway tells me, citing Article 19 of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which describes the right to the freedom of opinion and the expression of those opinions, as well as the right to seek and receive information. "Yet for much of the world's population, the right to seek, receive, and impart information is seriously impaired. Tor is helping to support a basic human right. Many of our basic rights can be abused, but that abuse does not justify taking the right away from everyone."

I hear much the same thing from Tanase: "You cannot ignore the good users because there's some bad users." The Dark Web, he explains, supports a surprisingly diverse ecosystem of websites. "Online stores that are selling drugs or guns, personal websites, and just simple services that are providing secure communications."

Tanase continues, "Like any technology out there, Tor is double-edged sword. It has its good parts and its worst parts. It's up to us, security researchers, to try to clean it up, right? To make sure it's only being used for good stuff."


A GNU Dark Web
Without a doubt, 2014 was a banner year for terrifying digital security headlines. Concerns about NSA surveillance dominated public discussions for months, massive data breaches shocked and titillated the public, and the argument over net neutrality continued in a stymied U.S. Congress.
These are engineering, not political, problems for security researcher Christian Grothoff (pictured). He hopes to correct them with GNUnet, which he began in 2001 as a free-software, volunteer project to create secure peer-to-peer networking. Like Tor, it's designed with security and anonymity in mind; but unlike Tor, it does not require the underlying architecture of the Internet (TCP/IP) to function. TCP/IP lets anyone with the know-how inspect much of users' traffic, and it relies on central authorities such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages the Domain Name System. Because GNUnet offers a secure alternative to these services, it's easy to understand why Grothoff says it could "effectively reenvision the Internet."
"Explain to me, why does an IP packet have to have the source IP in the packet? To route it, we only need the destination," says Grothoff. "In Tor, we can bounce it around. Or we could have new protocol where it's already encrypted."

Grothoff says GNUnet is a mesh network where individuals use privacy-preserving name resolution instead of DNS lookups for greater security without the need for central authority. By its nature, it should resist the kind of widespread surveillance the NSA has been accused of, and prevent governments from being able to segment the Internet. In other words, GNUnet is dark from the start.
"It is not enough to anonymize the access; we have to decentralize the application logic of how and where we store data," says Grothoff. For him, GNUnet is the next stage of the Internet, and he invokes the military-funded pre-Internet computer network when describing it. "Like ARPANET, except secure and for civil society."

Grothoff has a healthy respect for Tor, which he regards as the best tool for people with an urgent need for anonymity today. But Tor, Grothoff says, is a bolt-on solution for an Internet whose structure does not take privacy into account.

"We used to say we need to write laws to reflect our ethics," Grothoff says. "These days, code is the law. That's an old quote by now. When we write code, we should write code that is ethical, and writing code is an engineering issue.

"My goal is to build, engineer, deploy a network where the technology reflects what a broad number of people can get behind," he continues. Grothoff says that, despite being in the works for more than a dozen years, GNUnet is still only for geeks right now. Although he certainly believes in the project, he has no illusions about its complexity. "We have made some progress but it's still not usable for most users, and I know that. There's some really hard issues remaining. I don't have all the answers today, but I have some good answers."

Should We Make the Web Go Dark?
In the process of writing this piece, I did traverse the Dark Web. I beheld the smoking ruins of Silk Road—now just a placeholder image left by U.S. law enforcement officials. I've seen a site that promises to kill the person of my choice for a few thousand dollars. I've priced out automatic weapons in bitcoins. I've seen links that seemed to promise underage pornography (but I didn't click on any of them).

It's disgusting, but a lot of it is elusive. Most of the links are dead, and many of the sites I can visit don't inspire the same kind of confidence that eBay or Amazon do. Though there's something spooky about the matter-of-factness of a site that claims to offer murder at reasonable rates, I don't know if any of this is real. Accessing a website that is only viewable while my traffic is bounced around doesn't necessarily mean that the site's owners—if they exist—can follow through on their promises.

What's more, the Surface Web isn't exactly a paragon of upstanding behavior. A cursory Google search will reveal thousands of sites devoted to violent and racist causes. It's almost impossible to visit a website without advertisers collecting your data, and loading a legitimate website can trigger the download of malicious software. That's not to mention mass surveillance from nations like the U.S., or countrywide censorship like what's seen in China or Iran.

That makes me wonder what the Internet would be like if it were more like the Dark Web. Our Web would, at least in theory, be free from state-sponsored censorship and more secure by design. A lot of what we take for granted in our current economy—the passive gathering of personal data by companies for profit, for example—would vanish. But capitalism adapts. So does law enforcement, as Silk Road demonstrated.
The Internet as we know it now is a far cry from the simple collection of labs and universities that were first linked together in ARPANET, but the underlying technology isn't so different. Reinventing the Web as a tool for communication, but also one with built-in privacy, doesn't seem like such a bad idea in today's world, where the Web plays as much a role in defining us as our jobs and haircuts.

Perhaps it's not surprising that, in this environment, Tor and the Dark Web are growing. The number of volunteer nodes through which Tor traffic is routed has steadily increased. When I ask Tanase if he thinks Tor and the Dark Web will ever eclipse the Surface Web in size, he says it's very unlikely but then adds, "Never say never. People want it."



Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2476003,00.asp

For Internet Privacy, VPNs Are an Imperfect Shield

When Congress voted to overturn online privacy rules last week, Steve Wilmot, a Los Angeles songwriter, reacted like many worried consumers: He looked into signing up for a technology service known as a virtual private network, or VPN.

The online privacy rules, which were set to go into effect this year and which President Trump fully repealed on Monday, would have required broadband providers like Comcast and Charter to get permission from customers before selling their browsing history to advertisers. Without restrictions, the companies can track and sell people’s information with greater ease.

A VPN was a natural service to consider in response. That’s because the technology creates a virtual tunnel that shields your browsing information from your internet service provider. So Mr. Wilmot researched VPNs in hopes of protecting his own browsing data.

“I don’t really want anybody to have any sort of access to what I’m looking at,” he said. “If anyone is going to profit off my privacy, I’d prefer it to be me.”
Continue reading the main story

But while VPNs are worth considering, they are an incomplete and flawed solution. For one thing, they often slow down internet speeds significantly. Some apps and services may also stop working properly when you are connected to a virtual network.

Still, VPNs are among several tools for better protecting your digital privacy. Here’s an overview of the pros and cons, based on tests of VPN services and interviews with security experts.

Why go with a VPN?

When you browse the web, a broadband provider helps route your device’s internet traffic to each destination website. Each device you use has an identifier consisting of a string of numbers, also known as an IP address. When you are on the internet, a service provider can see which devices you use and which sites you visit.

VPNs help cloak your browsing information from your internet provider. When you use VPN software, your device connects to a VPN provider’s servers. That way, all your web traffic passes through the VPN provider’s internet connection. So if your internet provider was trying to listen in on your web traffic, all it would see is the VPN server’s IP address connected to the VPN service.

“We provide you an encrypted tunnel from you to us,” said Sean Sullivan, a security adviser for F-Secure, a Finland-based company that offers a VPN called Freedome.

VPNs are especially handy when you are connecting to a public Wi-Fi network with which you aren’t familiar. For example, when you use public Wi-Fi at a cafe, airport or hotel, it’s often unclear who the service provider is and what its data collection policies entail. In this scenario, a VPN is highly recommended.

VPNs also have the ability to make it appear as though your device is connecting from a different location. So if you are in Europe, traveling to Spain from France, and want to stream content that is only viewable in France, you could connect to a VPN server whose IP address is in France.
Does a VPN have any downsides?

VPN services have their downsides, and the biggest one is speed degradation. Because your internet traffic passes through a VPN provider’s connection, you will likely see a dip in broadband performance.

Speeds will vary depending on the VPN provider’s infrastructure. In my tests with a Mac, download speeds dropped about 85 percent after connecting to F-Secure’s Freedome VPN service, and by 50 percent when connected to another VPN service called Private Internet Access. In other words, if you are downloading large files over a VPN, it will take much longer to accomplish those tasks.

Another drawback is that VPN services cost money. F-Secure charges $4.17 a month to use its service for a year on three devices, and Private Internet Access charges $6.95 per month or $40 a year on five devices. That’s not a lot of money, but broadband service is generally expensive, and tacking on a few extra dollars a month to use the internet more privately can be annoying.

In addition, some services may not work properly on a VPN. Netflix often blocks them to keep people from streaming content that is not licensed for their regions. In tests with Freedome and Private Internet Access, I tried connecting to a server in Mexico to stream the catalog of Netflix movies available there. With both VPN services, Netflix detected I was using a VPN and prevented movies from playing.

For VPN providers, this is a known issue. F-Secure’s Mr. Sullivan said that when services like Netflix block VPNs, they are probably “putting up a fight for Hollywood.”

Which VPNs are worth a try?

There are hundreds of VPNs on the market, and vetting them can be overwhelming.

Runa Sandvik, a director of information security for The New York Times, said that consumers should be scrupulous about reading privacy policies and selecting a VPN they can trust. That’s because a VPN service is also tied to an internet service provider, meaning a VPN provider could share your information with the service provider if it wanted to do so.

With that in mind, Ms. Sandvik highlighted F-Secure’s Freedome as a trustworthy VPN provider. The Wirecutter, a product recommendations site owned by The Times, picked Private Internet Access because it has the hallmarks of a trustworthy service, available at a low cost.

Based on those recommendations, I tried Private Internet Access and Freedome for my tests. Both products were easy to use: Just install an app on your smartphone, computer or tablet and hit a button to connect to a server. In the end, I preferred Private Internet Access because of its faster speeds.

 

What’s the VPN bottom line?

All things considered, VPN is only a partial solution for keeping your browsing data private.

Even if you hide your activities from your internet provider, web companies like Facebook and Google can use tracking technologies like cookies, which contain unique alphanumeric identification tags, to identify your activities as you move from site to site. Beyond that, web trackers often lurk inside ads.

“The real problem is ads are dangerous,” said Jeremiah Grossman, the head of security strategy for SentinelOne, a computer security company. “They’re fully functioning programs and they carry malware.”

If you are truly concerned about keeping your web browsing history private, Mr. Grossman recommended using a combination of a VPN and an ad blocker. His ad blocker of choice is uBlock Origin, a free piece of software. For those who would prefer not to block ads, there are tracker blockers as well — my favorite is Disconnect.

With VPNs, most people would probably be better off using them when it seems necessary — and turning them off when they are not needed. The slowdown in speed is the biggest negative and makes constant use impractical.

Many people would probably benefit from using a VPN in certain situations, like when they are connected to a public Wi-Fi network or are browsing sensitive websites. But for watching Netflix or sending emails with large attachments? Turn the VPN off.

For Mr. Wilmot, the Los Angeles musician, the slow speeds of internet downloading spurred by VPNs were a dealbreaker. In the end, he opted against getting one at all.

“If I don’t have lightning-fast internet 24 hours a day, it inhibits my workflow and affects deadlines,” he said. “I think I’m accidentally relaxing into that kind of ‘What can you do?’ mentality. There’s no good option.”

Email: brian.chen@nytimes.com; Twitter: @bxchen.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/technology/personaltech/vpn-internet-security.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fpersonaltech&action=click&contentCollection=personaltech&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0