IP addresses & online security

Your IP address works much like your physical home address, in that it acts as a way for people to easily find your exact location–except that with an IP address, it’s the exact location of your computer, right down to the latitude and longitude in some cases, rather than your house. Your IP address allows your computer to connect to other computers over the Internet; in essence, it’s vital for you to get Internet access, so that one set of numbers is exactly why you can binge watch Orange is the New Black on Netflix over a weekend.

It’s also how anyone else on the Internet can track you, especially if you’re using a Static IP address as most people are. This number never changes, and it can show information like what Internet Service Provider you’re using, what kind of router, and even what operating system you’re on. Hackers, surveillance systems, and even companies trying to directly target ads towards you can use this information for nefarious purposes, and if there’s anyone actively looking for your, having a public IP address makes their job a whole lot easier. Simply put, having an unsecured IP address can jeopardize your Internet security.

There are a few ways to protect your IP address and therefore make yourself anonymous online. Dynamic IP addresses are generally considered safer than static IP addresses, but SurfEasy offers you an even greater level of online anonymity than this by allowing you to change your IP address

PROTECTING YOUR IP ADDRESS WITH A VPN SERVICE

A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, acts as a secret path between your computer and the Internet, which encrypts all of your data, including your IP address, before you connect to the Internet. Once you’re online, you’re totally anonymous, meaning that you can’t be located by your IP address because it simply isn’t there.

Our VPN is also a no-log network, meaning that we don’t store your IP address when you connect to it. We also don’t log your activity, such as the websites you visit or the files you download, meaning that we don’t have any of that information and therefore can’t be asked to hand it over to any agencies at any point. It simply doesn’t exist on our network–meaning that your online activity is safe in our hands.

As well as protecting you from anyone collecting your data, SurfEasy’s VPN also allows for anonymous web browsing and total Internet privacy. And the best thing of all? It’s free to start! Simply create a Surf Easy account and get your free 500mb of secure Internet access on up to 5 devices today.

ULTRA SURF(FREE PROXY BASED INTERNETPRIVACY AND SECURITY)

UltraSurf is a freeware Internet censorship circumvention product created by Ultra Reach Internet Corporation. The software enables its users to bypass Internet censorship and firewalls using an HTTP proxy server, and employs encryption protocols for privacy.

CLIENT SOFTWARE

UltraSurf is free to download, and requires no installation. UltraSurf does not install any files on the user’s computer, and leaves no registry edits after it exits. In other words, it leaves no trace of its use. To fully remove the software from the computer, a user needs only to delete the exe file named u.exe. It is only available on a Windows platform, and runs through Internet Explorer by default, with an optional plug-in for Firefox and Chrome.

ULTRASURF SERVERS

The software works by creating an encrypted HTTP tunnel between the user’s computer and a central pool of proxy servers, enabling users to bypass firewalls and censorship. UltraReach hosts all of its own servers. The software makes use of sophisticated, proprietary anti-blocking technology to overcome filtering and censorship online. According to Wired magazine, UltraSurf changes the “IP addresses of their proxy servers up to 10,000 times an hour.” On the server-side, a 2011 analysis found that the UltraReach network employed squid and ziproxy software, as well as ISC BIND servers bootstrapping for a wider network of open recursive DNS servers, the latter not under UltraReach control.

UltraSurf is designed primarily as an anti-censorship tool, but also offer privacy protections in the form of industry standard encryption, with an added layer of obfuscation built in. UltraReach uses an internal content filter which blocks some sites, such as those deemed pornographic or otherwise offensive.