Designed and developed by silicon valley company AnchorFree, Hotspot Shield is a software that protects private networks from being accessed by outside parties. When a person or an institution is in an unsafe network, Hotspot Shield will allow them to connect to a VPN or Virtual Private Network. It is interesting to note that this software was used in mass protests in countries such as Libya to block the government from accessing particular networks.
Hotspot Shield Overview and Features
As stated before, Hotspot Shield will protect the information in your system from being accessed by outsiders. Being one of the most popular VPN software in the world, Hotspot Shield has many features including:
- Free VPN Service. Hotspot Shield is a free protection service, but that comes with a price: it is ad-supported so you will see sponsors’ banners on top of the browser. If you want ad-free browsing you need to upgrade to Hotspot Shield Elite. Hotspot Shield Elite has some other features like being able to choose any country’s VPN from their extensive list and no Elite Payment Wall displayed when accessing sites.
- Unblocking of Sites. People on certain IP addresses can not access some websites for many reasons. One of the most usual reasons is that webmasters restrict the access to residents of certain countries. In other cases, an institution such as a school can block the access to certain websites for safety reasons. In any case, with Hotspot Shield you can solve this issue and access any site of your choosing.
- Protection When Connecting to a Public Wi-Fi Your online identity can be at risk if you use public Wi-Fi on a regular basis. What is also important to note is that every time you receive or send a file while being connected to a public Wi-Fi, other people who are also connected to it can have access to the file. Hotspot Shield will protect all of your information, including the ones stemming from financial transactions, files received or sent, passwords, etc.
- Surfing the Web Anonymously. Hotspot Shield will change your IPs location when you connect to any of its servers. You can connect to servers in the U.S. or other countries. There are many advantages of surfing the web anonymously. First of all, all your data is secure and not even the government will be able to locate you or trace you in any way. Hackers won’t have luck with you either. In fact, it is recommended that every time you surf the web, you do it this way.
- the free version does its job just fine
- security and privacy are top notch
- it is easy to notice if you are connected or not to the VPN
- elite version offers flexible payment options
- response times can get delayed as it usually happens with these types of products
- free version is ad-supported
- it changes some website by inserting additional coding
- it can modify your browser’s settings
Pros
Cons
Hotspot Shield is an awesome security software program. However if you are not willing to buy the elite version and are uncomfortable with the ad-ridden free one, we recommend you try Ultrasurf.
