Anonymous browsing on the Internet is not only for those who have something to hide. Everyone has a right to online privacy, and a VPN is the recommended solution for hiding our IP address. CyberGhost is one of the best and easiest to use Free VPN services to browse anonymously.
Unblock any international website, browse anonymously, and download movies and Mp3 with complete safety with CyberGhost, just for $2.75 per month:
Who is CyberGhost
CyberGhost is an expert in the field of Internet anonymity, networking, and even net lobbying. The CyberGhost VPN project began in 2004 in Germany, but since 2011 CyberGhost S.R.L. is based in Romania. The reason is that Germany passed laws for data retention in 2010, forcing German-based ISPs and internet related services to keep detailed logs of their clients' browsing history. The Romanian Constitutional Court decided very clearly against data retention in 2009.
Apart from the VPN and Web Proxy services, the company actively raises awareness about online privacy. CyberGhost has created a Pro-privacy bootcamp program. The company is investing €100,000 of its profits to fund startups with "products and services that are designed to enable secure, encrypted communications, private browsing, and secure file-sharing".
CyberGhost has nearly 550 servers in 30 countries. The connection to the servers uses the unbreakable AES 256-bit encryption, and they support unlimited bandwidth and unlimited traffic on all their plans, including the free plan.
CyberGhost does not keep any logs regarding our real IP address, the assigned servers, or the login/logout times.
Theoretically, CyberGhost VPN can be used for illegal activities, but the same can be said for a knife. VPN services are invaluable in cases where anonymous browsing can literally be a matter of life and death, for people like civil rights activists, political rights activists, and journalists in oppressed states and regions. CyberGhost won't restrict or monitor their services in any way, to ensure their privacy, safety, and freedom of all their users.
How to browse anonymously with CyberGhost
There are two ways to browse anonymously using CyberGhost, through their VPN and their Web Proxy service.
Browse anonymously through the Web Proxy
The Web Proxy is the best solution if we occasionally need to browse anonymously - if, for instance, we want to watch a YouTube video that is not available in our country.
The web proxy service doesn't require an account or signing in. We just visit
http://www.cyberghostvpn.com/en_us/proxy
and scroll down to the proxy browser.
We can select between just three servers, but it's quick and easy. We just paste the URL we want and press Enter. That's all there is to it.
An easy way to test it is to select google.com, which will automatically redirect to the German version for the respective server.
The disadvantage of the web proxy, apart the much lower selection of servers, is that it is confined to the browser. We cannot use this service for any other application, such as a non-browser online game or torrent client. For that, we need the full VPN service.
Browse anonymously with the VPN service
Using the VPN service requires a bit more work, as we need to download and install the VPN client before we browse anonymously.
For all this "trouble" we are rewarded with a choice of servers much closer to us - and, thus, significantly faster. We are also gaining anonymity for the whole operating system and applications.
First we go to CyberGhostvpn.com and select a plan.
Selecting the Free plan will download the latest version of CyberGhost VPN client. The installation is straightforward, and will not attempt to install third-party toolbars or unwanted applications.
If we don't have .NET Framework 3.5, the installer will prompt us to download it.
After the installation, the app will start automatically...
...and show our current location and IP address.
If we just want to browse anonymously, we click the big button, and CyberGhost will automatically select the fastest available server.
With the free plan, there are certain slots available, and a queue. All free users are automatically disconnected after three consecutive hours, to make room for new free users.
Don't let the seemingly large number scare you, less than one minute later we were up 300 spots...
...and within three minutes we were connected.
Of course, we can select a simulated country, to connect to the internet with that country's VPN.
The countries with a star are available for paid plans users only, but it still leaves 15 countries available for free members, among which are the US and the biggest European countries.
Unfortunately, for users living in Asia, CyberGhost is grossly underrepresented. There are no servers e.g. in China or India, and all of the Asian servers (in Hong Kong, Japan, Russia, and Singapore) are for premium members only.
We can also select a particular IP address. As with the countries, the starred servers are only available for premium users. The servers with an exclamation mark won't support P2P, and all of the servers for the free members have P2P blocked.
Last but not least, clicking on the settings gear, we can select whether CyberGhost will start automatically with Windows and connect on startup.
We can also set up the anti-fingerprinting options, changing our browser version and language, as well as the OS version visible.
How fast is CyberGhost VPN Premium for Torrents?
The ability to browse anonymously is great, but a large number of VPN users are interested in safe P2P download. Using the premium version of CyberGhost, we downloaded the latest Linux Mint torrent, with a size of 1.5GB, using a premium French VPN server that allows P2P. Our client of choice was qBittorrent.
The download speed using the VPN was a respectable 1.4MB/s.
Without the VPN, we got an average of 1.7MB/s.
The 0,3MB/s difference is hardly significant for a safe download through the VPN. Of course, downloading a Linux distribution ISO is always safe and legal, but you catch our drift.
Can we truly browse anonymously with CyberGhost?
A VPN is excellent in protecting our identity both regarding the websites we visit and in any Man-in-the-middle snooping, in which case somebody is eavesdropping between our PC and the websites we frequent.
If however there is any spyware or keylogger installed on our system, a VPN service won't help us. So we must always have an updated antivirus suite, and do frequent scans with a malware scanner, such as MalwareBytes.
How did you like CyberGhost?
Did you find it easy to browse anonymously with the CyberGhost web proxy and VPN? Do you prefer another VPN service? Leave us a comment.
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