Accessing the Internet anonymously

Now that governments more and more want to enforce four-letter words like SOPA, PIPA & ACTA on us, you may just want to be 100% anonymous/untrackable out there every once in a while.
Or perhaps you simply want to appear to be online from a different country, to watch the latest Simpsons episode on Fox or listen to music via Pandora.
You could of course use a proxy site like Anonymouse, Proxy Browsing or Hide My Ass!, but that isn’t 100% foolproof and it only works within your browser.

Enter VPNtunnel. This Swedish company offers 100% anonymous access to the Internet. What they provide is not a simple proxy, but a full-fledged VPN. As their name suggests, VPNtunnel connects you via a Virtual Private Network to the Internet so that it appears you are online from the location of the VPNtunnel server (instead of your actual location). It is 100% secure and will also work with other applications (like Skype, Steam, µTorrent & Tribler) & protocols (like FTP, BitTorrent & VoIP).

NB: Only via Sweden you’re 100% anonymous! As they write in their TOS/Privacy policy:

1 – Sweden – In accordance with swedish law, we do not store any data at all on our swedish servers. In other words, on our swedish servers we are able to provide a maximum of personal integrity.
2 – The rest of the world – Due to other countries laws, when you connect to any server that is not swedish we will store ip and timestamp logs of when you login and logout of our service for 30 days.

Currently they offer servers in Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, USA, UK, Romania & Russia.
You can exactly specify in their GUI which application(s) on your PC should use the tunnel, and which ones should connect without. Another neat function is that you can specify that your connection should change IP address every 30 minutes, or even every 5 minutes.

Keep in mind what they state when it comes to illegal activities: ‘The user is not allowed to use the service in any illegal way. “Illegal” is to be understood as something that does not correspond with SWEDISH law’. The keyword here being ‘Swedish’, so as long as you don’t threaten to take candy from a baby, you’re probably safe. 😎

Various forms of payment are accepted and all give you access to the 1 plan they offer: unmetered access, 24/7/366 (it’s a leap year!). Prices are between €3.71-€5/month (about $4.87-$6.60/month), depending on how many months of service you purchase at once.

Check them out! You won’t be disappointed…

2 thoughts on “Accessing the Internet anonymously”

  1. Good call! 🙂

    It should also be noted that the Swedes signed the Data Retention Directive (aka Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending Directive 2002/58/EC). This will become effective on May 1st, 2012.
    According to the directive, member states will have to store citizens’ telecommunications data for six to 24 months stipulating a maximum time period. Under the directive the police and security agencies will be able to request access to details such as IP address and time of use of every email, phone call and text message sent or received.
    A permission to access the information will be granted only by a court.

  2. Harald Alvestrand

    Of course, the Swedish servers are subject to the FRA law, so any data that’s transferred through them to another country can be wiretapped by Swedish authorities without a warrant….

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

reduction