Hotspot Shield

Last updated
Hotspot Shield
Developer(s) AnchorFree
Initial release2008
Stable release
11.2.1 / Jul 14, 2022
Operating system Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, [1] Linux
Size 20.9 MB [2]
Available in English, German, French, Russian, Arabic, Persian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish
Type VPN
License Freemium [3]
Website hotspotshield.com

Hotspot Shield is a public VPN service operated by AnchorFree, Inc. [4] [5] Hotspot Shield was used to bypass government censorship during the Arab Spring protests in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. [6] [7]

Contents

Overview

Hotspot Shield is developed and operated by Pango (former AnchorFree Inc.), a company in Redwood City, California with offices in the Boston, and Ukraine. [4] [8] The first Hotspot Shield client app was released in April 2008 for Windows and macOS operating systems. It was expanded to include support for iOS and Android in 2011 and 2012, respectively. [9]

The Hotspot Shield client establishes an encrypted VPN connection with one of its supported public VPN servers, through which the user can connect to the Internet. The connection protects the traffic between the user and the server from eavesdropping, [5] [6] and the IP address of the client is not exposed. [10] While the service cannot make users completely anonymous on the Internet, it can greatly increase privacy and security. [11] Users can bypass censorship using Hotspot Shield by connecting to a VPN server located outside their country. [12] Both the client software and the service are freemium: the main features of the client app, as well as a number of public servers are available free of charge, but users have to pay to get additional features, which include the elimination of advertisements, antivirus protection, connecting to more servers and choosing the geographic location of the service to which they connect.

International use

Hotspot Shield has been used to bypass Internet censorship in countries with strict Internet censorship programs. [7] [13] During the Arab Spring protests in 2010, protesters used Hotspot Shield to access social networking tools to communicate and upload videos. [7] [10] Hotspot Shield was also widely used during the Egyptian protests and revolution in 2011, when the Mubarak regime cracked down heavily on access to social media sites. [14] In 2013, usage of Hotspot Shield increased in Turkey, in response to the suspected efforts of the Turkish government to censor social media and citizen access to international websites. [15] [16] In 2014, usage of Hotspot Shield increased in Hong Kong after the outbreak of the 2014 Hong Kong protests. [17]

In 2012, Hotspot Shield usage increased among Mac users in the United States and Europe, as 500,000 Mac users were infected by the Flashback virus. Hotspot Shield was used as a protection against the virus. [18]

Hotspot Shield was one of a dozen circumvention tools evaluated by a Freedom House-funded report based on user experience from China in 2010, which include Ultrasurf, Tor, and Freegate. [19] The tool is for free download. [20]

Critical reception

Hotspot Shield has generally received positive reviews by industry publications and websites. [21] [22] PC Magazine rated the software "excellent" and praised its status indicator, traffic encryption, connection speed at times and payment flexibility, but criticized the software's ad platform, website code injection, slowdown of overall response time and browser setting modifications. [23]

In August 2017, the Center for Democracy and Technology issued an open complaint to the Federal Trade Commission which they state "concerns undisclosed and unclear data sharing and traffic redirection occurring in Hotspot Shield Free VPN that should be considered unfair and deceptive trade practices under Section 5 of the FTC Act." [24] CDT "partnered with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University to analyze the app and the service and found 'undisclosed data sharing practices' with advertising networks." [25]

In February 2018, a security researcher discovered an information disclosure bug in the app that results in a leak of user data, such as in which country the user is located, and the user's Wi-Fi network name, if connected. [26]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proxy server</span> Computer server that makes and receives requests on behalf of a user

In computer networking, a proxy server is a server application that acts as an intermediary between a client requesting a resource and the server providing that resource. It improves privacy, security, and possibly performance in the process.

Deep packet inspection (DPI) is a type of data processing that inspects in detail the data being sent over a computer network, and may take actions such as alerting, blocking, re-routing, or logging it accordingly. Deep packet inspection is often used for baselining application behavior, analyzing network usage, troubleshooting network performance, ensuring that data is in the correct format, checking for malicious code, eavesdropping, and internet censorship, among other purposes. There are multiple headers for IP packets; network equipment only needs to use the first of these for normal operation, but use of the second header is normally considered to be shallow packet inspection despite this definition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open proxy</span> Proxy server accessible to any Internet user

An open proxy is a type of proxy server that is accessible by any Internet user.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freegate</span> Internet software utility

Freegate is a software application developed by Dynamic Internet Technology (DIT) that enables internet users to view websites blocked by their governments. The program takes advantage of a range of proxy servers called Dynaweb. This allows users to bypass Internet firewalls that block web sites by using DIT's Peer-to-peer (P2P)-like proxy network system. FreeGate's anti-censorship capability is further enhanced by a new, unique encryption and compression algorithm in the versions of 6.33 and above. Dynamic Internet Technology estimates Freegate had 200,000 users in 2004. The maintainer and CEO of DIT is Bill Xia.

Anonymizer, Inc. is an Internet privacy company, founded in 1995 by Lance Cottrell, author of the Mixmaster anonymous remailer. Anonymizer was originally named Infonex Internet. The name was changed to Anonymizer in 1997 when the company acquired a web based privacy proxy of the same name developed by Justin Boyan at Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science. Boyan licensed the software to C2Net for public beta testing before selling it to Infonex. One of the first web privacy companies founded, Anonymizer creates a VPN link between its servers and its users computer, creating a random IP address, rather than the one actually being used. This can be used to anonymously report a crime, avoid spam, avoid Internet censorship, keep the users identity safe and track competitors, among other uses.

An anonymizer or an anonymous proxy is a tool that attempts to make activity on the Internet untraceable. It is a proxy server computer that acts as an intermediary and privacy shield between a client computer and the rest of the Internet. It accesses the Internet on the user's behalf, protecting personal information of the user by hiding the client computer's identifying information such as IP addresses. Anonymous proxy is the opposite of transparent proxy, which sends user information in the connection request header. Commercial anonymous proxies are usually sold as VPN services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tor (network)</span> Free and open-source anonymity network based on onion routing

Tor is a free overlay network for enabling anonymous communication. Built on free and open-source software and more than seven thousand volunteer-operated relays worldwide, users can have their Internet traffic routed via a random path through the network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ultrasurf</span> Freeware Internet censorship circumvention product

UltraSurf is a closed-source freeware Internet censorship circumvention product created by UltraReach Internet Corporation. The software bypasses Internet censorship and firewalls using an HTTP proxy server, and employs encryption protocols for privacy.

Internet censorship circumvention, also referred to as going over the wall or scientific browsing in China, is the use of various methods and tools to bypass internet censorship.

Connectify is an American software company that develops networking software for consumers, professionals and companies. Connectify Hotspot is a virtual router software for Microsoft Windows, and Speedify is a mobile VPN service with channel bonding capabilities available for individuals, families and teams.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orbot</span> Free software project to provide anonymity on the Internet from an Android smartphone

Orbot is a free proxy app that provides anonymity on the Internet for users of the Android and iOS operating systems. It allows traffic from apps such as web browsers, email clients, map programs, and others to be routed via the Tor network.

AnchorFree is an internet privacy and security company that provides businesses and consumers with advanced technologies to enable secure and private web browsing. The company's flagship product is Hotspot Shield, a popular virtual private network (VPN) service and the top-grossing app for productivity in the Apple App Store. The company is led by David Gorodyansky, who founded the firm in 2005 with his friend Eugene Malobrodsky. AnchorFree is headquartered in Redwood City, California, with offices in Ukraine and Russia. Its most recent fundraising round in 2018 brought in $295 million, bringing total funding to $358 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lantern (software)</span> Internet censorship circumvention software

Lantern is a free internet censorship circumvention tool that operates in some of the most extreme censorship environments, such as China, Iran, and Russia. It uses wide variety of protocols and techniques that obfuscate network traffic and/or co-mingle traffic with protocols censors are reluctant to block. It also uses domain fronting. It is not an anonymity tool like Tor.

A DNS leak is a security flaw that allows DNS requests to be revealed to ISP DNS servers, despite the use of a VPN service to attempt to conceal them. Although primarily of concern to VPN users, it is also possible to prevent it for proxy and direct internet users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mullvad</span> Virtual private network provider

Mullvad is a commercial VPN service based in Sweden. Launched in March 2009, Mullvad operates using the WireGuard and OpenVPN protocols. It also supports Shadowsocks as a bridge protocol for censorship circumvention. Mullvad's VPN client software is released under the GPLv3, a free and open-source software license.

ExpressVPN is a company providing online privacy and security solutions, including a virtual private network (VPN) service and a password manager. Since September 2021, ExpressVPN has been a subsidiary of Kape Technologies, a company wholly owned by Israeli billionaire Teddy Sagi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proton VPN</span> Virtual private network provider

Proton VPN is a VPN service launched in 2017 and operated by the Swiss company Proton AG, the company behind the email service Proton Mail. According to its official website, Proton VPN and Proton Mail share the same management team, offices, and technical resources, and are operated from Proton's headquarters in Plan-les-Ouates, Switzerland. On June 17, 2024 the company announced that it will be transitioning to a non-profit structure under the Proton Foundation.

Outline VPN is a free and open-source tool that deploys Shadowsocks servers on multiple cloud service providers. The software suite also includes client software for multiple platforms. Outline was developed by Jigsaw, a technology incubator created by Google.[3]

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HMA (VPN)</span> Virtual private network service founded in 2005

HMA is a VPN service founded in 2005 in the United Kingdom. It has been a subsidiary of the Czech cybersecurity company Avast since 2016.

A virtual private network (VPN) service provides a proxy server to help users bypass Internet censorship such as geo-blocking and users who want to protect their communications against data profiling or MitM attacks on hostile networks.

References

  1. ↑ Hotspot Shield Free VPN
  2. ↑ Hotspot Shield
  3. ↑ Hotspot Shield Elite
  4. 1 2 "Company Overview of AnchorFree, Inc". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on April 9, 2010. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  5. 1 2 Empson, Rip (21 May 2012). "With Its Hotspot Shield Hitting 60M Downloads, AnchorFree Lands A Whopping $52M From Goldman Sachs". TechCrunch. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  6. 1 2 Levin, Dan (16 January 2010). "Software Makers See a Market in Censorship". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  7. 1 2 3 Greene, Rachel. "Arab Spring and Emerging Technology". CNN iReport. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  8. ↑ "About AnchorFree". AnchorFree. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  9. ↑ "News & Events". AnchorFree. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  10. 1 2 Messieh, Nancy (23 October 2011). "Hotspot Shield: A quiet hero for Internet privacy and security around the world". TNW. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  11. ↑ "I am Anonymous When I Use a VPN". goldenfrog.com. Golden Frog. Archived from the original on 2015-04-30. Retrieved 2015-02-24.
  12. ↑ Colao, J.J. "How To Thwart Hackers And Dictators With One Free Download". Forbes. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  13. ↑ "Hotspot Shield Free VPN Experiences 1000% Growth Surge in the Wake of Recent Turkish Unrest". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 25 June 2013.[ permanent dead link ]
  14. ↑ Koehn, Josh. "AnchorFree Opens Doors to Revolution". SanJose.com. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  15. ↑ Ballim, Evren; Sandle, Paul (6 June 2013). "Turks skip suspected censorship with Internet lifelines". Reuters. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  16. ↑ Acohido, Byron (5 June 2013). "Turkey citizens use VPN to air grievances". USA Today. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  17. ↑ "Hong Kong Protests Beating the Media Crackdown". Forbes. Retrieved 26 October 2014.
  18. ↑ "Mac virus a 'wake-up call', says CEO". CNME. 22 January 2013. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  19. ↑ "Leaping Over the Firewall: A Review of Censorship Circumvention Tools" (PDF). freedomhouse.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2023-12-28. Retrieved December 30, 2023.
  20. ↑ "Hotspot Shield". TechSpot. 2023-12-28. Retrieved 2023-12-30.
  21. ↑ "The best free VPN services of 2015 for UK users: access blocked sites and surf the web anonymously". pcadvisor.co.uk. PC Advisor. Retrieved 2015-02-24.
  22. ↑ "Hotspot Shield Offers VPN Servers in Multiple Countries, Perfect for Watching Blocked Content Overseas". lifehacker.com/. 7 March 2013. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
  23. ↑ "Hotspot Shield Elite". pcmag.com. PC Magazine. Retrieved 2015-02-18.
  24. ↑ "CDT's Complaint to the FTC on Hotspot Shield VPN". Center for Democracy and Technology. 7 August 2017.
  25. ↑ "Privacy group accuses Hotspot Shield of snooping on web traffic". ZDNet.
  26. ↑ Whittaker, Zack (2018-02-06). "A flaw in Hotspot Shield can expose VPN users, locations". ZDNet . Archived from the original on 2018-02-07. The virtual private network says it provides a way to browse the web "anonymously and privately," but a security researcher has released code that could identify users' names and locations.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.