How much are marketing firms tracking your every move online?

Today, the world is best known to be interconnected through a network called internet where you can almost find everything you want. Such is the impact of internet that anybody who is doing anything has their own space on Internet virtual world. If you can get connected to internet, you can have access to almost unlimited information available on millions of servers placed all around the world. In earlier times, we use to have advertisement commercials on Radio, TV, magazine and newspapers. There were other options like big banners, hoardings, pamphlets and circulars, etc. But these methods of advertisement are slowly substituted by online marketing campaigns like email marketing, social media marketing and advertisement campaigns, running on majority of commercial websites. 

With advancement in technology and mobile devices, internet is available in every small corner of the places we live or visit. When internet has occupied that much interests and time of people then it is bound to have lots of advertisers who would love to sell out their products and services to this huge pool of internet users. Online marketing is rapidly taking over traditional marketing techniques and very soon it will take over the later. Online marketing is hugely depending on tracking online activities of internet users. World’s most used search engine Google, is one of the biggest tracker of online movement of billions of its service users through its partner websites Google Search Engine, YouTube, Google+, Gmail, etc. Similarly other popular internet services providers like Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft also tracks down the movement of their users, which is a part of their service level agreements. Even browsers keep on tracking the browsing history of users. 

Data of online tracking of users is maintained by websites having analytic codes in their websites. These analytic algorithms use Cookies and Search Queries to track the needs and taste of internet users based on their demographics and IP address. They keep on recording information searched by users, like purchases made online, etc. This data is then related on other factors to make a final behavior pattern of users based on age, demographics and sex, etc. This results into behavioral target marketing. With Behavioral Targeting, the advertisers get access to the preferences, requirements and taste of the people. Further, they get an idea about what people really want and what more can be offered to them, which can create demand for new products. 

In this way, these analyses help sellers innovate new line of products by which they can attract more buyers and eventually leading to big profits. With analytic data using demographics, accurate estimates can be drawn upon which entire marketing campaign can be created even for sales that are not bound to be online. That is why websites having huge traffic are preferred by these advertisers so that their products and services come into the knowledge of more and more viewers. The downside of behavioral targeting is invasion of privacy since it tracks down the products you have searched, amount of money spend online for buying products, etc. This data is then used by marketers to retarget their offerings to buyers. This technique is also known as stalking.

For all those people who want to protect them from these privacy invasions, Proxy is a good alternate, apart from using options provided by website owners, such as 'Google Opt-out’, which provide protection to users from these privacy invasions in terms of tracking of their online movements. By using a Best Proxy solution, a different IP address is shown to your ISP, analytic websites and all those spy eyes keenly looking for your surfing behavior on internet. Also various internet browsers provide options where you can inform to various websites that you don’t want to be tracked. They also provide options to manage cookies and other tracking add-ons. But using a Best Proxy is by far is the best method where you can save yourself from these stalkers and spy websites.

To conclude, there are lots of downsides of tracking of personal information by various website owners but there are positives of this as well. It is through advertisement that most of the web owners wants to keep their services free of cost. Their expenditures are covered from running advertisement campaigns only. In these way advertisers pays for those website owners, who have valuable stuff like Reading Material, Images, Audios, Videos and other resources of interest. So the best way is to ignore those advertisements which are not for your use. Also you can use Opt-out options provided by website owners or No-Tracking options provided by search engines, or by using any Best Proxy solution as mentioned above.

How to bypass filters on mobile devices

The internet has become a great place for people to get information in the recent years. Today everything can be found on the internet from bad to good things. Talking about bad things some unscrupulous fellows have turned to the internet to do some wrong things and open sites that are malicious. This has forced many countries to impose restriction to the access of such sites by using filters on their internet providers.

The filter is very common in most of the educational institutions and even in some organization. Some of the sites that are commonly blocked are porn sites for the moral reason as well as social sites which are always deemed as time wasters. As well there are some sites that can be filtered by the network provider of the country due to some security reasons or any other reason. But there are some ways in which one can be able to access the sites using a mobile phone. These techniques include using a web based proxy; using the DNS, Open proxies, and VPN.

Web based proxies

One can easily beat filter by using some web based proxies. Normally a proxy is a third-party browser that will search and find the page you want on your behalf. These proxies can be anonymous proxies which will make you unknown on the internet. Some of the filter proxies are also capable of keeping you off from some of the cookies and intrusive advertisements. Web based proxies usually work through your own browser. They are good and easy to use since one can just visit them from the phone browser and be able to surf the web through them.

Open proxies

Web proxies can also be used quite easily to beat filters when you are browsing, but they are not so good since they might open you to the many attacks online. Though the process is quite complicated open proxy only require that you configure your browser setting and you will be able to get to your site. There are quite a number of enterprises that sell software that can be used to set up an open proxy.

Using VPN

Virtual private networks are also one of the easiest ways to beat content filters. VPN usually creates what is called peer-to-peer (P2P) connections that make sure that all the data being sent to the internet is encrypted. As well they are able to hide your location, which makes it quite easy to bypass the filters. These networks are mainly used by people who are living in some of the harsh regimes where some content is censored from the public.

Public DNS on Google

It can also be possible to get over the filter by using the DNS. A DNS or the Global Domain Name System is techniques to convert the numerical value of the particular website you are searching for on the page you get on your browser. Pages that are filtered or tainted by your network provider will usually not be resolved by the domain you are using. But when you use a Domain such as Google it makes it possible to circumvent the filters.

Now that you have some knowledge on how to go about filters it is important that you understand how you can apply some of this technique on your phone browsers. As such, using some of these techniques on your PC or laptop is not a hard thing, but can quite be daunting if you need to do the same with your phone browser. These tips will make it easier for you to do the same on your phone.

First you can download opera mini browser into your phone and be able to browse any sites with no restrictions. As well the browser can be downloaded on the system of the organization and a synchronization done to all other devices.

As well you can use HTTPS before the address you are searching for. Many of the sites that cannot be accessed using http can be accessed with a https address. Many of the filters will allow such sites because they are basically secured.

Website translator can also come in very handy. These are translators that are able to change the language of the site you are browsing on the language that you have selected.

In a nutshell these are just some of the easy way that one can use to beat around the filters on the web. Though some of these filters are put for the good reason, for instance protecting the minors from accessing some content that is harmful, not all of the sites blocked are harmful. Since everyone has the freedom of information it is important that one can be able to choose to get through to the content they like.

But as well it is very important that one is careful when doing this because some of the sites might have some very adverse effects. With increasing cybercrime and issues dealing with identity theft, many governments opt to close sites that are prevalent to such issues. This is basically to take care of their citizenship and if one still get to be able to bypass the filters and get to the sites, then they should be extra caution.

Some of the tips mentioned in this article can work quite well and easy on your phone but some of them need one to be more knowledgeable in the field. It is also important to note that using proxies requires one to be well versed in the field computers due to the many risks that are involved with it.

Best Proxy for YouTube - This Is Mine, What is yours?

The internet might be a global network of information, but there is no such thing as 'internet freedom'. Copyright laws and other related laws still require licensing for someone to post or view any information on-line. Some agencies, on the other hand, have taken upon themselves to restrict the data that's available to on-line users. The government -- for obvious political reasons, still monitors your daily internet usage. And every time you try to access information on-line, be best assured that someone somewhere is tracking all your on-line moves. YouTube is one of the sites that has been restricted; in fact blocked, in several countries. Examples of such countries include Malaysia, Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen, china and Indonesia among other countries. So, how is the restriction done?

To answer the above query, then you'll have to understand something about an IP address. For the sake of brevity, an IP address is your on-line signature. It's a signature that leaves your footprints on-line for anyone to track and monitor your on-line activities. In fact, your government and other agencies can use your IP address to control what you watch and view on-line. And, in order to stay safe and free, you'll be required to mask your IP address every time you access any site on-line. Furthermore, when you hide IP address, you'll be able to access any restricted site without anyone unveiling your true identity. So, how do you hide your IP Address?

The best and easiest way to remain anonymous on-line is to use proxy services. But choosing a random proxy service won't help. Instead, you have to choose a proxy service that will guarantee you a full on-line safety and anonymity. And if I may suggest -- from my own on-line experience, HideMyAss is one of the best (if not the best) proxy services to use for your on-line activities, as far as speed and reliability is concerned. And as much as there over a thousand and one web proxy services for both anonymous and secure surfing, I can still single out HideMyAss as my favorite. If you want to understand the reason why I chose HideMyAss and not any other proxy service, just read the rest of this article and if you have a different opinion, feel free to drop your suggestion in the comment box.

To start with, HideMyAss is a free web proxy that originates from the UK. It offers free VPN services, web proxies and anonymous emails. So what makes it the best software? First of all, HideMyAss is one of the web proxies that doesn't require a third party software in order to run. It simply enables SSL to every site that you visit, which in turn reduces your risk of losing any valuable data. In addition, this web proxy doesn't support obtrusive or annoying pop-ups ads.

Secondly, with HideMyAss proxy, you can access restricted sites on different platforms. For instance, you can use HMA on Windows, Linux or any other operating system without changing anything. Besides, it still supports all types of proxy protocols that are currently availed in the internet. These includes PPTP, L2TP and open VPN. In addition to that, HMA is still compatible with all the major browsers like Google chrome, Mozilla, Safari and Opera among others.

The third reason why I would recommend HMA to anybody at any time is because it's compatible with any devise. In other words, you can still use HideMyAss on your smart-phone, tablet, iPad or PC. In fact, every device that can access the internet can easily work with HideMyAss. When compared to other web proxies, HMA is not as heavy as any of them. Thus, it can easily run on a devise with a low access memory without slowing down the devise.

Lastly, the company behind HideMyAss is the leading proxy service provider in the market today. The huge success for this web proxy can be attributed to the distinctive features it encompasses as well as its pricing plan and easy installation. Moreover, it's the only web proxy that's favored by a vast majority of on-line proxy customers: hackers, those who need security from spies, IP masking, those bypassing internet restrictions, anonymous web-serving as well as those who need SSL encryptions for the sites that they visit. The best part is that you can Anonymously stream a video from You-tube without using a third party software -- something that's very rare with other web proxy services, especially if you're looking for something that's absolutely free. With that said, what is your favorite proxy to watch YouTube with?

The benefits of using Proxy Servers and the Potential Risks

We use proxy servers (a stand-in for the server computer) for a number of reasons like sharing online connections on local area networks, hiding our IP, applying Internet Access Control, access blocked sites and so forth. They are some benefits why people use proxy servers, like sharing web connection on the LAN- you might have multiple computer systems however with just one web connection, you are able to share web connection for other computer systems around the LAN having a proxy server. Proxy servers also accelerate Internet surfing- if you are using a proxy server, all requests from client computer systems will contact the proxy server in the beginning, when the proxy server has cached the needed resources in the local hard disk drive before using the web cache function, clients can get feedback from proxy server it will likely be faster than direct access. Proxy servers also hide the IP from the client computer to ensure that it may surf anonymously mainly for security reasons.

Some proxy servers use secure electrical sockets layer (SSL) to secure the bond between your client and also the remote server. This security layer helps you to make certain that not one other computer systems can see or know very well what the customer is asking in the server. The very Best Proxy servers implement Access to the internet control like authentication for Web connection, bandwidth control, time spent online control, Internet web filter and content filter etc. Proxy servers also bypass security limitations and filters, for instance, many work offices have blocked use of specific sites, you should use proxy server to bypass such limitations and access blocked websites easily. The very best proxy servers may also be used to bypass regional limitations. For instance, a web server using IP-based geo-place to restrict its plan to a particular country could be utilized utilizing a proxy situated for the reason that country to gain access to the service.

A few of the known disadvantages of proxy servers are Proxies are often blocked by network managers, a jeopardized proxy server may pose a larger threat than no proxy whatsoever, your identity isn't hidden in the proxy server itself. You will find also risks associated with using jeopardized proxy servers like the server may alter messages sent through it with no sender’s understanding, the server may neglect to generate a message, through either intention or fault, the sender might not receive notification of the unsuccessful delivery, a malicious proxy may report success, a jeopardized proxy server may log data sent through it and employ this from the sender. This is particularly problematic in instances where customers want anonymity for private safety. A particularly dubious proxy may mix these techniques, logging the messages sent through, although not delivering them within their original form. When the user inspections to verify delivery (for example refreshing a thread on the forum, or fetching articles on Usenet), the proxy may replay the drenched message, and place it in to the content (this is computationally costly, and sure very tricky to handle in tangible-time). So far as the sender knows, delivery was effective, however the items in the content may vary.