Podcast: Play in new window | Embed
Tech News and Commentary
Dave and the team discuss the FTC and Facebook settling for $5B, John McAfee going missing, Apple rumored to be in talks for Intel’s chip business, Sprint and Dish, healthcare app failure, and more.
Joe in Dacula, Georgia listens on AM920 “The Answer” and asked: “I wanted to ask about the VPNs. I currently use IPVanish. It was advertised when I was downloading something onto my Fire Stick. It’s costing me like $5 a month. Also on my phone. Wanted to know if you thought there was something out there better, that was free that might cover more things too. IPVanish seems to be very good. The app I put on my TV, it changes the time because it’s changing your locations from day to day. That’s the only negative I might have about it.”
Joe, if you’re happy with the features you’re getting $5/month is a good price for VPN access.
You can get some free services, but they tend to be limited (for example, your speed may be throttled, your data may be capped, or you may get assigned to specific free servers that get overcrowded and slow fast). ProtonVPN has a popular, but limited free service you want to give it a try. Others like NordVPN will offer at least trials, but in the end they all want you to pay and unless you use those networks very casually, you’ll probably end up needing to.
Usually, VPN network access isn’t free because VPN networks aren’t free. There are physical machines that need to be maintained somewhere and there are network costs involved.
If your concern is privacy, IPVanish is US-based, which is typically not what people concerned with privacy want. Northern European countries are usually the first choice as they have far, far stronger privacy protections. Other than that, we haven’t really heard anything bad about the service.
About your Fire Stick’s date and time, you don’t have to put up with it changing all the time. If you go to Settings, Device Options, and Date & Time you will see an option to set your time automatically.
That option sets your date and time based on your location and that’s what’s making it change with your VPN server of the day. You can instead set it to a fixed time zone and that problem will disappear.
Dwight in Brookhaven, Mississippi listens on SuperTalk Mississippi and called in to thank us for his new Mixcder headphones
You’re welcome. Dwight!
When you participate on the show – anytime 24/7 – and we HEAR you with any consumer tech question, comment, help for another listener, tech rage or just share your favorite App these days … you could win prizes.
The COOL Into Tomorrow HOT Summer Giveaway:
Check out everything you can win here!
All CALLERS — using the AUDIO option on our Free App or 1-800-899-INTO(4686) – automatically qualify to win prizes.
Audio archived for at least 6 months