anchoring

Olympics turns to gold for Expat Shield

As the Summer Olympics kicks into high gear, complaints about television coverage from outside Britain appear to be driving people watching the games online to Expat Shield (download for Windows only) to get real-time BBC streaming.

Anchor Free's ad-supported Expat Shield masks your actual IP address and sends your Internet traffic through its servers in England. Like its software sibling HotSpot Shield, it's a VPN service that encrypts your traffic as it reroutes it. The primary differences between them are that HotSpot Shield (Windows | Mac | iOS | Android) offers an ad-free Elite version, and that HotSpot Shield's VPN … Read more

HotSpot Shield's new shine not without blemish

Following the addition of anti-malware protection in January, AnchorFree pulls the covers off a new look for HotSpot Shield, available exclusively today from CNET Download.com.

Both the standard, ad-supported HotSpot Shield (download) and the paid upgrade sport the refreshed interface and easier install options. However, it still has a lot of visual clutter that could make many either upgrade to Elite or uninstall it.

The new version is easier to install. HotSpot Shield 2.5 automatically detects your Internet connection in all instances, can be used on corporate networks and no longer requires administrative privileges to install. It also … Read more

HotSpot Shield strengthens VPN with anti-malware wall

HotSpot Shield maker AnchorFree has built an extra wall of protection into its popular virtual private network software, available today. The update adds a malware site guard to the VPN client without requiring you to download a new version of the program because the changes have all been made on the server, not on your computer.

With the anti-malware site guard in place, HotSpot Shield will throw up a warning like the one you see in the screenshot above. Available on Windows (download), Mac (download), and iOS (download), the new anti-malware site protection is based off a database of more … Read more

Hotspot Shield now protects iPhones

Known for offering free anonymising protection to Windows and Mac users, the Wi-Fi protection program Hotspot Shield (download) launched today for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. It's the first mobile move for parent company AnchorFree.

Calling itself the world's most popular Virtual Private Network (VPN), with 9 million to 10 million unique monthly users, the iOS version of Hotspot Shield offers the same encrypted IP address anonymising and bandwidth compression that the program's Windows and Mac users get.

This means that all Web browsing would be conducted over the safer HTTPS. By rerouting Web traffic and … Read more

Hotspot now shields you ad-free

Better site-rendering speeds and an option to ditch ads called Elite have landed in the public Wi-Fi protector Hotspot Shield today. Published by the Mountain View-based AnchorFree, Inc., Hotspot Shield (download for Windows or Mac) claims to be the world's largest Virtual Private Network (VPN) with more than 10 million users. The Elite version gives upgraders multiple ad-free payment methods and plans, and offers site-load times that are "up to 100 percent faster" than the standard flavor of Hotspot Shield.

A version of Hotspot Shield that uses servers based in the United Kingdom, called Expat Shield (download), … Read more

Thank heaven for Apple's (upward) pricing pressure

As the economy has stalled, prices have fallen to match the increasingly frugal moods of consumers and businesses. Only Apple seems largely impervious to gravity, consistently scoring solid earnings and rising market share, all while keeping prices high.

You don't have to be an Apple fanboy to be grateful for Apple luxury. We all benefit from it, even if we've never bought a single Apple product.

In economics, "anchoring" refers to a pricing strategy whereby a vendor sets a product's price high to create perceived value ("What a deal!") for other, lower-priced products, … Read more

Google adds anchor links to search results

Web pages have long included anchor links, which, when clicked, send you to a specific section of the page. Wikipedia uses them heavily to help users jump between headings and navigate the sometimes large articles more efficiently. Google has announced that it is now including these anchor links in search results. This is right in line with Google's mission of helping users to find the information that they are looking for as quickly and accurately as possible.

For an example of how this works, try searching for "nuclear fusion." As you can see, Google pulls out the … Read more

Click Here for crappy Google rankings

Links are the fundamental vehicle that gets us from here to there on the web. Without them, we'd have no where to go, or at least a much harder time getting there. Links are, of course, deeply important to search engines as well. In fact, links and PageRank are at the very core of Google.

Spend a little time on just about any website and it won't be long before you come across a "click here," "click this," or "more" link. You probably wouldn't trade a $20 bill for $5, yet … Read more