Do you have Private Internet Access (PIA)? I know many people are pretty fucking surprised to learn how often their Internet use is being spied on by bosses, apps, baristas, oppressive regimes, your wife and even your internet service provider. If you don’t believe me, I guess you’ve never gotten an ad for dick-sucking machines moments after asking your buddy if he’s ever tried a dick-sucking machine. (Speaking of dick-sucking devices, your mom wanted me to tell you to clean your room.)PrivateInternetAccess.com has a name that sounds self-explanatory, though I had to take a look to make sure they were really hawking what I thought they were. It turns out I was right: they offer a premium VPN designed to protect your privacy and unblock censorship filters. I wondered for a second if they’d just lucked out on a really fucking good domain, but these guys seem legit. Besides the 15k daily visitors, their tour page tells me they’re trusted by companies like Forbes, Business Insider, Lifehacker and Wired, and they’ve also got a 4-star rating on TrustPilot. Well, let’s see how ThePornDude feels about their service.How to Disappear OnlineA lot of these tech sites come off dry and boring as hell, but I’ve got to give some credit to whoever came up with the short intro video on the front page of Private Internet Access. While they don’t have the vulgar wit or conversational tone you expect from yours truly, I actually laughed at their depictions of people spying on you over WiFi and back at ISP headquarters. The “Comcast” guy on the phone mocking you for surfing Dating 101 wasn’t half as funny as the catty bitches clicking through your Embarrassing Photos folder and cackling about it.It’s a pretty blatant appeal to your insecurities about people finding your microdick photos or incest fisting search history, but you know what? It’s a genuine issue, and it gets a lot worse than people just having a laugh at your expense. The video goes on to describe their solution in laymen’s terms. Basically, they send all your traffic, incoming and outgoing, through a secure tunnel, so nobody can see what you’re doing online. Obviously, it’s a little more complicated than that underneath the hood, but we’ll leave the specifics to the poindexters and rain men of the world.Let me give you a real-world example. Imagine you just ran out of personal lubricant, so you do a quick web search to find the best one, click through a couple of forum threads about it, and then buy a bottle of the stuff the virgins are raving about on Reddit. Done and done, right? Well, the problem is you’ve left your slippery footprints all over the fucking place. Now Google knows you’re into lube, and so do your ISP and a lot of the sites you clicked along the way. Like it or not, you’re going to be seeing lube ads for a while.Typically, everyone on the Internet is able to identify you through your IP address, so they track what you do and then bombard you with ads. Browsing the web through PrivateInternetAccess’s secret tunnel, the sites you visit can’t see your IP, so they can’t identify and track you. All they see is an IP address for the VPN, which could be damn near anybody.But What About My Porn?If you’re buying lube online while you’re at the local coffee shop without using a VPN, anybody with access to the router can see what you’re doing. If you notice the baristas snickering, it might be because they know you like the kind with a little topical anesthetic, because maybe you’re into butt stuff. If you’re using PrivateInternetAccess.com, they wouldn’t be able to see shit.Hiding your history ain’t the only useful thing the VPN is going to do for you in the coffee shop, the library or leeching off your neighbor’s WiFi. It will also help you bypass all kinds of firewalls and content blockers. If your boss banned the office from perusing Pornhub on company time, using PrivateInternetAccess is a good way to reclaim your midafternoon fap break.Of course, this also has more serious ramifications than just beating off at your desk when you’re supposed to be filling out forms or some bullshit. If you live in a country that restricts your access to information, you can use a VPN to tunnel your way to that stuff you’re not supposed to see. That’s why VPNs are banned in countries like China, Iraq, North Korea and Russia, and why you’ll see spikes in VPN usage when Internet crackdowns occur around the world. PrivateInternetAccess cares about their customers’ freedom and safety, which is why they don’t keep traffic or request logs.If you get a hardon for that freedom shit, it’s worth noting that PrivateInternetAccess.com sponsors a number of organizations like EFF, Fight For the Future and Internet Society. I tend to be cynical about loud brags like that from companies, because for real, you can sell a lot of fucking ice cream by pretending to give a fuck about causes. For what it’s worth, these guys do make a product that helps people subvert unreasonable rules and regulations in places where that matters, and that makes them alright in my book.Private Internet Access Around the GlobeThe best VPNs have a shit-ton of fast servers all over the globe. Private Internet Access is clearly a world-class operation in this respect, because they have nearly 23000 servers in 76 countries. Most of the time, you’ll want to use a server close to you for the best speed, but there are some serious advantages to using PrivateInternetAccess.com to browse the web through a server somewhere far away.A lot of websites offer different content to users in different parts of the world. I notice it on a lot of Japanese Adult Video sites, but it’s also really common with the big video streaming sites like Netflix. You can instantly unlock different sets of content for different global audiences by going through a VPN.You can also take advantage of global pricing. For example, if a porn membership or video game costs less to buy in Brazil than in the USA, Private Internet Access offers a way for you to get the lower price, no matter where you are. People using VPNs to get lower prices has become such an issue that companies like Steam have been actively trying to prevent their customers from using services like PrivateInternetAcess.A Safer Internet for CheapA monthly membership at PrivateInternetAccess.com typically goes for around $12 if you’re paying on a month-to-month basis. Truth be told, only a sucker would choose that payment plan when the yearly rate is much cheaper. I’m reviewing the site in December, so they’re offering even deeper discounts on the longer memberships, with a three-year plan that breaks down to just a couple bucks a month. There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you’ve got a minute to decide if you like it.They also offer pretty good discounts on bulk VPN accounts, up to 25% if you’re buying enough of them. That makes PrivateInternetAcess.com a good option if you’re running a small business and don’t want your dipshit employees getting trade secrets hacked, or all those new porn movies leaked to the tubes before they even hit your paysite.The VPN service is compatible with just about everything that connects to the Internet. Every major operation system is covered, including mobile, and they’ve got browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Opera. They make everything easy as hell to install and use with just a couple clicks, so even your grandpa can use this to help him masturbate more securely on the McDonalds Wi-Fi.Ultimately, it’s hard to find fault with PrivateInternetAccess. They offer a respectable and highly popular VPN service, with thousands of high-speed servers set up worldwide. Their service is a quick, easy and fairly cheap way of making your Internet browsing safer, more secure and more anonymous. There’s a 30-day guarantee, so it’s not going to hurt your wallet to see if it really does unlock all those porn sites they banned at the office.
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