Hot Bot sounds like it could be the name of a next-generation sex doll with a heated, vibrating coochie, but nah, it’s actually a lot more wholesome than that. Hell, most of the sites I talk about here at ThePornDude must be discussed in low voices, so you don’t piss off HR or your mom, but this one’s pretty squeaky clean. It isn’t even sex-related, though I know a lot of you perverts are going to use it for some added privacy when you’re beating off to the incest tubes and scat libraries on company time.HotBot.com is the home of HotBot VPN, a Virtual Private Network designed to give you improved privacy, security and anonymity online. They’ve been around since 2012, which is a long fucking time in Internet years. Their website gets a few thousand visits a day, a number that can only hint at the sheer volume of users browsing the web, streaming movies and enjoying their privacy through the HotBot VPN. Let’s take a closer look at what they’re hawking and how it can benefit sexual deviates, gamblers, and regular ol’ soccer moms just trying to post recipes without big brother watching. (Wait a minute, that sounds like a porn setup…)Has This Ever Happened to You?Before we get down to the technical nitty-gritty of how HotBot VPN works, let’s talk about some hypotheticals where it would really come in handy. One of the first things that comes to mind are the intrusive ads you see all over the place, the ones that nefariously target all your true desires. You know the ones I’m talking about. You casually mention a new lube in a conversation online or even out loud in the real world, and suddenly your browser is blowing up with lube ads on every website.Companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon are notorious for eavesdropping, but believe me, they aren’t the only ones. All your Internet traffic is being monitored, your likes and dislikes filed away and sold to other companies who want to sell you shit. That data may be super personal, but it’s super-valuable to advertisers. A good VPN is one of the first lines of defense against these sneaky data thieves.It helps against the big “legitimate” data hoarders, and it’s also really fucking useful against the shadier, scarier hackers, the kind who would straight-up steal your whole identity and then blackmail you for bitcoin.Here’s another example: you’re trying to review a new POV ass-fucking paysite on the web, but the local coffee shop installed a new filter that won’t let you look at anything with the word “anal” while eating your morning scone. Worse, what if that Internet barricade is bigger than the neighborhood coffee spot? Whether it’s a government firewall keeping you off those opposition message boards or a gambling site locking you out because of where you live, it’d sure be useful to have some way of bypassing that. The HotBot.com VPN can bypass all kinds of firewalls and filters.There are other good reasons to bypass a region-based lock with HotBot. Sometimes your friend in Canada gets better shows on Netflix, and your buddy in India only has to pay like three seashells for that new game that Americans have to pony up the full price for. Well, a VPN will let you cash in on those International offers that ain’t available where you live.Even if everything you’re doing online is wholesome and family-friendly as hell, there are still reasons to hide your traffic with a VPN. For example, ISPs have been known to throttle customers’ Internet speed for the horrific crime of streaming too much. If you route your Netflix movies through HotBot, you’re less likely to be punished for using all that bandwidth you fucking paid for.What Is This VPN Magic?That all sounds pretty fucking solid, huh? Now that we’ve established what HotBot.com can do, let’s look at how they do it. If you want a really technical explanation, you can look elsewhere, but I’m going to sum it up for the average joe. Remember: I ain’t a tech dude, I’m The Porn Dude, and I mainly understand this stuff as it pertains to my own habits and vices.Usually, when you use the Internet, you’re connecting directly to all the sites and services you use. They can all identify you through your computer’s IP address, and a lot of them are keeping tabs on your comings and goings, purchases and fap sessions. That’s why you end up seeing spam on one website advertising shit on another website that you were window-shopping earlier.HotBot, at its most basic level, hides your IP address, essentially making you anonymous online. It does this by routing everything you do online through their Virtual Private Network. You can think of it like a highly secure tunnel built under every border, which all your traffic is routed through. Instead of seeing your computer’s IP address, they see an IP from HotBot’s network. All of your data smuggled through that tunnel is encrypted with military-grade algorithms, so nobody’s going to find out about your BBW ballbusting fetish.And let’s talk about that network. HotBot has over 2,000 lightning-fast servers spread out around the whole fucking world. You’ll usually just want to connect to the one closest to you, but it’s often useful to pick one in another country. Remember those region-based restrictions I mentioned? I used HotBot when I reviewed Roobet, a gambling site that doesn’t let Americans play. All I had to do was pick a server in Canada, so it looked like that’s where I was playing from.Free Trials and Other Good VibesVirtual Private Networks, in general, sound like some high-tech shit your Linux-nerd friend might recommend, but it’s easy as hell to use and works with most common devices. Getting started is as simple as downloading an app on your Android, iOS, Windows or Mac gadget. They just rolled out a version of Hotbot VPN for Android TV, too, so you can get some added security, avoid throttling and unlock content right from your TV.And how much would you expect to pay for all that? Well, HotBot.com is ten bucks a month on the monthly plan, which is about what you’d pay anywhere else. The yearly and three-year plans are much better deals, breaking down to about three bucks a month on the lowest end. If it’s something you’re going to use with even semi-regularity, it’s better to go big. I’d recommend a VPN to anybody who regularly uses their device on public networks, so make sure to consider how often you’re checking your email or Amazon shopping while squatting on the Starbucks Wi-Fi.If you’d like to try before you buy, just like you did with that inflatable sex doll, you can take advantage of their 7-day free trial and 30-day money-back guarantee. Most joints will give you one or the other, but I have to assume these guys have a pretty high retention rate. For those who need a VPN, they offer just about anything you could need.The only minor weak point I found to HotBot’s offerings was the lack of support for more obscure devices. This isn’t going to affect most users since they’ve got the most common Internet-connected gadgets, but you’ll have to look elsewhere if you need a VPN for your Roku, PlayStation or Rasberry Pi. (PureVPN, for example, costs a buck more for the month-to-month plan, but has a much longer list of supported devices.)Ultimately, the cost and the feature set make HotBot VPN a decent option for anybody looking to anonymize their online traffic, unlock restricted content and just generally improve their daily Internet security. If you’re not yet sure if it’d be useful to you, check out the free trial and see what it can do.
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