Services like Netflix, for instance, aren’t available in every country, but with a Hotspot Shield plug-in users can toggle on the VPN and access the US/UK/French/Canadian Netflix or any other Netflix region regardless of where they are. VPNs aren’t just for combatting blacklists from repressive governments, they also allow users to access streamed content that may not be approved for playback in their country.
Meanwhile, users in countries like China have long relied on VPNs to access sites such as Facebook in their country, which has a worse track record for keeping the internet free than most. This has been a bizarre time for internet freedom in countries like Russia that have (shortly) blocked sites like Reddit and Wikipedia. I chatted with Levent Sapci, the Director of Marketing at Hotspot Shield, who told me that their product has had a major influence across the globe in protecting people’s access to an internet not restricted by government censorship.
