In the Midst of the overwhelming
number of COVID-19 cases, the digital and online world came as a blessing. It
remains unparalleled in terms of convenience and efficiency if smartly and
safely used. This holds true for work and entertainment alike.
اضافة اعلان
In terms of market value, the numbers are
mindboggling. Alliedmarketresearch.com estimates that “the online entertainment
market size was valued at $183.1 billion in 2019, and is estimated to reach
$652.5 billion by 2027,” a value that is anything but negligible.
Whether you are playing online games and competing
with other people somewhere in the world or watching streamed audio, video, or
live sports events, the web wants to know where you are. Your geographic
location matters to those providing you the service.
Your location matters for many reasons, the first being
statistics; for understandable marketing purposes, providers need to know how
many people are currently watching the show and where. This knowledge directly
impacts decisions such as what content to stream, subtitles, commercials,
demographics, and more.
It also has to do with payments, royalties,
copyright, fees collected, currencies used, and other similar matters that are
region-based. These may vary significantly from one location to another.
The service, the party, or the website you connect
to can tell your location from your computer’s Internet IP address or browser.
This is an automatic, transparent process that runs in the background, and
there is not much you can do about it. Or can you?
Disclosing your location is, in itself, a good
thing, but the risk that it can come with is that, in some cases, revealing it
would work against you.
Whether you are playing online games and competing with other people somewhere in the world or watching streamed audio, video, or live sports events, the web wants to know where you are. Your geographic location matters to those providing you the service.
So, let us say you are in Jordan, but the game or
the movie you want to can only be streamed or downloaded from Europe. Or, your
streaming video service that you subscribed to from Jordan will not let you
watch movies simply because you are traveling for a few days and are now in
another country, and your device is displaying an IP address that clearly shows
you are not in Jordan.
This is where virtual private network (VPN) software
would come to the rescue.
Once you install a VPN application, you are given
the choice of selecting the general location, the country, and the city you
want to appear in, and, consequently, you will display a corresponding IP
address to the other party. In short, despite you being physically in Jordan,
you will appear to be in, say, Amsterdam, Netherlands, or any other country of
your choice due to the VPN application.
The first question that may come to mind is, “is VPN
legal”?
According to tomsguide.com, a reference technology
site, and citing as an example ExpressVPN, one of the best and most popular VPN
software applications: “ExpressVPN does protect your internet visits and
downloads. It is safe to use for legal activity. Owning it and running it on
your laptop is not illegal. If you visit a foreign country, it is likely not
illegal to have it installed.” It adds: “While ExpressVPN is perfectly legal,
using it for illegal activity can only lead to problems eventually.”
So, VPN software allows you to be in several places
at once, or at least to virtually travel from one country to another in a
second and, in a way, give you digital ubiquity.
What about cost? Is VPN free? Whereas some of these applications are free, the best, those who really are reliable and fast, are not. ExpressVPN, for one, costs $100 a year for the average subscription plan. The price tag on good VPN services shows that using VPN is not about “avoiding paying money where it is due”, but about being able to watch and play online, from wherever you be in the world, even if it is only while traveling for a few days outside your home country.
The writer is a computer engineer and a classically
trained pianist and guitarist. He has been regularly writing IT articles,
reviewing music albums, and covering concerts for more than 30 years.
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