Hotspot Shield, best known for providing a free VPN service for secure and private desktop browsing is coming to iOS devices with a brand new mobile app.
The app, compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, gives users the peace of mind of using Hotspot Shield’s popular VPN service no matter where they are. While Hotspot Shield and Tor Project dominate desktop VPN services, the mobile arena is wide open for anyone to jump in and take the lead. It’s only a matter of time for us to see whether that accolade goes to Hotspot Shield.
The new Hotspot Shield iOS app doesn’t only give users private and secure browsing on the go, it also acts as a bandwidth compression service – meaning your data plan can go a little bit further when using the app.
Hotspot Shield’s 10 million user-base is made up of privacy-conscious consumers as well as activists in the Middle East, China and elsewhere, all using the service to ensure a secure browsing experience.
With the new app they’ll be able to take that same secure connection to take with them on the go, when venturing out into protests, or reporting events on the go, is bound to be useful. The main difference however is that the mobile service is not free.
The Hotspot Shield app makes it easy to secure iOS devices, but the service won’t be available for free. While the app itself is free to download and use for one week, after that users will have to purchase monthly or yearly subscriptions at $0.99 or $9.99 respectively.
Speaking about the new app, Hotspot Shield co-founder and CEO David Gorodyansky said:
“The convenience of doing business on mobile devices is now offset by growing privacy and security risks and the skyrocketing cost of mobile data plans.
With Hotspot Shield for iOS, we provide a fast, cheap and secure gateway to all Internet content from anywhere in the world. As Web users increasingly turn to mobile devices, they are counting on Hotspot Shield to provide the same protection and access to a free Web on their phones that we already enable on their personal computers. We’re excited about our new app, which allows all mobile users of Hotspot Shield to stay secure and save money.”
Once you install Hotspot Shield on your iOS device and launch it, it will run in the background, securing online data on all of your mobile apps, as well as encrypting text messages.
Check out Hotspot Shield’s promotional video about the iPhone app below:
To find out more about Hotspot Shield, and the man behind the company, check out our interview with David Gorodyansky here.
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