It came to my attention recently that a lot of people are using Hola to watch Community from countries where it isn’t available. While Hola is functional, it makes your network an exit node for others to connect to.
/u/SuperConductiveRabbi summarized this better than I’ll be able to a year and a half ago on /r/privacy.
For the unfamiliar, Hola Unblocker is a popular Chrome extension and Windows application that allows you to easily proxy to foreign connections. This is especially useful for people who want to access content on Netflix that is available in the UK but not in the US, and vice-versa. It’s advertised as a one-click solution that you don’t have to think about, and you’ll often hear users say things like, “just install this, click this button, and you’ll be able to access more Netflix shows!”
On their site they say that by using Hola you can:
Bypass Internet censorship
Speed up your web browsing
Save on bandwidth costs
Improve your privacy online
The application is closed-source and they’re very vague on their site, but what I’ve surmised is that when you install the Windows or Android application you add your connection as a node in the network, and there’s a matchmaking service where you broadcast your availability both as a client and as an endpoint. This means you can proxy your connection to other users on the Hola Unblocker network, and they can proxy through you. There’s also some kind of P2P CDN layer that caches content, which they claim speeds up your connection. Although the users operate the endpoints, the makers of Hola Unblocker occasionally serve you ads over the connection, collecting the revenue.
The core issue I want to bring up is that the full application (and maybe the extension) operates as an exit node on the public Internet: something most people are very reluctant to do when it comes to other proxy services, such as Tor. By making your connection available to anyone online you’re incurring risk, and Hola Unblocker doesn’t tell you about this. It’s entirely feasible that someone will use your connection not for Netflix, but for content that’s illegal in your country.
Hola Unblocker doesn’t make any distinction between acting as a client and a server…Like I said, they’re extremely vague on their site. Their download page also preferentially serves you the full application and makes absolutely no mention of the implications of what you’re running (nor does their FAQ): Hola | Download the Right Hola App on All Your Devices!
TL;DR: Running the Hola Unblocker application turns your connection into a public exit node on a P2P network. It allows people can to use your Internet connection and potentially access illegal material.
Bottom line is Hola is not a good idea. Despite being functional, it opens your network up to a whole world of legal and data cap related trouble. But there are alternatives!
First off, understand that Hola is a P2P VPN. It sends your internet requests to another computer somewhere and accesses the websites’ data through that computer and spits it back out to you. A traditional VPN is similar in that it establishes a connection between you and a server, has the server access the content, and send it back to you, but a normal VPN creates a much more secure link between you and the server. Where Hola works in-browser, a VPN will work in-browser, in-torrent-client (shoutout to deluge), and anything else you’re running on your computer that uses the internet. Read more about proxies and VPNs here or here.
VPNBook is a free VPN with servers in Romania, Germany, the US, and Canada. It’s not the fastest out there and it keeps some logs about when you connect to it, but it should be fully functional for watching Community. To use it, assuming you’re on Windows, open your Network and Sharing Center, click Set up a new connection or network > Connect to a workplace > Use my Internet connection (VPN) > under Internet address, enter the server from VPNBook that you want (currently the US servers are us1.vpnbook.com and us2.vpnbook.com) > on Windows 7 you’ll immediately see the prompt for a Username and Password, on 8 you’ll have to click your network icon in the task bar and connect to the new VPN for it to prompt you for a Username and Password. On VPNbook’s website, click on PTPP to see the username and password. The password changes periodically, but the username will always be vpnbook. Currently the password is bachu7Es. Then finish creating the connection and viola; access the internet from the US for free without letting weirdos from all over the world download illegal content through your network.
For free, there is also JustFreeVPN or FreeVPN.me. Though I have little experience with them, I have no doubt that they’re safer than Hola.
PrivateInternetAccess is a paid VPN that’s extremely good. If you want a VPN for torrenting and high speed web browsing, I highly recommend PIA. It’s only $7/month or $40/year, and you can pay in gift cards. It’s what I use, and it’s quite reliable. They make installation easy, after you buy it you just download a client, log in, and connect to one of their dozens of servers. It’s faster and more secure than VPNBook, so Community would buffer less/more quickly with PIA, and torrents will be a lot faster.
There are hundreds of other VPNs, but those are IMO the best for free and paid services that you can trust.
Additional sources: Hola is bad 1, 2, exit nodes can get you arrested
