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Networking

Shellfire Box hides all your home Internet traffic from prying snoops

Censorship and other draconian tactics to keep the Internet anything but the free and expansive entity it should always be are unfortunately enforced in countries around the world to various degrees every single day. Luckily, the virtual denizens of the Internet are a sly bunch, employing tactics like VPNs and the use of the Tor network in order to skirt prohibition. VPNs can also be used to circumvent location restrictions around accessing certain Web sites such as the BBC iPlayer or Hulu if you’re not in their home countries.

Shellfire is a VPN service, has been operating out of Germany for the past 12 years. While its service works for computers and some smart devices, there are many other devices like consoles and Blu-ray players that can’t connect and be protected. As such, there are many people looking for a single solution that can securely connect any device on their home network. That’s the mission of the Shellfire Box.

Categories
Networking

Neobase lets you create your own Facebook for private social sharing

The world has never seen a Web site like Facebook, where a sizable chunk of its population — 1.3 billion people — share details and media about their lives to their circle of friends. On its login screen, Facebook notes that it’s free to use and always will be. But it makes money via targeted ads. That’s why there is always close scrutiny, and a lot of concern bordering on paranoia, about its privacy policies, particularly when they change.

For those who like the idea of sharing status updates of their lives with a circle of friends without the intrusion of ads or fear of privacy breaches that many Facebook users have, there is Neobase. Billed as the world’s first private network device, the small cylindrical home server has a 1 terabyte hard drive. As opposed to just being used for sharing files like previous products, Neobase runs Neone, a social network that doesn’t have any central hub but runs on different people’s Neobases.

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Connected Objects Networking

Eero can be your hero in overcoming wireless dead zones

A frequent annoyance for Wi-Fi users is when a dead zone prevents them from accessing the Internet in certain locations of their homes. Another annoyance is having to reset a router when it mysteriously stops working.

Eero has been designed to blanket a user’s entire home with fast, reliable Wi-Fi in order to eliminate dead zones and all the other frequent wireless issues that Internet users typically experience. The device looks like a basic router and plugs into an existing cable or DSL modem. Users then just download an Android or iOS app and it will instantly recognize Eero and prompt users to create their own network name and password. Additional Eeros need power from a standard wall outlet and get placed around the home with the help of the app.

A typical apartment will need two Eeros, while an average house will need three and a larger house will require four to work at maximum effectiveness. The Eeros work together to form a mesh network. Unlike traditional routers and extenders that only allow for data to make a single hop, Eero allows for multiple hops with minimal signal loss. Consumers can connect up to 10 Eeros. One unit will cost $199 and its maker will bundle three at the discounted price of $499 when it ships this summer.

Eero holds a lot of promise, as long as it works as effectively as its maker claims. The Splitter is a rival device that attempts to resolve wireless dead zones, but Eero is a far more advanced system.