Good morning everyone. Another week gone, and another FoxyFriday is upon us.

I was going to make this one another light hearted affair. Maybe something about Rugby and funny shaped balls, or touching on interesting sports from around the world, but then I came across this article about how the government of Thailand is quietly laying the groundwork to install a gateway internet. Essentially, a gateway internet makes it much easier for the government to strictly monitor and control  internet traffic coming into Thailand from other countries.

Thailand never sprung to the front of my mind when thinking about internet censorship. China, sure. North Korea, absolutely. After all, how else are they going to believe Kim Jong Un can do things like invent a drug that cures AIDS, Ebola, and cancer? 

But Thailand never struck me as particularly oppressive. In retrospect, that’s a remarkably dumb thing to believe.  But then again I live in the USA, where most of our news cycles focus on bloviating fools with bad hair saying very loud things, and offer very little actual content about the rest of the world.

Thailand isn’t alone in heavily restricting internet access, but it is joining a relatively small group of nations with a single gateway internet: Laos, China, Myanmar, North Korea, so far as I can tell.

I will admit, I mainly use my proxy service to watch ridiculous British reality TV. It has no redeeming value, and really does nothing to contribute much to society. But proxy service can mean so much more to people living behind oppressive internet and media censorship.

The role of proxy and VPN services during the Arab Spring uprisings is well documented, and a little Googling can provide you with numerous articles and papers stating as much. Proxies and VPNs are still being widely used in Iran, Syria, and Tunisia, not only to organize and protest but to simply live life with some modicum of normalcy. Accessing email, sharing cat videos, and posting carefully curated seflies are just as much a part of the internet that people want, in addition to the actual important things.

Everyone deserves Maru videos. 

The fight for free and open internet access is an ongoing and difficult one. Bloggers are getting jailed and flogged,  journalists are being thrown in jail, and citizens are being kept in the dark behind tightly controlled digital walls. Organizations like the Mozilla Foundation, the EFF, and  The Center for Democracy and Technology are all fighting for global internet rights, and deserve a minute or two of your time.

I’ll no longer be taking for granted my ability to sit for hours in a downward spiral of weird Youtube videos. I look forward to the day when anyone, anywhere, can choose to spend hours on anything from meaningless browsing to intellectual dissent.

Hello again Fox Friends. It’s time for another fun filled FoxyFriday! 

This week, rather than a humorous listicle or an informative article, our post is going to be about the experiences of a real life person using a proxy service. Spoiler: that person is me, your blogess.

I’m an American, and my husband is British. Culturally we’re pretty similar, but there are a lot of little differences, like how the Brits consider swearing to be a cherished art form (which I admire greatly), and how Americans tend to be overly forthcoming with things like feelings, opinions, and a burning love for our national flag.

“Why are there so many American flags everywhere? Have you all forgotten where you live?” he said.

When he moved here to the US, it was a bit of a culture shock. Suddenly he was in the middle of Pennsylvania, surrounded by people who insisted on calling him “guv’na” and who decorated their cars, homes, and bodies with Confederate flags despite living nowhere near The South.

He missed home. He missed the comfort of the background noises of home. Suddenly the background noise of the TV became a reminder that he was 3000 miles away from his friends and family. Non-subtle American style humor or dramatic shows awash in blood and violence but yet afraid to swear or feature nudity, punctuated every 10 minutes with sets of loud and brash commercials, only made his homesickness more real.

Being able to watch TV from The UK brings him a little feel of home, but it also helped me grasp his way of thinking a little bit better. British humor can take a little getting used to, and spending time watching my fill of BritComs and panel shows (and my God, do those people love panel shows) did give me a bit more understanding of their wonderfully dry humor.  I am still trying to figure out how a people who consider partial nudity, swearing, and sexual entendre the height of humor can also be so reserved and non-forthcoming in person.

Even hearing TV commercials from home gave him a pause and a little smile, with the occasional humming along. I think if you went into a crowd of Brits and started singing the Fairy Liquid song, they would all sing along, compelled by years of marketing programming.

For just a short while, he would relax and put on some obscure show that I had never heard of, with accents so un-homogenized for American audiences that I would need him to translate for me.  I still can’t for the life of me understand a heavy Glaswegian accent. Even many websites are tailored for your geo-location, so things like the BBC websites present differently when you look at them from a UK address, rather than American.

It’s a small thing, but these little bit of comfort from home, little hour long bubbles of British culture and hearing people who sound like him, make my husband feel a bit better about living in America.

You may have noticed this week’s Foxy Friday is actually Foxy Saturday. We noticed that too, and are looking into the possible reasons that the weekdays were shifted in time.

First off, we want to let you know we’re running a special this month on all new accounts choosing Peru for their service country. Just enter the code nazca-lines and you’ll get 33% off a new account of any duration. Click here to get started.

Secondly, we’d like to congratulate Hugo Burnham on winning our server naming contest with his “tstickle.”  Hugo wins a month of free proxy/VPN service. Use it wisely.

Nice work Hugo, on assuming that we’d go for the low hanging fruit, so to speak.

This week at The Den, we’re giving you a roundup of stories from across the internet which caught our eye this week. Some serious, some frivolous, all interesting.

1. Google Looks to Return to China  Google, Lord of the Internet, eyes a return to China after a five year absence following a spat over censorship. The draw of the almighty Yuan was too much to resist, though, and reports say that a State-friendly version of the Play Store is in the works.
2. Privacy Concerns with the New iPhone  If you want to use Apple’s new “Hey Siri” feature, the mic will be always on to enable Siri to listen for your plaintive cries for help. This means Siri may also be listening in on your delicate situations, or hear you if you’re giving away state secrets. Be careful out there, agents.
3. Africa isn’t nearly as technologically behind as well meaning White People think   Africa is a vibrant, complex, tech loving continent. Good intentions often mask unintentional White Saviour complexes which come with a hefty and unpleasant dose of good old fashioned Colonialism.
4. Zen Foxes   There’s not much else to say on this one, other than that foxes are the best. Take that, cats.
5. Peruvian Rock Band Celebrating Ancient Culture  Uchpa is a band singing in the ancient indigenous language of Quechua, bringing native Andean culture to the stage along with an appropriately rock and roll attitude and awesome headgear.

That’s it for our peek into this week’s Interesting Things From The Internet.  Did you come across something we’d like? Let us know!

Hello Again, Foxes!  Last week, we touched on some cool reasons for having a proxy/VPN service, but let’s face it, a whole lot of you are probably using it to watch stuff you’d otherwise be blocked from seeing.

So this week we’re going to highlight weird TV from around the world to pique your interest. Some of it you may find odd, some of it weird, but hopefully all of it is entertaining.

Weird TV connects across cultural bounds. If any of this strikes for fancy, follow THIS link to get FoxyProxy service!

1. Four in a Bed – (Great Britain)  Despite the name, this show is not about sexy fun bedroom time. Pretty much the opposite actually. It’s a reality show which follows four sets of B&B owners as they stay at each other’s places and decide which among them is best. There is a glorious amount of the polite assholery which the British do so well, as well as more shots of a Full English (it’s breakfast, you guys) than you could ever want.

1. Slow TV – (Norway)  Slow TV is a genre, not the actual name of a show. Norway loves its slow TV though, broadcasting gems like Piip Show, (a live feed of a bird feeder decked out to look like a teeny cafe), as well as knitting marathons, a cross country train journey, and the upcoming week long reindeer migration. This actually sounds pretty relaxing. We can’t lie, this clip looks pretty appealing. Put on the kettle and settle in.

1. Fox News (USA) The jury is still out on if this channel is actually an elaborate, Andy Kaufman-esque satire attempting to critique the absolute worst traits of American society and identify the most terrible people among Americans so that the rest of the country can easily avoid them,  or if it really is attempting to be a serious news channel. Judge for yourself!

Good morning, FoxyProxy fans! It’s Friday. Or as well call it, “FoxyFriday”, because we like occasional alliteration and also because we’re going to start making a Friday blog post a regular thing.

To celebrate our inaugural FoxyFriday, we’re holding a little contest to give away a free one month subscription for any country. To enter, just comment below or on social media and give us your best idea for a server name.

Our server names must be eight letters long, so you have to be creative. As much as they amuse us, no profanity or anything too offensive, please. We’ll choose whichever one we like best using very unscientific methods.

So, what do you do with a proxy or VPN, anyway?

We’re so glad you asked.

We all know some basic reasons to use a proxy or VPN.  One of the most popular uses is bypassing content restriction to watch TV and other kinds of entertainment from other countries. Maybe you’re an expat, maybe you love the BBC, or maybe you just really like that Norwegian show where they live stream wild birds in a teeny cafe for hours at a time.

Aside from watching awesome shows, proxies and VPN service can be really useful for other things.

1. Getting Better Prices Many companies, such as airlines, change prices according to location. Meaning that you could get a different price for that ticket to Norway to watch Piip Show in person depending on where you’re browsing from.
2. Dodging Censorship A lot of our subscribers live in places where government censorship of the internet is the norm. A VPN or Proxy can help them connect to the world at large. On a less grand scale, using a VPN or Proxy can help you get around restricted access in places like school or work. Not that you would be procrastinating at work, we’re sure.
3. Beefing Up Security Routing your computer’s traffic through a VPN is a good idea to keep prying eyes away from your data when you’re on a network with questionable security standards. Fire up a VPN when using airport, coffee shop, or any public wifi to ensure no one is snooping on your connection.

If you’re a subscriber to our paid services, you know that usernames seem a little random, and occasionally weird. You’re entirely right. The usernames are randomly generated, the product of two words from our database being mashed together with all the finesse of Shakespeare’s chimps.

This can sometimes lead to awkward situations and uncomfortable silences.

Our favorite so far has been sodomyqueen, which prompted a quick complaint from the account holder. Don’t worry, we’ve since removed “sodomy” from the list of words, though I’m sure if you ask nicely, “sodomy” can be added to your account name.

Some other great examples include:

prickrally   A new kind of Formula 1 racing, maybe

banalcoitus   The most boring kind of coitus

drownsam   Unfortunately assigned to someone with a son named Sam

racialgnu   Nope

tendergourd    For a connoisseur of fruit

tattoofreak   Which is kind of judgmental, honestly

voyeuremcee   A very specific subset of hiphop

gravyswim   Ideal for someone in the American South

Have you gotten a bizarre account name? Share it with us either here or on social media, and our favorite will get a free month of service!

Hi! We’re FoxyProxy. Nice to meet you. Welcome to The Fox Den, our brand spanking new blog feature. We’ll be bringing you news from around the internet, facts, occasional bad jokes, and product news.

A little bit about us, first. FoxyProxy was founded in 2006 by Eric, a computer scientist who successfully navigated the early frontier of The Internet and saw the need for a reliable Proxy/VPN service, so he set about starting his own company to provide it.

We’ve got long established roots, so you know we’re no fly by night start-up. We’re privately owned, so that means there is no Board of Directors sitting in the shadows, interested only in shareholder profit. We provide services for both individuals and corporations because we get that proxy and VPN services have real business value.

Free speech, free press, and transparency are near and dear to our hearts, which is why we donate money and resources to advocacy groups aligned with our principles.

Get to know us!

So, what is the difference between a proxy and VPN, anyway?

While they serve a similar function, they work differently. A proxy is a bit like a filter for your web browser, routing web traffic through the proxy server but not affecting things like apps or other programs on your computer, tablet, or phone which may connect to the internet.

A VPN routes all of your traffic through the VPN server, including all programs and apps which aren’t browser dependent.

Which would work better for you? Here’s a handy chart to break things down further for you. The good news is, both services are included with a paid subscription!

Head over HERE for access to our free downloads, or to purchase a subscription.

Each technology has advantages and disadvantages:

Feature		VPN		HTTP(s) proxy
Encryption		all data is encrypted end-to-end.		SSL connections: all data is encrypted end-to-end. Non-SSL connections: No data is encrypted.
Flexibility		You can not select which applications go through the VPN. All data sent/received by your computer passes through the VPN.		You can decide which applications go through the proxy and which applications use your direct internet connection.
Compatibility		If content (such as video) does not work with HTTP(s) proxies, it will definitely work with the VPN since the VPN is invisible to content/applications.		Some websites use special protocols that can not be properly handled by HTTP(s) proxies.
Restrictions		None!		None!
Support		OS/X, iOS, Windows, Android, any other appliances like the XBox, PS4, and even many network routers.		While all web browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari and IE support HTTP(s) proxies, other applications on your computer might not work with them.
Speed		VPN connections can be 1-3% slower than your regular connection because transmissions pass through an additional network hop.		Due to the use of server-side caching, your connection through the HTTP(s) proxy can sometimes be even faster than your direct connection.