Identity Cloaker Review – IP Cloaker
Over the years I’ve looked at most of the private proxy surfing, anonymous, hide your IP address software – anything that can help surfing anonymously on the Internet. Some of it is excellent, a lot of it is total rubbish and most of it lies somewhere in between – here’s possibly the exception my Identity Cloaker Review.
The very worse programs (and there are a lot of these) are simply basic proxy switchers, they search the internet for free proxies and then channel your data through them. Of course, the free anonymous proxies are some of the most insecure servers on the planet, often run by hackers and identity thieves preying on the people that think they can get a super secure connection by someone else paying for it!! Some may just about hide your address, your IP address that is but you’ll lose passwords, account details and maybe worse in return.
Secure Proxy Network
The added bonus of using a professional network of proxies is that you are actually getting two products in one. You may have seen many programs allowing you to watch UK TV, Hulu and BBC iPlayer and bypassing IP address restrictions. Well, most of these are simply proxy servers in the corresponding countries, you pay for access to those servers – these often cost many times the cost of Identity Cloaker for access to a single server!
Using Identity Cloaker you’ll get access to proxy servers in many countries including France, UK, USA, Canada, Germany and Netherlands – each of these servers can be accessed to watch online media content – they’ve even put in multiple servers to cope with the extra demand for BBC iPlayer Proxy and Hulu watchers.
Secure IP Cloaker
Anyway, when it comes down to it, I think there are three major ways to rate security software – the important factors are
- Security – how well does it protect your connection and your anonymity.
- Ease of Use – this area can be very technical, the software shouldn’t be difficult
- Speed – if a solution is slow, it will simply be painful to use.
Now I’m not going to go through all the software I’ve used but there are in my opinion two options – if you have no budget to spend on a solution – look up TOR and use that – it’s very slow and a bit tricky to use but it’s still better than many commercial software. If you can afford a commercial solution with fast private proxies – check out Identity Cloaker – my review follows.
Identity Cloaker Review
The installation of Identity Cloaker is pretty straight forward it takes a minute or so and doesn’t require administrator access. You can install to your computer laptop or copy onto a USB stick so that you can use it on any PC you use – maybe work, college, cyber cafe etc.
When you first fire up Identity Cloaker you’ll see the following screen
I’ve blotted out the proxy names for obvious reasons, but you can see there are multiple proxies in Germany, Sweden, Holland, UK and USA. Listed next to them are the response times so if you don’t need to use a specific country proxy then just pick a fast one. At this point you are not connected to any proxy, so your connection is not protected.
So, all I need to do is pick a proxy and connect or start up my browser. Remember though if you want to pretend to come from a certain country, you’ll need to pick the right proxies.
Bypass Geo-Blocks with Ease
So, if you want to surf as an American then select a US proxy, want to watch the BBC then select a UK proxy.
Here’s the authentication screen where you have to type in your username and password. You’ll notice the server is listed as 127.0.0.1 which is actually your local machine. This is because Identity Cloaker makes an encrypted tunnel between your computer and the proxy server you have selected. It is down this tunnel that all your communication flows and is completely unreadable to anyone outside this tunnel, your ISP logs will contain no details of your browsing at all, also anyone sharing a network, wifi will see nothing either.
From this point my connection will appear to come from the country of the proxy, I’ll be treated by the web servers I visit as being a UK citizen in this case. This is why it is so useful for watching things like BBC Iplayer, or if I switched to a US server then I’ll be able to listen or watch US only programmes.
Switch Servers for Total Privacy/Anonymity
Identity Cloaker runs silently in the background with a little padlock showing your Identity is cloaked. You can see confirmation here –
You can instruct the proxy to switch every few minutes for added security but remember your origin will switch as well.
All the proxies are privately and discretely run by a team of proxy specialists, the absolute minimum of data is logged and deleted almost instantly. The servers are secured to the highest level and themselves leave very little trace on any server you visit (you of course leave none). When I used it there was virtually no speed loss although using a US proxy my connection was a little slower. Similarly, I used a UK server to stream the BBC News live to my computer from France.
Identity Cloaker – Mobile Application
You can Identity Cloaker from your USB stick on any computer you use, the SSH tunnel can be used via a works proxy server and can also ‘tunnel’ through firewall restrictions (you should be careful with this functionality though)
Identity Cloaker also offers for advanced users an Open VPN connection option, this can be used to encrypt other forms of communication. It’s quite simple to use just connect to one of Identity Cloaker’s proxy servers and you have created an encrypted tunnel which will protect the rest of you connection – email, ftp, instant messaging – yes you can encrypt virtually anything.
I’ll go into more depth of Identity Cloaker’s technical features quite soon, there’s a huge amount of development and thought gone into this software that deserves some more attention, if you want to surf the web anonymously there isn’t a better product that I am aware of.
Hi Carla,
yes it's simple to switch on and off just right click on the icon in the task bar. Or you can set it up so that it only works with specific programs – so you could route Internet Explorer, whilst leaving Firefox with your local IP.
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Have been looking for a way to watch BBC Iplayer in France and after looking at paying for options, I found your site. I'm am not a "techy" so this question may sound stupid. I understand that some servers are not secure so I assume you can "switch this on and off" at anytime? So you only use it for example to watch programs. Thanks for the great info – keep it up!
Have been using Identy Cloacker for nearly three years,it is easy to use and has never let me down.
Is especially useful when using public 'hotspots' due to encryption and I never log into banking accounts etc. without using IDC. Makes booking flights, hotel rooms safe when away from home.
Tech support is extremely fast and helpful, often getting replies within minutes.
I would like to thank the author for such a great program.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Hi Sultan,
You do raise a good point and to be honest there is little to stop any regime or security service monitoring access to a specific IP address that was flagged as a anonymity service.
There is however little evidence that this takes place mainly due to the huge amount of resources it would take.
The advantage is of course that they will not know what you have said, what websites you have accessed or any other information about what you do online.
Many thousands of people for instance simply use anonymity services like Identity Cloaker simply for watching BBC Iplayer or Hulu, accessing their own bank accounts abroad, gambling or a host of other reasons.
But I do take your point about the possibility though. If you wish, feel free to drop me a line using the contact button (email is encrypted) and I can check further for you.
I have mooted the point previously with the guys at Identity Cloaker about having some reserved and hidden IP addresses for higher security. The problem is how you validate and restrict access to genuine individuals for these addresses.
WG
Hi Welshgadgets,
I am from a country where the freedom of speach does not exist. How safe it is to use it to surf the internet and write comments expressing my views?
I am afraid that just the fact that I am connected to a particular proxy server (which they know to be a secure proxy server) could put me at risk!
I'm going to update this review very shortly as hopefully the new version of Identity Cloaker will be released.
It's taken about 18 months in development, they are just fixing a few small bugs now apparently.
There are some amazing features including one which will actually boost your internet speed for slower connections.
I'll wait until it's officially released though. I would urge all users to upgrade as soon as you get notified – it's well worth it!!
WG
Katie,
Yes it will work fine – BBC Iplayer works in normal proxy mode – just click on a server to connect.
Channel 4 on Demand needs to use the VPN function.
You can install and see how it works for free – just install the demo below which works exactly the same although it only allows access to a few web sites (unfortunately not the BBC!)
Identity Cloaker Demo
To see how the VPN function works – have a look at the video here – it is a step more but not too hard.
Hulu VPN Mode
Good luck with the operation!!
I am going to the czech republic in June,would I be able to use the 10 trial of Identity Cloaker so I can watch BBC Iplayer & channel 4OD?
Thanks Katie
HI Kevin,
It works fine, I use it all the time when I'm away for Match of the day and the rugby, formula 1 etc on the BBC. There are lots of UK servers and they keep adding them all the time.
Works best if you turn off the encryption from the program as that increases the speed a lot.
Although the final speed will depend on the slowest part of the connection – so if you've got a very slow broadband connection you'd be best to check first.
Safest way is to use the 10 day trial first, if you do have problems you can get it refunded.
Drop me a line on the contact form if you've got any questions, happy to help.
welshgadgets
Hi Welshgadgets
what is this system like for watching live sport, ie 6 nations?
is there a minimum internet speed required? I seem to have a viewing performance which is like watching the moonlanding when using SETANTA ETC.
Kevin Adelaide
Forgot to say, if you have access to your own VPN server. There is a neat little openvpn client called tunnelblick which supports the Mac.
Sorry Sharpy missed your comment.
Unfortunately the only other company I used with a Mac has disappeared. They offered a VPN function for watching Tv but website has gone.
Identity Cloaker should have a Mac version out very soon, but not sure on exactly when. I'll post as soon as I know.
It depends on what you want, there are very few options especially for the Mac if you want the security and protection but there are a few alternatives if you just want to change your IP address to watch media sites.
I'm sorry don't know enough to recommend one at the moment though.
welshgadgets
I have a mac, which isn't supported by Identity Cloaker. Any alternative suggestions?
Hi Shawn,
I'm glad you're pleased with Identity Cloaker.
I haven't checked the Hires modes myself but will do shortly – it must be a speed issue I guess.
Make sure you use one of the MAC compatible servers if you are using Hulu, video streams better over this as it uses UDP.
If you say no to the prompt which uninstalls the Openvpn drivers when you exit that mode, it shouldn't ask you next time, at least it doesn't on XP.
welshgadgets
I started using this yesterday. I have to say I'm impressed with how responsive their technical support is. Responses came within a few mins.
As a product it simply works. Some things though. I can't watch hulu using the higher resolution option. However I can't be certain if its due to slow Identity Cloaker server, or due to Hulu or very likely due to the my location being far away (Japan). Also to use this with Hulu you will have to install OpenVPN and go through some extra steps each time you enable it, which is a bit annoying but I can live with.i
Thanks for the comment Anne. I've tried most of the privacy protection software around – good support is essential !
I have been using Identity Cloaker for 3 months now. I feel totally secure on the internet. I also am impressed with their tech support which is fast and thourough. They stick with you until your problem is solved.
I highly recommend this service or any of the other proxies out there.