Nowadays, it seems like everyone wants to know where you are. Family members, big tech, the government, and even you want to tell your mobile phone where you are. Location tracking is handy for users, as it can help provide added convenience, informing them about nearby businesses, sights in the vicinity, and even tailoring the mobile experience based on their location. However, all this comes with a price in regards to many privacy issues.
But there are some services such as ExpressVPN that can help you with this issue. ExpressVPN has quality on its side, which makes it a reliable one to try.
Whole industries are salivating to collect this information and do so via your smartphone. Every day, companies all over the globe do it, unregulated and with little scrutiny. They log the movement of millions and keep this data for years. Often, they even sell it to others. These may not be telecom giants, massive tech juggernauts like Google, or Facebook, or government agencies, but smaller companies that analyze and log your every move. The previously mentioned entities do it too. Thus, it does not take a tremendous amount of imagination to conjure up that such surveillance may lead to an authoritarian-like regime. Big brother is watching.
Therefore, today, more and more people are turning to dedicated software that helps them combat this movement cataloging or apps to hide your location. You can turn your GPS off, but you can still give out your position via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. You can deny apps location access, but by doing so, you will impair their functionality.
Consequently, your best bet is to mask your whereabouts, tricking your phone, making it think you are somewhere else. Doing this could be very useful if you are playing offshore online casinos, accessing geo-blocked content, for your security, and a myriad of other reasons.
The Best App to Hide Your Location
The use of such apps is commonplace these days. For one, hiding your location makes it safer for you to browse the internet. It may be for your security or that of an organization you are a member of in some capacity. It makes it hard for websites and malware to track your activity, and it helps with data consumption, allowing you to consume less data than necessary.
So, what do you look for in such an app? First off, you must know what you are hiding from, what is trying to track you. If you are looking to hide from other apps shadowing your movement, then know that in most cases, you have likely given them explicit permission to use your GPS. Over time, they may gather data on your habits. Turning off your GPS, blocking access to it, or using an app that can create a virtual location are among your choices.
If an app or website is spotting and collecting information through your IP address, then you should select a VPN app. The main thing is to make sure that it hails from a quality provider, one with a track record of excellent service. Read reviews, and learn if the software is truly capable of concealing your Android phone’s location.
Does it hide the iPhone location easily?
Does it feature an intuitive design that lets you perform this action quickly while allowing you to choose from a wide range of masking spots?
All this is very important, as are options such as a kill switch, split tunneling, and auto-connect, which are not always available to mobile users.
Thankfully, the marketplace has gotten very competitive in recent years, excellent news for users, who can now choose from a hefty selection, with choices that vary in price. According to most, ExpressVPN is the best VPN for mobile phones. VPN, which stands for Virtual Private Network, is software that lets you connect to a secure server that funnels your traffic through an encrypted tunnel that nobody can see into, and spy on your activity.
Other quality choices include IPVanish, NordVPN, ProtonVPN, and CyberGhost. No one app is the best one, as each has pros and cons. Naturally, there may be one that’s better than the pack, but it will also come with a higher price tag. Instance, Surfshark, costs less than its competitors while providing many of the same options. ExpressVPN has quality on its side, but its monthly subscription can run you three times more than Surfshark. So, the choice is up to you as you walk the line between your budget and your needs.
Many free apps may let you mask your whereabouts, but these do not come close to the paid-for services. They have a limited number of features, data caps, and slower speeds.
Does a VPN Hide Your Location?
Yes. It masks your IP address. An IP address, or Internet Protocol address, is your unique identifying number that lets your device communicate with others over a network, and it provides your identity in the process, something equivalent to a business address.
The way a VPN service works is by assigning the user a new IP address from which he communicates with the desired website. The user connects to the service’s server and requests information from a website using his browser. His request goes through the VPN server and gets sent to the website, never displaying his real address. It provides a different gateway through servers around the globe that lets you spoof your IP and location.
Public Wi-Fi hotspots come with security risks, as hackers can use them to steal information, distribute malware, and eavesdrop on communications. Accessing the world wide web via a VPN service helps mitigate these risks by using a combo of encryption and data encapsulation, creating a hidden tunnel. It will keep your browsing activities private from prying eyes.
Fake GPS Locations
Changing the location on your mobile device necessitates misleading it into informing all the installed software that you are somewhere you are not. GPS is a radio navigation system that works through communication between a satellite and a receiver in your device, which talk to each other through radio waves. You do not send data back for the process to work, only receive it from satellites orbiting our planet, which are there to aid in geolocation.
So, if you are wondering how to fake a GPS location on your phone, you do it via special software. There are many such apps. A popular older one is the Position-shift app, developed by the social discovery app SinglesAroundMe. Position-shift displaces your geolocation to where ever you wanted to be. The technology intended to allow users of the SinglesAroundMe app to cover up their whereabouts, but still giving them the ability to socialize with those within their area.
Hola has likely the most popular VPN plugin for Chrome, but it also has one of the most widely used GPS spoofers for Android, in Fake GPS Location. Two reasons why it is a fan-favorite is because it is free, and you get an unlimited number of fake locations. Another terrific option is Mock GPS with Joystick. It provides a Google Maps viewfinder and then lets you pinpoint the location of your choice. You do so by moving the joystick to that spot in real-time, or at least that’s what your mobile phone believes is happening.
A few other Android users can test out, include Fake GPS – ButeRev, it has over five million installs, and it is super-easy to use. Mock Locations lets you schedule rest stops on your fake travel route, and it permits you to set the speed of your travel, simulating real-life transportation. Fake GPS location by Lexa offers some advanced features like the ability to set specific places where there cannot be any evidence of your presence there. What we mean by this is that if you are physically nearing a forbidden spot, the app will spoof a different location, hiding where you are really going.
iPhone users can use some of these and similar apps. However, the App Store itself does not permit apps that let you fake a GPS location, as Apple is against this practice. Thus, you will have to find other ways to download and install this kind of software. Other apps we recommend are Spoofer Go, VPNa, and iTools. The latter is a Windows program that has a built-in virtual location option, which allows you to simulate that you are at other spots in the surrounding area.
