When VPNs first hit the scene, everyone was amazed.

But the novelty of hot new tech soon grows tired. Customers find endless faults and tear their hair out trying to figure why it doesn't do XYZ.

That's why the new service on offer from Oeck is so exciting.

This sleek and powerful VPN re-imagines online privacy from the ground up and offers users a range of truly unique, innovative features.

So is Oeck like VPN should always have been? Let's take a look...

Oeck's unique Smartrouting feature says it all. "Let's just make everything fast, efficient and easy."

Get Oeck VPN for as low as $3.48 per month when you buy a 2-year plan. Try Oeck VPN for free, for 3 days without any payment instruments.

QNAP Systems, Inc., a leading computing, networking and storage solution innovator, today announced the desktop smart edge PoE Switch - QGD-3014-16PT. With sixteen 30-watt Gigabit PoE ports, two 2.5GbE host management ports, Intel Celeron J4125 quad-core 2.0 GHz processor, and four 3.5-inch SATA drive bays, the QGD-3014-16PT supports QVR Pro, HBS 3 and QuWAN SD-WAN to integrate surveillance deployment, video storage computing, and multi-site remote management to offer SMBs innovative intelligent IP surveillance infrastructure and remote backup solutions.
"Expanding multi-site surveillance networks can be costly and involve large amounts of equipment with low transmission efficiency between multiple remote devices - not to mention the complexities involved in deployment and management. " said Daniel Hsieh, QNAP Product Manager, adding, "the QGD-3014-16PT desktop Smart Edge PoE Switch integrates PoE, surveillance capabilities, and data backup management to simplify these requirements and increase the transmission and backup efficiency of surveillance videos."

NETGEAR, Inc., the leading provider of networking products that empower your gaming experience, has announced the much anticipated availability of the new Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR1000 WiFi 6 AX5400 router. The XR1000 couples next-gen WiFi 6 hardware with advanced DumaOS 3.0, the latest innovation in managing your network settings for optimized gameplay. DumaOS 3.0 software is purpose built for gamers to enjoy superior gameplay and smoother video streaming. This state-of-the-art software combined with the most advanced networking hardware ensures stabilization of ping and reduction of lag spikes with reliable connectivity over both wired and wireless networks.

The Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR1000 is the first WiFi 6 gaming router powered by DumaOS 3.0 gaming software. With the latest WiFi 6 technology, XR1000 is designed specifically to improve performance and reduce network latency when it comes to the gaming environment but will also enhance the overall home networking experience for every connected device. To further boost the gaming experience and give gamers the best gaming connection possible, the DumaOS 3.0 software includes new top features, such as: customizable Geo-Fencing, Ping Heatmap, Application QoS with Bandwidth Allocation, Connection Benchmark, and Traffic Controller. This new Nighthawk Pro Gaming router stands alone with its advanced list of features, which provide optimized control over the network connection while gaming or streaming, ensuring that gameplay can continue uninterrupted.

Steam has updated their purchase and pricing restriction in wake of continued abuse from users exploiting regional price-differences via VPN. You may have read about this recently following the availability of PS4-exclusive Horizon: Zero Dawn on the PC platform, with the release being priced differently by the publisher according to the purchase region of its respective users. However, one way users found to circumvent these restrictions and purchase games at a lower price was to use a VPN service and appear as if they were connecting from one of the lower-priced regions. This prompted a price-hike for Horizon: Zero Dawn in those exploited regions - sometimes by as much as 389%. Such was the case for Argentina, where the game, which was originally being sold for ARS$539,99 ($7,47) got its price hiked to ARS$2100 ($29,06). The game was being sold in US-based stores for $39.

Now, Steam is forcing currencies used on the purchase to match those of the country where the purchase is (apparently) being made. This means you can't pay in dollars a game that is priced in Argentinian pesos or any other currency. This move by Steam aims to keep pricing fair according to users' and countries' purchasing power, and aims to protect users with lower purchasing power from price-hikes derived from the exploitation of regional pricing. An Argentinian user, where the country's minimum wage is set at $233,55, now is protected from users with higher purchasing power being responsible for game price hikes that mean it costs them 10% of their minimum wage to get a single game from the Steam store. You can replace Argentina with any other country that saw its regional pricing being abused via VPN-hidden users who wanted to take advantage of the price difference. I can hear some Game of Thrones bells ringing in the distance.

Axiomtek - a world-renowned leader relentlessly devoted in the research, development and manufacture of series of innovative and reliable industrial computer products of high efficiency - is proud to introduce the NA346, a 4-LAN fanless network appliance platform designed in a small form factor. This ultra-small desktop network appliance is powered by the Intel Celeron processor N3350 (code name: Apollo Lake) featuring the lowest Thermal Design Power (TDP) of 6 W to meet the specific configurations of low-power requirement. The reliable NA346 is positioned as an entry-level SD-WAN, VPN and security gateway for industrial IoT security applications.

"The 5G network is foreseeable to transfer data with greater bandwidth, higher speed and boost the edge computing and AIoT application. The cutting-edge NA346 offers two mini-PCIe slots and SIM socket supporting 3G/4G/LTE communications and connectors to 5G modules," said Kiwi Lee, a product manager of Product PM Division at Axiomtek. "Space limitation is one of the constraints in today's industrial environment. Axiomtek's ultra-small NA346 can be easily installed in narrow spaces. Featuring fanless operation, this network security appliance is perfect to be used in noise-sensitive environments."

Mozilla, the maker of popular web-browser Firefox, has announced that it is now offering virtual private network (VPN) services. Available for right now as a beta product, the company is promising that it will soon release the software as a fully-fledged application. Firefox Private Network's Mozilla VPN is designed to help users gain more control and safety over their internet traffic while offering protection for a whole device. if you wish to try it out, you would need to join a waitlist. There you can get the VPN app while it is still in beta for iOS, Android, Windows, and Chromebook devices. Support for macOS and Linux is coming soon. The service costs $4.99 a month, while if you own a Firefox browser, you can get it free of charge as an extension.

In response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses have adopted work from home policies. Synology's wireless routers feature powerful VPN server capabilities that enable businesses to quickly facilitate a remote workforce. Starting from April 6, Synology VPN Plus licenses will become free to purchase until September 30, 2020.

"We have seen many businesses rushing to adopt VPN solutions in order to set up an infrastructure to enable a remote workforce. Over the past two months, we have seen a five-fold increase in VPN Plus license purchases," said Hewitt Lee, Director of Synology Product Management Group. "As the situation continues to develop in unprecedented ways, we understand that many are uncertain of how to maintain business continuity. Synology is offering VPN Plus licenses for free in an effort to help businesses resume operations remotely."

Netgear releases the first Insight Managed Security router, Insight Instant VPN Business Router (BR500), to enable small businesses or remote office/branch office (ROBO) installations to offer instant access to their office intranet through a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) from anywhere in the world.

This new router is also designed to interconnect up to 3 offices as if they were connected locally, regardless of their geographical location.

Fortigis Inc., today announced the launch of Fortigis, a cloud-enabled privacy & security wireless Virtual Private Network (VPN) router that patrols and controls who connects to a user's Wi-Fi network. The Indiegogo campaign for Fortigis, which is being managed by the Launchpad Agency, has a funding goal of $50,000 USD, and features limited Super Early Bird Specials of $199 as well as several other rewards for backers.

Fortigis uses a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to provide users online privacy and anonymity by creating a secure and private network. The secure connection encrypts all of the user's incoming and outgoing web traffic so no one can trace their online activity, protecting them against identity theft, ad targeting and having their online transactions such as online shopping or banking hijacked.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) is a game that has been in the limelight mainly for the unexpected success it achieved in the Steam platform, passing unexpected milestones in the sales department (around 10 million copies sold) and in maximum concurrent players (1,645,460). However, the game has also seen its fair share of problems due to technical or balancing reasons. If there is one circumstance of public outcry that could have been avoided, though, it's the latest: Chinese players have review-bombed PUBG due to the addition of in-game ads. On which we had a more in-depth editorial sometime ago, if you want to take a look.

Review bombing isn't new, and started even before the latest high-profile event of the sort, around Campo Santo's Firewatch. The in-game ads are only present in loading screens, and point towards a third-party VPN service, which promises better internet connections to thousands of Chinese players when connecting to non-asian servers. For now, the ads seem to be limited to the Chinese crowd; there's a chance these ads could expand to other, non-China based players, although that is looking increasingly likely, considering the overall response from the affected portion of PUBG's player-base - the game now counts with more than 26 thousand negative reviews, with the vast majority of those hitting the game since September 29th (not exclusively due to the in-game ads, but those are the most pervasive argument in the reviews.)