Despite the financial troubles it has caused, Greece is still a member of the European Union. This means that from the standpoint of internet freedom, certain laws and sanctions affect this country in a homogenous manner. The result is that while the internet is freer than in other countries, there are still some restrictions present that need to be addressed in this article. Additionally, this article is also going to recommend you three Virtual Private Network (VPN) providers based on the knowledge we display. Such companies excel in offering safe solutions to the problem of your personal online security when trying to access Greek websites and services or those provided by other nations.
Greece is a highly coveted country, from a touristic point of view. In between enjoying the Greek beaches, visiting the Acropolis of Athens and exploring other parts of the country, you will bump into restrictions when trying to access your streaming service of choice or accessing certain websites you visit from home. On the flipside, it must also be noted that if you use a Greek IP address to connect to the internet, language might be an obstacle. Apart from topics like tourism and business, website translations are not that prevalent in the country. Of course, there is always the possibility that you happen to be an expat who wants to connect to Greek websites more easily using a Greek IP address. In both cases, we recommend using a VPN service to facilitate safer and more efficient online adventures for you.
It is worth mentioning that because Greece is an EU member state, there are some legal specifics that are shared with other EU countries. This is especially true for the online domain. For example, Greece was a part of the ACTA area under the flag of the EU that intended to reduce copyright infringement, among other agendas. Since the entire region opted out of the agreement in 2012, today there are other, more subtle ways of legal action taken against activities that EU leadership deemed not suitable. For example, search engines are affected in a way that will require results not to include nudity and topics categorized as controversial among the pictures. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mobile internet are subjects of regulation in Greece. Luckily, if you become a customer of a VPN company, you will not have to worry about such issues.
The types of censored and filtered content in Greece mostly conforms to the rest of the European Union, with some minor changes in the wording of the laws, for example, but this can be partially understood as simply difference between languages and governmental preference. For example, child pornography and any kind of promotion of such material are not allowed in Greece.
Content inciting anti governmental actions, hate and discrimination is “prosecuted”, although few reports exist of crackdowns (this of course does not disclose anything). The government also has the capabilities to conduct surveillance on the public. If you opt for a VPN provider on the other hand, your data traffic will be encrypted, meaning that even if some outer forces detect your presence, they will have an extremely hard time finding out what is it that you are actually doing online.
Streaming availability in Greece is not bad, but not the best either. While music streaming thrives, movie content lags behind a bit, at least in the international sense. Netflix cannot be found in Greece; in fact, out of the European countries, they operate in the western (and northwestern) part of the continent only. However, there are several local online distributors of moving picture. The Greek Orthodox Church has its own stream, while Ellas TV is a more general-purpose broadcaster. Radio streaming on the other hand is easier to find.
For music then, a lot more internationally successful companies are present in Greece. Apple Music, Google Play Music, Deezer, 8tracks are all participants on the market, as well as Spotify, Rdio, SoundCloud and Bandcamp, with the latter two being free sites.
Greece can be best understood as a country close to the standard of the EU online directives. However, as with most other European countries, there is a tendency to apply more strict information control methods and there is less good to suspect on this level in the near future. Because of this, there are three VPN services that we think fit the Greek internet the best to fully regain your online freedom.
First, we would like you to read a bit about ExpressVPN. This company is one of the few that actually live up to the name they adopted. We are talking about one of the fastest providers on the market, both in connection speeds and customer service. Additionally, you have SSL support, making ExpressVPN a suitable general-purpose VPN.
Secondly, we would like to mention PureVPN. With a network of over 140 countries to connect to, this company is a great candidate to establish a VPN connection from Greece to other places of the planet. Another key feature of PureVPN is a built-in kill switch. This tool – when activated – will automatically cancel any of your VPN connections if you encounter problems with your network. But then again, you can make use of the top encryptions of the day that are 256-bit strong at least.
And lastly, we would like to recommend IronSocket. This Hong Kong based company is most known for its strong proxy support, making it an ideal choice for P2P, file sharing and such. Well versed in both HTTP and SOCKS proxies, you can easily fine-tune this VPN provider with the torrenting software of your choice. Prices are also reasonably low, and thus we find IronSocket to be a worthy pick. (Edit)
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