The Philippines are one of the easternmost countries of Asia. Despite the country being an archipelago and one of the most remote areas of the continent, it hosts a good one hundred million people. And yet “only” about six percent of the population is online, which is still a good six million. The case is such because in part accessibility is poor, and in part because the people themselves cannot always afford an internet connection. We imagine it is also hard to organize internet access to every single little inhabited island in the country. Still, online presence in the Philippines is on the rise and the country has seen great development in this matter since 2005. While classified as one of the more free countries, this article is about offering a safe solution to a more protected online connection to and from Vietnam.
Being a more remote set of islands, the Philippines – with a little bit of cruelty – can be viewed as a mere political entity that does not reflect the vast diversity of its peoples. The country has nineteen official languages and many, many more unofficial ones. It is definitely worth using a Philippine IP address just to find out more about these topics. However, because of the country’s relative remoteness, not many VPN providers lease or hosts servers here. Additionally, if you connect to the Philippines from America or Europe, expect quite a bit of loss in connection speeds. This is amplified if you use a VPN provider. While they are a safer solution, you do lose some additional agility via data encryption. Better safe than sorry, but do not have high expectations.
From a legal standpoint, the Philippines are in a good place. The aforementioned vast diversity of peoples is generally respected online. To bring up our legal example that is related to this very topic, 2012’s Cybercrime Prevention Act stirred up some waters in the country, as next to criminalizing more reasonable topics in this sense such as child pornography or identity theft, the government also aimed to retaliate on those who committed libel. This was later deemed to be unconstitutional, and thus the legal framework of the Philippines remains a better one from the viewpoint of internet freedom. Indeed, the country was categorized as free by Freedom House, though at the rear end of the spectrum.
According to Freedom House, the Philippines are a “free” country in terms of internet freedom. However, according to their categorization, they are listed at the bottom of the “free section”, as the country does employ some means to restrict internet content. These mostly consist of simply removing or blocking content. Conditions of privacy and net neutrality are not the best. Some of the unwelcome material includes child pornography, hate speech, online surveillance and terrorism. These are topics often restricted, so overall we conclude that there is nothing too far below the average regarding Philippine internet restrictions.
Streaming availability in the Philippines is good, but only for music enthusiasts. Next to local sites and radio stations, some international companies also made their way to the country’s online market. Among them is Apple Music, but Google Play Music is not. In return, you can listen to a more rare streamer, Guevra. Some tunes also await you on Rdio and Spotify. For film, there is some worse news. Netflix is not available in the country, nor it is in the rest of Southeast Asia. Blink TV is good to go on the other hand, and so is iFlix. Another recent addition is HOOQ. These are lesser known companies, but that does not mean that there is a lack of quality associated with them. Therefore, streaming in the Philippines is good for music, and though movies lag behind a bit, they are also in an acceptable shape.
The Philippines are a distant land, but apart from that, there is a general slowness to their internet connections. Therefore, we are not going to recommend three VPN providers on the basis of them handling speed loss the best.
We would like to begin with highlighting VyprVPN. Few companies offer connections to the Philippines, but they are one of them. Next to decent prices, you can also enjoy high security with VyprVPN. Among their services is an NAT firewall that will improve your already encrypted network’s protection. Furthermore, you are also welcome to try the company’s own brand of SmartDNS called VyprDNS to minimize speed losses when streaming content.
Secondly, here is ExpressVPN. Staying true to their name, they are famous for good results on speed tests. It is worth noting though that they are a bit more expensive than the rest, but you get a lot in return next to the agility of their connections. Extensive device and SSL support, along with 30 days of refund time are all yours if your become a customer.
Lastly, we would like to advise you on IPVanish. This company is probably the one that offers the most complete VPN service on the market. Their strength lies in the fact that every aspect of their VPN is strong, though not exceptional. However, while other companies have weaker sides that they do not focus on that much, IPVanish is the jack-of-all-trades and almost master of all of them as well.
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