How to Watch Pornhub Even If It’s Blocked in Your State
Following a recent federal appeals court ruling, porn sites operating in Texas must now verify that their users are adults with government-issued ID or some other suitable means of verifying their identity, which is not necessarily what you want. do every time you visit an adult site. Pornhub went offline in protest, and a significant number of Texans are now busy searching for the best VPN (virtual private networks) to install on their devices so they can access them. Texas isn’t the only place where it’s hard to watch Pornhub. Age verification laws have resulted in the adult entertainment site being banned from seven other states , including Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Utah and Virginia. If you try to load a site in one of these states, you will see, in part, a message similar to the following: “[Age verification] bills failed to protect minors as users from the few websites that met the requirements were forced to switch to hundreds thousands of websites with far fewer security measures that are not compliant.”
For its part, Pornhub says the recent Texas ruling “infringes on adults’ rights to access protected speech” and that age verification in general “is not an effective solution to protecting users online.” The company wants age verification to be done at the device level.
As for the federal appeals court, it pointed to the need for age verification for the purchase of old-fashioned print pornography: not applying the same rules to online content “implies that the invention of the Internet has somehow reduced the government’s ability to protect children.” ” District Judge Jerry Smith wrote in the ruling.
How to Watch Pornhub If It’s Blocked in Your State
Whatever your position on age verification laws, remember that the best VPNs can connect your computer to a server in another part of the world, making it seem like you’re somewhere different than you actually are.
However, this is just the beginning when it comes to the benefits of installing a VPN . These software tools hide your online activity from governments, law enforcement, and those who provide you with Internet access. VPNs generally make it harder for companies to track you and provide greater security and privacy (but not anonymity) online.
With that in mind, Lifehacker has reviewed the best free VPNs , the best paid VPNs , and the best free VPNs for Android in the past, but I wanted to highlight a couple of recommendations here—if you’re looking for more suggestions for your Internet needs. viewing needs (related to adult sites or not), follow the links above.
Best Free VPN: Proton VPN
We’ve previously raved about how good the free Proton VPN is, and it’s a great choice if you don’t want to spend anything. Its appeal starts with Proton itself: it is committed to privacy, was created by scientists in Switzerland, and is separate from big tech companies (such as Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft). This is a name you can trust.
There are also surprisingly few restrictions for a free VPN. The two main limitations are that you can only connect from one device and you can’t choose which country’s servers you connect to. That’s it – it’s not as slow as many free VPNs. If you want more flexibility in VPN connections and features, paid upgrades are also available.
Add to that the ease of use you get with Proton VPN, support for a wide range of devices, and the reliability you get from servers around the world, and in terms of a free VPN, it’s hard to beat. Sign up for a Proton account here if you don’t already have one.
Best Paid VPN: NordVPN
When it comes to paid VPNs, you have plenty of great options to choose from, and no app is that much superior, but we’re going to highlight NordVPN here, which we recently compared to ExpressVPN . It’s fast, flexible, and the software it offers across multiple platforms is more polished and intuitive than many of its competitors.
With NordVPN you get a lot of features, from split tunneling to DNS settings and support for the ultra-private Onion network. While you can easily use the software with just a couple of clicks (or taps), there are plenty of advanced features if you want to dig a little deeper—you can even have a dedicated IP address (though that costs extra).
NordVPN prices start at $11.95 per month, but you can get some pretty significant discounts if you pay for a year (or two years) in advance. This is enough to support up to six simultaneous connections, and you can sign up here to register and download the apps.