Best Saudi Arabia VPN Service
By Paul Liu
Monday, November 25th, 2013

Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the Arabian Peninsula and also one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Even though the country derives a major portion of its revenue from oil exports, the last few years have witnessed the growth of several other key sectors. Saudi Arabia also ranks high as far as internet connectivity is concerned since more than 55% of its population has access to the internet.
The Saudi Arabian government maintains a strict control over the media, press, Television and the internet. The restrictions and censorship are even applicable for foreign nationals and expats who form a sizeable portion of the population. The pervasive censorship has forced many Saudi nationals and foreigners to use anonymity solutions like Virtual Private Networks to hide their online activities from the higher authorities. Read on to learn why a VPN has become a necessity in Saudi Arabia and how it can help you to access your favorite content.
1) Bypass Online Censorship – Saudi Arabia practices a very strict form of internet censorship. The entire internet traffic from the country is routed to a server farm and filtered through content filters. The Saudi authorities have blocked hundreds of thousands of websites with adult, family planning, gambling, drug, web proxy or alcohol related content. In addition, any website that is deemed to insult the religious sentiments or challenge the political authority is promptly blocked in the country. Even popular sites such as Wikipedia and Google Translate are blocked in the country since they offer an easy way to bypass the official censorship. The country ranks at the near bottom as far as the freedom of press is concerned and even independent bloggers have been arrested in the past for posting their opinions on the web.
In such a repressive scenario, a VPN can help you to bypass the censorship imposed by Saudi Arabian authorities in several ways:
– With the help of a VPN, you can access blocked sites and post your opinions on social and blogging sites without the fear of getting arrested by the Saudi authorities. Since a VPN creates a secure tunnel for your online activities, you can rest assured that your IP address and identity would never become available to Saudi authorities.
– A VPN can help Saudi nationals to unlock sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and Blogger from countries like China where a lot of popular sites are not available.
2) Unlocking Of Location Restricted Websites – The last few years have witnessed an astounding growth of On-Demand services and streaming websites. However, the premium content/video sites cannot be accessed from everywhere; the content providers restrict access only to certain countries. In addition to On-Demand sites, even banking and e-commerce websites follow the same pattern and use GEO-IP checks to prevent fraud and provide a better service to their customers. These restrictions severely limit the entertainment, shopping and banking options available to expats, tourists and frequent fliers since their local IP address would always fail the location check done by the content providers.
Since a VPN can also act an IP changing solution, it is perfect for unlocking On-demand, shopping and banking websites from one’s home country. Here is a list of few premium websites that can be unlocked from Saudi Arabia (or anywhere) with the help of a VPN service:
– Expats and tourists visiting Saudi Arabia can now unlock sites like Hulu, HBO Go, BBC iPlayer, Netflix, CBC, NBC, CTV, iTV, Amazon Prime, Lovefilm, NFL, MLB, Eurosport, Xfinity, Demand 5, Sky, Fox, 4OD, Vudu, CBS, Pandora, ABC, NHL and CWTV right from within the country just by switching to a US, Canadian or European VPN IP address.
– A VPN subscription is also essential for Saudi nationals if they wish to unlock Saudi websites from an overseas location. In order to unlock Saudi Arabian sites from abroad, you need to subscribe to a VPN service that offers a Saudi Arabian IP address. Then, with the help of your Saudi IP address, you can unlock banking, ecommerce, media and entertainment sites such as alarabiya.net, www.alhayat.com, arabnews.com, www.aawsat.net, saudigazette.com.sa, www.albiladpress.com, aleqt.com, www.al-jazirah.com, al-madina.com, www.alriyadh.com, alwatan.com.sa, www.alyaum.com, okaz.com.sa, www.dokkanafkar.com, souq.com, www.lemuda.com, bankalbilad.com, www.alrajhibank.com.sa, alinma.com, www.anb.com.sa, hsbcsaudi.com, www.alahli.com, riyadbank.com, www.sabb.com, shb.com.sa, www.samba.com, mbc.net, www.osn.com, mtvme.net, www.sauditv2.tv, ekhbariya.tv, www.alriyadiah.tv, alriyadiah.tv, www.4shbab.tv, alhurra.com, www.almaareftv.com, aljazeerasport.net and iqraa.com.
3) Securing Online Activities – While most netizens have made the switch to mobile internet and wireless technologies, the security challenges associated with these technologies are not clear to a vast majority of them. The cyber criminals take advantage of the security loopholes in the latest technologies as well as the ignorance of internet users to steal data and money from unsuspecting people. A VPN can help you to protect your privacy and security online in several ways:
– Using a VPN is one of the easiest and most effective ways to protect your wireless internet sessions. As you might be aware, most commercial Wi-Fi providers use very lax security measures so it becomes really easy for hackers to steal data from users who are using the same network. However, once you connect to a VPN service, you can safely use the Wi-Fi hotspots at malls, airports, libraries and hotels without worrying about the safety of your data.
– A VPN subscription is also essential for those who regularly use the internet for banking, shopping and connecting with their friends. Most VPN providers use a strong encryption to protect data so your passwords, banking details and social accounts remain safe from theft and hacking.
Best Saudi Arabia VPN Service
If you want to unlock premium content from America or Europe from within Saudi Arabia, there are several options available:
- HideMyAss
- IPVanish
- CactusVPN
- SwitchVPN
- VPN4ALL
- Kepard
- VyprVPN
- Overplay
- StrongVPN
- proXPN
- ExpressVPN
- PureVPN
- Invisible Browsing
- BolehVPN
- HIDEIPVPN
- Private Internet Access
- LeafyVPN
- VPNSecure
- BTGuard
- Torguard
- 12vpn
- EarthVPN
- WorldVPN
Conclusion
As it is evident from last few paragraphs, a VPN subscription has become absolutely essential in Saudi Arabia. Having a VPN subscription not only allows you to access your favorite websites but also provides a way to bypass the strict censorship implemented by the Saudi Arabian authorities. So if you want unrestricted access to the internet while in Saudi Arabia, sign up with a reputed VPN service provider today.
November 25, 2013