Phenquestions
In our series to bring you the reviews of different security and privacy products available on the Internet. This article is a review of Jumpto Browser. In one sentence, I can sum it up as being good only for preschool kids. Also, if you are a parent who likes to put their kids on too many restrictions, you can use this browser. If you want flexibility in selecting what sites to allow and what sites to block, I would suggest moving to OpenDNS Parental Controls. But this is what I think. Your views may differ. Read on this review of Review of Jumpto to know about the different security and privacy on offer.
Jumpto Browser Review
Does Jumpto Really Change Your Location
You can download Jumpto from their website or from CNET. Upon installing Jumpto, you get a Jumpto panel as shown in the image below. If you created an account with Jumpto before downloading Jumpto, you can use it to log in. If you did not, you will have to create an account using the Jumpto sign-in panel.
While signing in, you get to select if you wish to route all your Internet traffic through Jumpto servers. You may want to select it so that you get a secure VPN. Upon signing in, you are provided with Jumpto Overview panel that shows you that you are protected. This panel also shows you how your country has been changed and to where. It also shows you your Jumpto Account details. See the image below for details.
However, there was nothing to prove that Jumpto actually changed my country other than the Jumpto Overview panel. I checked my IP address and it was not changed. I checked out the Jumpto help for details and it appeared that it uses proxy settings to change country for protecting your privacy. This sounded good until I went on to check my proxy settings under Internet Options in Control Panel. Nothing was changed in the Proxy Settings (see image below).
Probably, I was supposed to change it manually. If you too see that your proxy settings did not change, you can change it to:
- IP Address: 127.0.0.1
- Proxy Port: 8080
Upon changing the proxy in LAN Settings under Internet Options, I logged on to the Internet to see if my location really changed. There are many sites on the Internet that tell you your IP address. One such site is whatismyipaddress.com. You can see the result in the following image.
Using proxy, Jumpto actually changes your location to something else and thus, protects your privacy on the Internet. Just remember to change the proxy IP and port each time you sign into Jumpto. Also, when you quit Jumpto, you have to remove the proxy else your Internet may not work fine. Since these are not addressed automatically, you have to do it manually for each session.
Parental Controls In Jumpto
You do not get many options for controlling what your kids do on the Internet. Jumpto divides the entire Internet into three categories based on your kids' schooling level. You can set the level under Secure Kids section of the Jumpto Panel. You can also set up the max bandwidth your kids can use per month as well as the time-periods when they are not supposed to use the Internet.
Before you can set up restrictions, you will have to add each kid to Jumpto. In other words, you have to create separate accounts for each of your kids. Upon creating these accounts, you can go ahead and select the restrictions. You can view what types of sites are allowed in each of the three levels before deciding on the level of restriction to be placed per account (see image below). There is no provision to customize the default restrictions though - none that I could find on my own.
If you have small kids under the age of 8 or so, you will find Jumpto to be of good value. If the kids are bigger, you may need more customization. Check out our article on parental controls for Windows for options.
Jumpto Browser download
Download: Jumpto.
Note: You get only 250MB bandwidth per month with free account. If you need more, you can buy additional bandwidth. Also, if you route your Internet traffic via Jumpto servers (by selecting the option when signing in) you will end up consuming more bandwidth.
PS: One of the weird behaviors I noticed when starting and ending Jumpto sessions was that my firewall gave too many alerts related to other browsers such as TweetDeck. It looked as if the browsers changed ports whenever I started Jumpto sessions.
I will end my review of Jumpto on this note. If you think I missed anything, please drop a note in the comment boxes.
