Oculus Rift vs. HTC Vive: What Is The Best Viewer For Virtual Reality?

Of course, you can be satisfied with the virtual reality on the phone or wait for the new VR PlayStation to reveal some news when it comes out at the end of the year. But if one wants it all right away, and is not content with solutions for a short time, as well as a great PC with an even better graphics card, it will be necessary to have a viewer that is up to it. That is, nowadays,  Oculus Rift or  HTC Vive.

Both are already available on the market, provided you know how to support a line for several hours, both relate very well to a computer of good power, and despite this, of course, there are several differences more or less obvious between the two products. The first, the one that immediately jumps to the eye, is the price: $ 599 for the first, 799 for the second. But we know that the price is not everything, so let's see in detail what the substantial differences between the two products are.

 

Immersion

With the helmet on his head, you are projected into a totally new world. But what makes the difference for us is the way in which this world is perceived as real. Regarding the audio and video quality, both brands give excellent performance, although it must be emphasized that the Oculus has built-in headphones, which makes it much more comfortable.
HTC, however, wins the wide-ranging confrontation. In fact, if the virtual reality was perceived only by sight and hearing would win the Oculus, but HTC also provides a glove for tactile sensations, while an advanced sensor allows us to move in the real world without doing damage. At the dive level, there is no comparison.
Winner: HTC Vive

Interaction

Can we live in virtual reality, but also interact with each other? Both systems have a position tracker so you can make simple movements like leaning out to look one thing better, or dodge a phantom virtual cake. But the Rift still needs the support of a console joystick that comes with the device. For something more advanced, we will have to wait until the end of the year.

HTC, on the other hand, has two built-in sensors that make it possible to hear what we touch, when pulling the trigger. The two sticks will become, in virtual reality, guns, phantom hands or other. You can move in a diagonal up to 6-7 meters to interact with the environment. and every movement will be translated into virtual reality, allowing a total immersion. We expect even better for the near future, but there are not enough rumors about the upcoming releases.
Winner: HTC Vive

Comfort

Last minute news: the virtual reality helmet is uncomfortable. The equivalent of having a giant diving mask on the head if possible, even more cumbersome. But here we must definitely take the parts of the Oculus.

Much more compact and functional, with an even easier cable to connect to the PC. It adapts more easily to the face, and does not press too much on the glasses. Plus, it has excellent ventilation. All the opposite of the HTC, very cumbersome, and with a cable that goes down the back and seems always on the point of tangling at our feet, making us feel embarrassed. The experience deserves, but it is still a big malus.
Vincitore: Eye Rift

Setup

Mounting a VR device is certainly not easy. You have to set up many variations, download games and spend hours arranging everything. But with HTC this experience is even worse. Not only does it come with a load of cables to kill a horse (three power adapters, two USB chargers, more video, USB and sync cables).

You also need to place and calibrate two laser projectors, and clear your room to avoid accidents. Once entered on Steam, you need to enter the VR set, turn on the controls and the control unit, and adjust the helmet.

On the contrary, with the Oculus you just have to tinker with a couple of cables, and you do not need to launch software or continuously re-adjust your helmet to start with. Everything is much more practical, and just put on a helmet to start the experience.
Vincitore: Eye Rift

Ecosystem.

Oculus has literally spent capital to secure a future like the next avant-garde computer platform, as developers know that they are paid for by weight. For the same reason, there are dozens of games that you will find available for OR, but not for HTC phones. Not only that, the games of the first are generally much more complete and complex, so as to make those of the second little more than demo.

But in the long run, HTC will probably win, which features the Valve technology also used by Steam. This also allows a better performance of the multi-player and the possibility of inviting friends to play. Considering the speed at which Steam introduces new products to the market, and the ongoing investments both HTC and HTC are doing,

Oculus is likely to be soon doubled. Not to mention that the technology of the controls are light years ahead of the competitor.

Winner: HTC Vive

Who wins?

As evidenced by the article, clearly HTC Vive. Although more cumbersome, difficult to assemble, and much more expensive, the experience it offers is such that you immediately forget all these details.

Despite this, it is not said that Oculus can not redo in the fall when finally the new advanced controller will come out, the lack of which still marks the distance between the two in an abysmal manner. Sensors that detect thumb and forefinger movements will allow you to make more complicated gestures with your hands, and the new camera should allow you to move naturally around your surroundings.

But frankly, with the advance of new houses and programs more and more complicated and defined, there is no even to worry, soon there will be too many choices for fans of virtual reality!

How to open the router ports

For those who use their computer, and their Internet connection, mainly to download files from the web or to play online games is definitely constantly looking for methods, effective, to significantly increase their connection speed or to mitigate as much as possible. 'hateful lag during their online gaming sessions. One of the most effective ways to solve these problems is to port forwarding , which is a technique of opening the ports of your router. The procedure is not very simple and for this reason we decided to write this guide on how to open the ports of the router .

How to open the router ports

Before leaving with the actual guide on how to open the router's doors it is important to explain, for those who do not know it, what these doors are in plain language:
With the term "ports", in internet networks, we indicate a communication channel between an external web service and your home router. In fact, every time we connect to a website, for example, we use port 80 of our router to receive data from the internet pages that we are going to open. These ports, therefore, serve to divide the various telecommunications channels between the various services on the web that we use so that our router does not get confused on the received packets.
The number of ports that a router can handle is just under 50,000 ports, of which, however, just over 1000 are already assigned to predefined services such as FTP (port 21) or HTTP (port 80) .
What we are going to do, in this guide, is to show you how to unlock some ports to be assigned to any service or software so as to allow them to have a personal communication channel and, therefore, faster and better performing. Each router, depending on its brand and its installed firmware, has a different procedure, we will show you the procedure of the most famous and sold routers.

Know the IP address of your router

To access the control panel of our router we will have to type, in the address bar, the IP address of our router. In fact, as well as our computer, our router is also recognized on our private network with an IP address.
Knowing its address is really simple, on Windows you just open the command prompt and type the command " ipconfig " and, under " Default Gateway " you will find the IP address to type to connect to the control panel of your router.
For those who have a LINUX operating system , instead, you must type the command " route -n " and look for the entry "Gateway" where you will be shown the IP address.
Finally, for owners of an Apple computer you will have to type the command " netstat -nr | grep default ", next to" default "you will find the address of your router.
Now that you have discovered the IP address with which to reach the control panel of your router, just look for the guide, below, concerning the router you have to understand how to proceed on how to open the ports of the router .

Aprire router gate TP-LINK

If you own a TP-LINK router then we recommend you follow this mini-guide:

• Access the control panel via the IP address of your router
• We select the item " Forwarding " and then go to " Virtual server ".
• Now we will not have to do is click on the " Add New " to add a new door to unlock, indicating the port number and the IP address from which to receive data.

Aprire router door D-LINK

For those who own a D-LINK brand router, however, can try to follow this mini guide:

• We access the control panel of our router.
• We look for the " Advanced " item and then the " Port Forwarding " entry
• Here you will find yourself in front of a menu where you just enter the name of the service, the number of the door to unlock and the IP address of the service and, finally, click on " Save settings " to save the changes.

After Netgear router gate

Our guide on how to open the ports of the router continues and, now, we treat the marked Netgear routers on which you can open the doors following this small guide:

• We open the control panel of our Netgear router .
• We access the Advanced section and, specifically, in Advanced Setup
• From here we select the entry Port forwarding
• Now we can enter the port number, IP address and service name and finally click on " Add " to unlock our door.

Open Sitecom router ports

If you have a Sitecom router then this little guide could be for you:

• We log in to our router's panel
• We are looking for the " Virtual Server " entry
• From here we can enter and save all the features of the port we want to unlock: port number, service name and IP address

After a router gate TIM

For owners of a TIM router you can follow this mini guide on how to open the router ports :

• We log in to our TIM router
• We are looking for the " Internet " menu and click on the sub-heading " Port mapping "
• Then bring us to the " Port forwarding " section
• Now let's click on the " Add " entry and enter the information of the door we want to unlock

Open Vodafone router ports

For those who own a Vodafone- branded router, you can follow this mini-guide:

• We open the control panel of our router
• We are looking for the " Advanced " menu and then click on " Port Forwarding "
• We will be in front of a menu with all the doors already open, to add another we just fill in the last entry and click " OK ".

Open Fastweb router ports

For those who own a Fastweb router, you can open your router's ports by following this simple guide:

• We open the control panel of the router
• Move to the " Advanced Configuration " menu and take us to the " NAT & Port Mapping " sub menu
• We use one of the free entries to add our door to unlock

VPN what it is and why it should be used in defense of privacy

Here's what it is for and what you can use a Virtual Private Network.

In the most basic sense, a  VPN  (Virtual Private Network) allows you to access the Internet using a private connection. When you click a link, your request goes to the correct server, which usually returns the correct content. Your data flow, without any obstacle, from A to B, and any site or service can see your IP address, among other identifying data.

When you use a VPN, all your requests are routed through a private server owned by the provider of the VPN service. The request changes from A to B through C. You can still access all the data you saw before, but the site (or web service) can only see data from the VPN service provider (such as IP address etc.).

What are the possible uses of a VPN? Here they are:

1) Navigate safely on a public Wi-Fi network

2) See TV programs regardless of geolocation  and restrictions placed by providers

3) In certain nations, defeat an oppressive censorship. The data is encrypted and any type of communication between individuals cannot be intercepted and /or filtered

4) Avoid different prices.  It will also be surprising, but some online shops practice a different rate depending on the country from which they receive the visits. The solution, to have less "discriminatory" prices, is to navigate through a VPN, very patiently.

5) Encrypt any data automatically.  It is a method by which browsing Wi-Fi in public places can be made safe and kept away from public censors. Even if the data is intercepted, it will mean nothing to the hacker.

6) Improve online gaming speeds.  Some Internet providers limit the speed of data transmission in gaming, with a VPN you can hide that you are playing and therefore have (potentially) a higher speed. Obviously, you have to rely on a VPN service close to you and that is able to support data traffic, otherwise, it is useless.

7) Secure and private voice chat. Although some chat apps have built-in encryption, VOIP apps usually do not have them. With a VPN, however, you are safe.

8) Perform sensitive searches without any kind of interference. Here again, we fall within the field of government censorship, which can only be overcome by the use of a VPN.

9) Use private torrent services.  Although the BitTorrent peer-to-peer network has often been identified as a vehicle for piracy, it is at the same time unavoidable because the "legal" contents that travel there are much more than those of "dubious" origin. With a VPN all torrent" activities are made private.

10) Completely private collaboration.  Yes, even the cloud and the tools for group chats can be the target of hackers, copyright theft and industrial espionage targets. A VPN can protect against these risks by encrypting communications.

Android VPN: what is it and what are the best apps to exploit it

VPN stands for Virtual Private Network . This term refers to a private network that operates through a public network, generally the Internet, which allows users connected within it to communicate with each other, to considerably increase the security of their connection, to navigate on encrypted foreign sites and to mask your IP address. By virtue of these characteristics, VPNs are enjoying a high success also as regards connections from smartphones and tablets with an Android operating system.

The VPN is a closed network, in which only users who use the same communication system can access. Obviously, as regards a VPN created to be managed by Android users, the communication system exploited will be the Internet.

What is a VPN?
Accessing the web through a VPN, allows the user to surf anonymously from the smartphone or Android tablet, by masking his IP and transforming it into a code belonging to a foreign country. In this way, in addition to protecting your data and your identity, you have the ability to browse all those sites that from a certain country may not be accessible (such as Facebook in China).

One of the main functions reserved for users hosted on the same VPN is to allow them to achieve a level of communication comparable to that of a home network. VPN connectivity offers the possibility to exchange data and information of any kind, in maximum security, allowing access to the network only to those in possession of the password. A VPN server, to ensure high security of data that are exchanged between users connected to the same network, has the task to encrypt the data sent by the sender, which will be subsequently decrypted by the recipient, who is in possession of the key because belonging to the same sender network.

Using an Android VPN client is extremely useful for those who often surf on public or otherwise unprotected Wi-Fi networks. Surfing on the internet using free W-lan, such as those found in restaurants, stations, and airports can encourage the intrusion of hackers inside their smartphone or tablet, with a very high risk of data theft as a password, credentials of bank accounts, telephone contacts and credit card numbers. Through a VPN client, data is protected and encrypted, making the device inaccessible to third parties.

Given the great success of VPNs, on the market are available, even in a free version, the app created specifically to allow the easy creation of VPNs and to allow users to encrypt their connection, overlapping access to a virtual connection in a few simple taps. Among the most important and well-known apps to mask their connection through the functionality of VPN networks, CyberGhostVPN and VyprVPN , applications compatible with Android operating systems, are available for both smartphones and tablets.

CyberGhostVPN is an extremely simple app to use. The application is also available in freeware version, which allows you to browse for six consecutive hours or until you reach a gigabyte of monthly traffic. Once the available hours have been exhausted, it is still possible to start a new connection, always free of charge and respecting the monthly traffic. For those who need a connection to the VPN without limits, subscriptions are available, with costs starting from € 4 per month.

Once installed the app and created your personal account, the program allows you to easily create an encrypted connection, taking advantage of the servers made available to CyberGhost. At any time the user can obtain the encryption of his IP by pressing a specific button, as well as interrupt the protected connection and return to navigation in standard mode. Paid subscriptions allow the user to select the server to use, associating his IP address with that of the country where the server is hosted.

VyprVPN is an application developed by GoldenFrog and compatible with Android operating systems. The program in question is the ideal solution for those who travel often and need to be able to navigate from countries where there is a high level of censorship regarding access to websites, such as in Russia, China, Turkey and in Korea. And like any VPN client, VyprVPN guarantees at all times the security of its data and an anonymous connection, in the utmost respect for its privacy, regardless of the place in which it is located. The program proves to be easy to use even for non-expert users.

Unlike CyberGhost, VyprVPN is available only through the subscription of a monthly subscription, to be chosen among three different packages. The premium package, the most complete and versatile, offers 50 gigabytes of monthly cloud space, as well as the ability to create VPNs and connect to the Internet via masked IP. Finally, the package allows access from three different Android devices simultaneously. The annual cost of the Premium subscription is $99.