Canada has some strict cybersecurity laws, upheld in an effort to prevent the likes of terrorism. And the country’s government has some far-reaching powers in terms of legislation that many believe infringes their personal right to privacy – and naturally a VPN can help with maintaining the latter.

Of course, one of the best VPN services can do much more than that – it can also allow unblocking content such as streaming services, for example. Most providers have servers located in Canada, but which VPN will suit you best? That’s the decision we’re here to help you with.

Best VPN for Canada in 2018

1. IPVanish

Number of servers: 1000+ | Server locations: 60+ | IP addresses: 40000+ | Maximum devices supported: 10

IPVanish offers 37 server locations in Canada alone, with an additional 470+ servers located in the US, so there’s certainly no shortage here. The software clients are rather impressive and intuitive, with just the right balance of basic and advanced options (but the Windows client may be more prone to the odd network issue than rival VPN provider’s software).

In testing the service we found it gave us a substantial increase in download speeds over our normal rates, making it ideal for torrents. OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP/IPsec and IKEv2 protocols are supported here, and there’s no logging of your internet activities.

IPVanish isn’t the cheapest service around, though, and there isn’t a free trial either – but there is a 7-day money-back guarantee that comes with all three pricing plans. The 1-year subscription is the best and most affordable choice. The packages available are:

2. Hotspot Shield

Number of servers: 2500+ | Server locations: 25 | IP addresses: N/A | Maximum devices supported: 5

Hotspot Shield has servers in Canada and the US that deliver blazing speeds. In tests, we found our latency, as well as upload and download speeds, were all a bit higher than our normal rates without a VPN, which is pretty impressive.

The client is easy-to-use but has very little in the way of configuration options. On the security front, Hotspot Shield offers some nifty additional features like private browsing and virtual location change. The privacy policy clearly states that any browsing or connection information which might be recorded during a VPN session will be deleted when that session ends.

Hotspot Shield offers a choice of five price plans with a 45-day money-back guarantee and the 2-year plan provides the best value. The packages available are:

3. NordVPN

Number of servers: 4654 | Server locations: 62 | IP addresses: N/A | Maximum devices supported: 6

If security is your main concern, then NordVPN is your best pick. NordVPN’s ‘Double VPN’ feature sends users’ internet activity through two VPN servers.

On top of that, the service offers features like encrypted traffic over the Tor network, encrypted chat, dedicated IPs (at an additional cost) and a ‘zero logs’ policy.

There’s plenty of coverage with 291 local servers for Canada, and another 1,800+ south of the border, with most of them being P2P-friendly. The client is simple and straightforward, and performance is very good.

The monthly plan aside, NordVPN is an affordable VPN, and one that offers a 3-day free trial of the service, plus you get a 30-day money-back guarantee.

On the downside, there’s no way to cancel your subscription aside from having to get in touch with customer support. (Ed: you can now cancel the recurring subscription directly from the “My Account” panel). The three-year plan offers fantastic savings if you are looking for something longer-term. The packages available are:

4. ExpressVPN

Number of servers: 2000 | Server locations: 148 | IP addresses: N/A | Maximum devices supported: 3

ExpressVPN maintains hundreds of servers in Canada spread across three locations. Our tests revealed that this provider offers very good performance levels, with consistent speeds that were very close to what we’d normally see without a VPN.

There are numerous native apps for all major devices and platforms. The mobile clients in particular are some of the best in the business, optimized for speed and ease of use. In terms of security, this provider uses the OpenVPN protocol, protecting your data with 256-bit encryption. Privacy-wise, there is no logging of traffic data or any online activity.

Bear in mind, though, that the service hits a snag when it comes to pricing, especially given the steep monthly billing. There is no free trial either, but all subscriptions are covered by a 30-day 100% money-back guarantee. Out of the three plans on offer, the 1-year subscription is the most affordable. The packages available are:

5. IVPN

Number of servers: 40+ | Server locations: 27 | IP addresses: N/A | Maximum devices supported: 5

The server coverage here is unusually low, with only a handful of servers located in Canada (the US fares better). However, IVPN has a dedicated page on its website where you can check the server load at any time, and in our testing, performance proved excellent.

The desktop client is very neat and boasts loads of advanced features, plus IVPN has native mobile clients for iOS and Android.

The company’s privacy policy is quite clear regarding the fact that no logs are kept, while on the security front there are interesting features like Multi Hop (entering and exiting through different servers), a firewall to block non-VPN traffic, and more. The provider also allows P2P traffic with ‘unlimited’ bandwidth.

IVPN admits that “you will find cheaper VPN services”. The price of the 1-month plan might be hard to stomach, but there is a 3-day free trial to test things out, and a 7-day money-back guarantee (with unconditional 100% refund). The yearly plan is obviously the best option if you want relatively palatable pricing. The packages available are:

How to choose the best VPN service for Canada

We’ve already covered the basics of what you should be looking for: strong security and encryption, and a watertight privacy policy. Server coverage is another important consideration, because more options mean a better chance of getting a fast and reliable connection.

As ever, in an ideal world, the VPN client should be straightforward and user-friendly. Also, be sure to check the number of simultaneous connections supported, as it’s always a boon to be able to use multiple desktop PCs and mobile devices with your VPN.

http://www.techradar.com/news/best-vpn-for-canada-our-5-top-choices

Before we dive into any of this, let’s just get one thing out of the way: Intel Coffee Lake-X isn’t confirmed to exist in any way, shape or form. This is all just speculation at this point.

Intel has had a rough couple of years. Ever since the onset of AMD Ryzen and Threadripper, Intel has been on the defensive – haphazardly throwing out CPU refreshes to keep ahead of AMD. 

In 2017, when AMD released the first generation of Ryzen Threadripper, Intel responded with Skylake-X, which topped out with the $1,979 (£1,649, AU$2,729) 18-core 36-thread Core i9-7980XE. Luckily for Intel, it out-powered the Threadripper 1950X, but only barely.

Fast forward to 2018 and AMD is rumored to release the Threadripper 2990X at around $1,700 (£1,300, AU$2,300) according to a recent pricing leak. This rumored processor will supposedly be a 32-core, 64-core behemoth. If it’s actually real, Intel is going to want to come out with something to compete.

Enter Coffee Lake-X. 

Now, Coffee Lake-X supposedly existed at one point, only to be later cancelled by Intel, according to some speculation from the Motley Fool. However, seeing how Intel Cascade Lake-X is going to be a server-based platform, rather than the new High-end desktop (HEDT) platform, that leaves Intel with nothing to compete with the Ryzen Threadripper 2nd Generation processors set to come out later this year. We think Intel has something up its sleeve.

We don’t have any concrete information at this point – we don’t even know if it’ll be called Coffee Lake-X, but that doesn’t mean we can’t speculate. So, keep this page bookmarked, as we’ll update it as soon as we get more information.

Cut to the chase

• What is it? Intel’s potential next HEDT platform
• When is it out? TBD
• What will it cost? TBD

Release date

This is where things get a little hard to predict. If our earlier speculation is true, and Intel uses Coffee Lake-X to compete with Threadripper 2nd Generation, we might see an announcement soon – the first Threadripper 2nd Generation  chips are slated to release in Q3 2018.

However, because it’s hard to even find rumors about Coffee Lake-X at this point, we might not see Intel’s answer to Threadripper 2nd Generation until early 2019 – unless it releases some binned Xeon chips.

Intel supposedly confirmed a forthcoming X399 chipset, which would likely be the chipset that would support Coffee Lake-X, but we have no idea when that’s coming out, either.

We’ll just have to wait until Intel to make some kind of announcement about the release date of its next HEDT platform.

Specs

This is where things get interesting. Now, we have no idea what the Coffee Lake-X chips are going to look like, but they have to be basically better than Skylake-X, which is already absolutely bananas. If you need a refresher, the specs for the 7th-generation HEDT processors are as as follows:

• Core i9-7900X: 10-cores, 20-threads at 3.3GHz 
• Core i9-7920X: 12-cores, 24-threads at 2.9GHz 
• Core i9-7940X: 14-cores, 28-threads at 3.1GHz 
• Core i9-7960X: 16-cores, 32-threads at 4.2GHz 
• Core i9-7980XE: 18-cores, 36-threads at 2.6GHz 

That last one, the Core i9-7980XE was the most powerful consumer processor of the last year, and still is at the time of this writing. However, that processor costs nearly $2,000. Remember that rumor we mentioned earlier about the 32-core, 64-thread AMD Threadripper 2990X that’s supposedly launching for less than that?

That’s exactly what Intel is going to need top with Coffee Lake-X. Earlier, at Computex 2018, Intel showed off a 28-core 56-thread CPU clocked at 5GHz. And, while that processor later turned out to be a Cascade Lake-X processor with a completely different LGA-3647 socket, that might actually be what Intel needs to release – and for much less than the rumored $10,000 that processor might end up costing. 

At the end of the day, we won’t know what Intel’s next line of HEDT processors is going to look like until it’s actually announced, but we do know that if Intel is going to stay competitive after Threadripper 2 comes out, it will need to come out with some beefy CPUs at a competitive price. And, you can rest assured that the moment Intel does that, we’ll update this page with any relevant information.

http://www.techradar.com/news/intel-coffee-lake-x

Update: The latest leaks suggest we might see the Galaxy X in January. Plus, Samsung may have solved a big problem, having apparently created a curved battery suitable for the Galaxy X, with a capacity that could be as high as 6,000mAh.

Foldable phones are coming – it’s only a matter of time – and it’s looking increasingly like Samsung could be the first company to commercially launch one, possibly as soon as this year.

We may even know what it’s called, with the mysterious Samsung Galaxy X being the subject of several bendable leaks, foldable patents and flexible rumors.

But whether X marks the spot or not, we’re clearly entering a foldable future. To see how we got here and where we’re going, here’s the story of Samsung’s foldable phone so far.

Seven years in the making

The idea of a foldable phone isn’t new to Samsung, in fact way back in 2011 the company showed off a prototype of exactly that.

The device looked chunky and awkward, but even back then it somewhat worked, remaining intact after 100,000 folds, with only a 6% drop in brightness at the center, where all the folding action happened.

This clearly wasn’t a commercial product, but later that year Samsung launched a concept video of a fully bendable (and transparent) mobile device, that could fold out from a phone-sized screen to a tablet-sized one, showing Samsung’s ambitions for the technology.

Production problems

While a device like the one in the video above is likely still years away even now, by 2012 Samsung was already hard at work trying to launch the first generation of flexible or foldable phones, but a report late in the year claimed that problems with the production of flexible screens would hold the first bendy display back until at least 2013.

That didn’t stop Samsung showing off another video of a foldable future though, highlighting all sorts of transparent screens, made from plastic that’s thin, light and flexible enough to fully fold or roll.

And as 2012 came to a close it seemed Samsung might be overcoming its production problems, with another report claiming that its flexible plastic screens were in the final stage of development, with the first phones sporting them likely to land in mid-2013.

Samsung’s bendy plastic screens got a more real-world debut at CES 2013, along with a name – they were now called ‘Youm’, though it was clear from the flexible prototype on show that Samsung was still far from putting a Youm display on a commercial device.

That was made even more clear when the tech was reportedly hit with new manufacturing issues in April 2013. Supposedly the previous problems had been solved, but now Samsung was apparently struggling with the encapsulation technology, which protects the screen from moisture and air damage.

Round the Edge

The closest thing we actually got to a foldable phone from Samsung in 2013 was the Samsung Galaxy Round. This was far from the prototypes and concepts we’d seen, but as the world’s first curved screen smartphone it was a big step in the right direction.

That was followed up by the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge, which curved in a now more familiar direction, one which Samsung has since fully embraced with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and other phones with curved edges.

These are still far from being foldable, and while a Samsung executive did promise a truly bendable device by the end of 2014, whatever he was referring to never appeared.

Project Valley

Talk of foldable phones went a bit quiet until mid-2015, when it was rumored that an upcoming phone codenamed Project Valley could be foldable.

At this point little was known about the device, which would apparently have two screens, but it was said to be in early development, so was unlikely to arrive for a while, if at all.

In September 2015 an “insider” claimed that we’d see a bendable phone in January 2016. It wasn’t clear whether this was Project Valley or not, but apparently it would come in both mid-range and high-end flavors. Though, of course, it didn’t arrive at all.

Samsung Galaxy X

In May 2016 Project Valley got a new name – the Samsung Galaxy X, which was believed to be the name it would release under.

According to reports at the time it would be ready for release in 2017 and would have a foldable 4K display, so that the resolution would remain high even when the phone was folded.

We were sceptical about that launch date at the time, and were right to be, as we’re now in 2018 with no sign of it.

But that’s not quite the full story so far. At SID 2016 Samsung showed off a roll-out display – but one which didn’t have a touchscreen layer, which would be pretty vital for a smartphone.

Then in June 2017 “people familiar with the matter” reported that we might see two foldable phones from Samsung in 2017 – backing up those previous Galaxy X reports.

Supposedly one would fold out from a 5-inch handset to an 8-inch tablet, much like the concept video Samsung showed back at the beginning of our story, while the other would fold in half like a cosmetic compact, along the lines of a folding phone patent we’d already seen.

This 2017 launch didn’t happen, but Samsung was clearly on the right track, with another patent looking to solve one of the biggest problems with folding phones – the ability to fold without damaging any internal components.

The patent described an “artificial muscle”, which would move in time with the screen bending to protect other components.

We’ve seen plenty of early glimpses that claim to show off the Samsung Galaxy X. One came from a patent spotted by GalaxyClub, highlighting a long device, with a shape more like a remote control than a smartphone, but one which could fold down to half the size.

The shape doesn’t seem particularly practical, so we doubt this is the form the Galaxy X will take, but it’s vaguely along the lines of the phone-to-tablet convertible we’ve been hearing about, and a similar design has popped up since.

One of the more recent bits of information that may point to the foldable X looks different than previous info. Much like the ZTE Axon M that came out in 2017, images from the patent filing (shown above) show off a bezel-licious device that folds in a clamshell design. 

According to some sources, more than 100,000 units were going to roll out in the third quarter 2017 – though they added that plans for a 2017 launch could apparently be changed, which has clearly happened if any such plans ever existed.

And Samsung GALAXY X in Q3. 🙂29 March 2017

That gelled with a tweet from tipster @mmddj_china, who claimed the Galaxy X would land in Q3 of 2017 – which again, obviously, did not happen.

Elsewhere we were hearing that Samsung would only have a prototype ready by then, and supply chain sources speaking to DigiTimes said that a small production of foldable handsets would be made in the fourth quarter of the year, but technical issues may mean we wouldn’t see mass production before mid-2018 – something which now looks optimistic.

Other sources similarly said that several thousand dual-screen prototypes might land in 2017, but that a commercially available product wouldn’t.

Most damningly of all, one of Samsung Display’s own engineers has claimed we won’t see a foldable phone for a while, saying:  “Because the bezel-free display currently sells well, we still have enough time to develop foldable display. The technology is expected to be mature around 2019.”

Although more recent news comes direct from Samsung’s mobile boss, and is a little better, as he claimed the company was aiming for a 2018 launch, assuming it could overcome certain unspecified problems. Though he’s since slightly backtracked on those claims.

More recently still he’s said that rather than being the first the company’s goal is to make meaningful products and “roll out new products worth paying for”, so it sounds like we might still be waiting a while for the Galaxy X if their aim is to make it polished.

In November 2017 we finally had a look at the possible interface of the Galaxy X, revealing a familiarly Samsung UI, but where each half of the display shows a different screen, rather than just making everything bigger or smaller.

This interface was shown in a patent, which also gave us another look at the possible design of the phone, showing something with a laptop-like design, but a second screen where the keyboard would be.

And in early 2018 an industry source claimed Samsung will likely start producing the phone – which will apparently have a 7.3-inch display – in November 2018, with a launch likely in December or early 2019. However, they added that it’s likely to have an ultra-premium price tag.

But apparently prototypes of the folding phone have already been shown off behind closed doors at CES 2018, which took place in January, while Samsung’s Q4 2017 financial results included claims that foldable OLED panels and phones could be a big money-maker for Samsung in 2018 and beyond – which is yet more evidence that the Galaxy X is coming soon.

On to a Winner

In May 2018 we heard that Samsung had apparently changed the phone’s codename from ‘Valley’ to ‘Winner‘ and that the final handset will be made up of three 3.5-inch screens, which can be opened out to tablet size or folded like a book.

Apparently the screens for this device will be ready by November 2018 and Samsung has created a curved battery for the phone with a capacity of between 3,000mAh and 6,000mAh, while the phone itself could land in February 2019, possibly during MWC.

That’s a rumor that we’ve now heard more than once, though as with everything Galaxy X-related we’d take it with a huge helping of salt.

Yet if anything the latest rumors suggest the Galaxy X could arrive even sooner, with one pointing to a January launch at CES 2019. Again though, we wouldn’t count on this.

Whenever it does arrive, you might have to pay a lot for it, as an analyst reckons the cost could reach ₩2,000,000 (around $1,850, £1,375, AU$2,400). Still, at least you should have some time to save.

The shape of things to come

That brings us up to today, and while Samsung has made some commercial progress towards a flexible phone, with curved screens on the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S9, on the surface it doesn’t seem much closer overall to a truly foldable display than it did way back in 2011.

There’s lots of talk of a late 2018 or early 2019 launch, but that’s not the first time a questionably close launch has been rumored.

And since a Samsung employee has said not to expect the Galaxy X before 2019 that’s the earliest we’d expect to see it.

But behind the scenes promising progress does seem to have been made. Over the years several key problems in development appear to have been solved – from making a screen that can be folded thousands of times without breaking, to avoiding damage to internal components.

So we still see folding phones in our future, and maybe even the not too distant future.

http://www.techradar.com/news/samsung-galaxy-x-the-story-of-samsungs-foldable-phone-so-far