What is a VPN?
A VPN (virtual private network) is the virtual intermediary between you and the Internet.
When you are not using a VPN, your Internet traffic travels, through the world wide web and it is an easy prey for cybercriminals or even some browsers or major search engines which are well known for tracking, saving, and even selling your information to other companies to target you with ads and spam while you navigate on the internet.
On the other hand, if you use a VPN when surfing the web, your data is protected and not saved, traced, or shared with anybody.
How?
Once your data is sent and received, it will go through a virtual tunnel and becomes unreadable until it reaches its intended destination and even if someone intercepted the communication in the tunnel, they would be unable to read it. Once you connect to a VPN, all of your data sent to the server is encrypted and cannot be intercepted by third parties. (Data transferred on public networks, such as Wi-Fi hotspots or cellular networks, is included)
- Sale
- Sale
- Sale
In simple words, with a VPN, your data is encrypted as it enters the tunnel and decoded as it exits the tunnel using, specific, encryption keys.
Pros & Cons
Pros
If you work from home or over public Wi-Fi, hackers could try to steal your data. A VPN helps maintain the security of your connection by filtering it to using virtual servers.
Advertisers and websites may use your IP address to track your activity across various sites. VPNs manage to prevent this by assigning you a virtual IP address.
A VPN gives you the ability to appear to connect to the internet from another country so you can possibly watch new content on streaming platforms like Netflix or HBO, or if you just want to browse the internet and see search results from other countries.
Cons
Its main function is to protect your privacy. However, many VPNs, in their free versions, do the opposite by registering, keeping, and even selling your data to other companies.
Make sure that the VPN you choose does not consider these bad practices during its operation.
Traditional VPNs can slow down the connection. A solid VPN uses modern and fast protocols such as IKEV2 OR WIREGUARD.
If you have any questions or need more advice on choosing a VPN, give us a call or leave us a comment below.
