Why vpn

Note that your VPN provider can view your Internet activity, so VPNs should always be seen as providing protection for your personal information, not anonymity. Additionally, because your data is encrypted, using a VPN will prevent many forms of Man in the Middle MitM attack, in which adversaries attempt to intercept your data en route. This is particularly true when using public Wi-Fi hotspots, which present a major danger to Internet users.

Your IP address is hidden from the Internet because the VPN server acts as a proxy an intermediary between your computer and the Internet.

Therefore, malicious websites and suchlike can only log the IP address of your VPN server, not your real IP address the unique number that identifies every connected device. In addition to helping you protect your personal information online, this makes it much more difficult for adversaries to target attacks against you. Most of the content on the internet is geo-restricted. This means that the content is available only for users living in certain geographical locations while its access is denied for users from other parts of the world.

VPN allows its users to go beyond the geo-restrictions and surf the internet from any part of the world through its remote servers. This allows you to access websites and entertainment channels that may not be accessible in your region.

Many online shopping sites have different price lists for customers from different countries. The same is the case with airfares.

To beat this location bias, you can shop in online stores and check flight rates using VPN servers from different countries. This will help you in getting the best deals at the best rates. While it may be a bit time consuming and tiring, you might be able to save a good chunk of money. If you are already aware of subsidized rates for a certain country or state then you can simply choose the server of that country and save both your time and money.

Public Wi-Fi is mostly free and is easily available but there are several security threats associated with it like data breaches and attacking malware. These security threats make it completely unsafe for personal and business use. It is impossible to avoid using public Wi-Fi in various situations, especially if you are away from your hometown and state or are residing in a place that has exorbitant charges for private internet connection.

The second thing that happens is that the web application you're talking to does not get to see your IP address. This allows you some level of anonymous networking. This IP spoofing is also used to trick applications into thinking you're located in a different region or even a different country than you are located in. There are reasons both illegal and legal to do this.

We'll discuss that in a bit. We've already discussed the use of a VPN when connecting offices. Any time you have two LANs that need to link over the public internet, you should consider using VPN technology or an equivalent method of enterprise protection. We talked about two use cases above for consumer VPN services: Protecting your data and spoofing your location.

We'll talk more about location spoofing later, so let's focus on data protection for now. When you're away from home or the office, and you connect to the internet, you'll most often be doing so via Wi-Fi provided by your hotel or the restaurant, library, or coffee shop you're working out of at that moment. Sometimes, Wi-Fi has a password. Other times, it will be completely open. In either case, you have no idea who else is accessing that network. Therefore, you have no idea who might be snooping on your internet traffic, browsing history or online activity.

Here's a good rule of thumb: If you're away from the office or home, and you're using someone else's Wi-Fi even that of a family member or a friend, because you never know if they've been compromised , use a VPN. It's particularly important if you're accessing a service that has personally-identifying information. Remember, a lot goes on behind the scenes, and you never really know if one or more of your apps are authenticating in the background and putting your information at risk.

Another reason you might choose to use a VPN is if you have something to hide. This isn't just about folks doing things they shouldn't do. Sometimes people really need to hide information. Take, for example, the person who is worried an employer might discriminate against him or her because of their sexual orientation or medical condition.

Another example is a person who needs to go online but is concerned about revealing location information to a person in their life who might be a threat. And then, of course, there are those people in restrictive countries who need to hide their activity merely to gain access to the internet without potentially grave penalties. It costs a lot to provide the infrastructure to operate a VPN service, from the network pipes to the servers. That infrastructure has to be paid for somehow. If user fees do not pay for it, advertising, data gathering, or some nastier reason are likely to be paid for.

Here's another reason not to use a free service, and this one is a lot scarier: Malware providers and criminal organizations have set up free VPN services that not only don't protect you but actively harvest personal data, and either use it or sell it to the highest bidder. Instead of being protected, you're being plundered. To be fair, not all pay VPN services are legitimate, either. It's important to be careful about which you choose.

I've put together an always up-to-date directory of quality VPN providers. Some are better than others and that's reflected in their ratings. But all are legitimate companies that provide quality service. Beyond my directory, it's always good practice to Google a company or product name and read the user reviews. If you see a huge number of old complaints or new complaints suddenly start showing up, it might be that there's been a change of management or policies.

When I'm looking for a service, I always base my decision partially on professional reviews and partially based on the tone of user reviews. Finally, be sure to choose a service with the capabilities that meet your needs. You may need one or more features only provided by certain services.

So, think through your needs as you make a decision. Oh, heck no. A VPN can help ensure you're not snooped on when connecting between your computer and a website. But the website itself is quite capable of some serious privacy violations. For example, a VPN can't protect you against a website setting a tracking cookie that will tell other websites about you. A VPN can't protect you against a website recording information about products you're interested in.

A VPN can't protect you against a website that sells your email address to list brokers. Yada, yada, yada. A VPN does help protect you in the situations we've discussed in previous sections.

But don't expect a VPN to be a magical privacy shield that will keep everything you do private and confidential. There are many, many ways your privacy can be compromised, and a VPN will be of only partial help. That would be a definite maybe. Here's the thing: Back in the day, the process of encrypting and decrypting packets would take a toll on CPU performance.

Most current CPUs are now fast enough that most crypto algorithms can run without much of an impact on processor performance. However, network performance is another thing entirely. First, keep in mind that if you're using a VPN, you're probably using it at a public location. That public Wi-Fi service is likely to range in performance somewhere between "meh" and unusable. So, just the fact that you're remotely working on a mediocre network will reduce performance.

But then, if you connect to a VPN in a different country, the connection between countries is also likely to degrade network performance. Server locations matter. My rule of thumb is to use a domestic VPN and connect to servers as close to my location as possible. That said, I have had good nights and bad nights getting online. On my recent trip, I found most hotels' networks to become unusable after about 9pm. My theory is that many of the guests were watching Netflix at that time, completely clogging the hotels' pipes.

Some do. Some don't. Look at that directory I mentioned earlier because that's one of the factors where a service might lose some points. Some VPN services will limit the total amount of data you can send and receive, either in one connection session or over a month.

Other VPN services will limit the speed of the data, effectively sharing less of their pipe with you than might be optimal. That could slow your browsing experience to a crawl or completely prevent you from watching streaming videos through streaming services. Usually, it's the free services that throttle your usage in these ways. Some paid services will offer a trial, where you can transmit up to a certain data cap before being asked to sign up as a paying customer.

That's actually pretty cool because it gives you a chance to try out the performance of their service before paying, but it also gives the vendor a chance to make money necessary to operate the service.

Many VPN services claim that they'll provide you with unlimited data transmission if you pay their fee and won't throttle your speeds. Generally, this is true, but I'll give you my standard "unlimited bandwidth" warning: It's been my experience that when a vendor says something is "unlimited," it's almost always limited.

Somewhere, there will be a note in the fine print or terms of service that allows the vendor to limit you in some way. It pays to read those agreements. In my VPN directory , I tracked two types of logging. This is pretty nasty stuff. If a VPN service logs this, they would have the information you might choose to hide, like sites you visit, locations where you are, and possibly even information you might be sending.

Although the use of these services will still protect you from Wi-Fi spies in your hotel or restaurant, I can't recommend signing up for any service that does DNS, traffic, or IP logging. There are better, more private options. The second type of logging is more benign. VPN services that log bandwidth usage and connection timestamp data usually do so either to tune their own systems or manage any abuse of their services.

I have less of a concern with services that just monitor bandwidth usage, as long as they don't store any specifics. That said, we gave top marks to those services that don't do any logging. Net neutrality has been severely under fire in the US. The Federal Communications Commission FCC has eliminated many of the consumer protections against internet service providers ISPs harvesting traffic data and selling that data to advertisers, or worse. This could be bad. I'm not terribly concerned if Comcast discovers my secret passion for muscle cars and I get more ads for car customizing kits.

It might be annoying, but I'm not doing anything I want to hide. That could cut off the revenue that keeps websites alive, and that could have very serious repercussions. As for personal use and whether you should use a VPN at home because of net neutrality, I don't think we're there Certainly, if you're working on confidential information and connecting to work, you should use a VPN.

That depends. Also, be aware that the so-called proxy server alternative to VPNs is also illegal in many countries, which consider any form of IP spoofing to be illegal, not just those services labeled as VPN. Restrictions vary, as do penalties.

China allows certain approved VPNs. Definitely research this before you visit a country. Many travelers mistakenly believe that just because they're not citizens, and all they're doing is linking back to a corporate system, they should be able to have unrestricted use of VPN software. This is a mistake. The bottom line: Check the laws of the country you're in before connecting. It's also a good idea to check with your VPN provider, both for insight into whether it knows if there are issues and whether it'll support connectivity from the country you're visiting.

It is almost totally unlikely that each room is on a dedicated subnet, so that means packets are traveling across a network shared by other guests.

In addition, you never know whether someone in the front office has set up a packet sniffer for the express purpose of mining guest information. If you're trying to connect to your on-premises corporate network, you'll most likely be assigned a VPN application by your IT department.