5 Situations When It’s Good To Use A VPN?
VPN, Virtual Private Network, might be what you need to protect yourself online. It’s what keeps you away from the prying eyes of the hackers as well as helps you explore the true potential of the internet.
We know that if you know what it is, you are probably already looking at using it already. If you do not know what is, then you’ve been living under a rock or you don’t care enough about your privacy on the internet.
So, first things first, let’s see what a VPN is.
What is a VPN?
Simply told, the Virtual Private Network consists of a group of computers connected to a private network over the internet. In a VPN, the computers could be anywhere in the world, and you could connect to a server located in another remote part of the world. However, the nearer a server is to you, the faster would it be for you, as the data has to travel less back and forth.
Usually, access to such networks is restricted, unless it is offered as a free, scalable service which can add or remove computers on the fly. So, it is essentially a ‘virtual’ network of ‘private’ computers.
Why use a VPN?
Once upon a time, the internet used to be free. You could browse websites with as much freedom as Willy would have it. Nowadays, you ‘think’ you can browse the internet freely. But the fact of the matter is that your entire browsing experience is being controlled from the moment you open that browser. You have third parties tracking all your activities.
“Say what?”
Yes, it is as unfortunate as it is true. You may think this is some kind of Illuminati stuff laden with controversy theories. But here are five things which will ‘enlighten’ you:
- You live in a filter ‘bubble.’
Ever wondered why some websites are always ‘blocked’? No matter what you try, these websites won’t open. There will always be some vague error message, or sometimes the website will notify you that you are ‘region locked’.
What this means, my friend, is that you are only allowed to view websites which conform to your ‘region’.
- Your Privacy is up for sale
Everything you do on the internet, or your ‘activity’ is tracked and recorded by websites and most search engines. Why? It is useful to ‘serve’ you with ‘relevant’ advertisements.
Everything about you is up for sale to advertisers. What you post on the internet, the websites you visit, the time you stay on a website, your clicks, your region, name, age, gender, address, date of birth, pictures, videos, and the list goes on…‘You’ are the product.
Even your ISP knows what you do online. Starting to feel that leash around your neck yet?
- Free WiFi is not actually free
You think free WiFi hotspots are actually free because you don’t have to pay money? Think again. And read point #2 above again. Your internet activity on that free WiFi hotspot may be recorded and sold off to some advertising agency. Or worse, they might keep the data for themselves to and do something nefarious about it.
- Your downloads put you at risk
If all that activity is tracked, think about what people can do if they find out that you download ‘certain’ files from ‘certain’ websites which are considered to be fishy. Is getting dragged in courts or having to pay massive fines for downloading something with torrents worth the trouble?
- Paranoia is good when you are online
You might be one of those who takes your privacy very seriously. You could even have multiple proxies in place just so that no one can find out who you ‘really’ are. Proxies do work, no doubt. However, you leave logs all over the place which can trace your IP address back to your physical location.
They know where you are…
Now, do you really think you are safe online? So, VPN to the rescue!
VPNs can solve all your problems because they actually mask your IP address. That means no tracking and no identification. You access the VPN and browse the internet from ‘there’, which uses its own IP address to forward your requests.
They can also encrypt your internet traffic, which means that nobody will be able to decipher what you are browsing or downloading.
VPNs can protect you from companies and governments trying to snoop on you and your personal life to either get rich by ‘serving’ you with useless adverts or control your browsing behavior, respectively. And they don’t cost a lot too.
Instead of going in for a proxy, you could choose a VPN on sites like vpnadviser.com, for just a few dollars a month. In fact, going in for a longer subscription period can help you lower down the costs significantly, and you would probably pay lower than $5. That’s not that bad a deal for some solid security and privacy, right?
