What Is a VPN and What Are the Benefits?
With all headlines about cybercrime released over the years, it’s no surprise you’re interested in staying safe online. You’re not online in your worries, either. Reports show that 73% of households have concerns about online privacy.
The good news is that you have options that will help keep you safe. One of those options is a VPN.
Are you curious about what a VPN is and the benefits of a VPN when you purchase the service? Check out the post below to learn the answers to your questions.
What Is a VPN?
A VPN is a security product that helps internet users who want to protect their identity and data online. It works by connecting your internet device to a server in another part of the world. All your internet traffic appears to come from that location instead of your current location.
This is important if you want to mask your real location online. Websites can see your location by watching your IP address. Since your address will appear to come from another place, websites won’t track your location.
A VPN is also useful when you’re in public and want to protect your internet traffic from people spying on public WiFi. Your connection to a VPN service gets encrypted, so anyone watching won’t be able to see what you’re doing online.
What Are the Benefits of a VPN?
Now that you know what a VPN offers users, it pays to learn the advantages of a VPN. Read the points below to learn what to expect when using a VPN.
Avoid Bandwidth Throttling
Internet providers don’t always offer the same performance on all websites. Take video streaming platforms, for instance. Those websites use a lot of data, which means it’s more costly for ISPs to provide service.
Some companies get around this by throttling traffic to those websites. If you decide to access a throttled website, you’ll get worse performance than a website not on a throttle list.
Since a VPN blocks your website traffic from view, you won’t face the same data restrictions. You can view whatever website you wish without running into performance issues.
This is especially important if you use a mobile device for media consumption. You can use a VPN for Android or iPhone to get around restrictions put on you by your phone provider.
Access Regional Content
There is an enormous amount of media online today. You can log into one of the many media streaming platforms to see countless movies, TV shows, and music streams. However, you may not be able to see all the media available that those companies offer.
Many media companies have licensing deals that prevent them from offering content to certain countries. This happens because they only acquire licenses to show media to the demographics those media companies want.
However, you can get around this restriction when you purchase a VPN service. The best VPN services will offer servers from countries all over the world. All you need to do is connect to one of those servers to make it seem like you live in that country.
Doing this gives you the ability to stream content exclusive to those regions. You won’t need to worry about missing your favorite movies and TV shows anymore.
Avoid Censorship
Unfortunately, not every country allows the same level of speech as other countries. Those governments want to suppress media that goes against the party line or what’s considered socially acceptable. That leads to news sources and social media being heavily restricted.
A VPN can help you if you’re in this situation. Since the government will have a hard time seeing what you do with an encrypted VPN service, they won’t be able to block the websites you visit. You’ll be able to get an uncensored view of the world in a place where it’s tough to get accurate information.
Of course, you’ll also need to check the local laws to see the regulations with VPN services to ensure you don’t do anything against the rules.
Save Money
Some online shopping portals change prices based on the customers. They look at your location, time of day, and other factors and give you a price based on that information.
One place this often happens is airline tickets. Some airline providers may charge higher prices if you live in a higher cost-of-living area. If you change your location to somewhere more rural, you may see lower prices.
If you often travel and use other websites that engage in this tactic, you may be able to save more money than you spend on your VPN service.
Protect Yourself in Public
You aren’t always safe on your computer when you’re in public. You’ll find many public WiFi hotspots where companies give internet access to their customers. Unfortunately, hackers will take advantage of those locations and create fake WiFi hotspots.
These are called man-in-the-middle attacks. You connect to a compromised WiFi connection and have all your data intercepted by a hacker.
You can prevent hackers from seeing your data when you use a VPN. Your data gets encrypted in transit, so nobody looking at what you do can see anything.
You can also avoid being redirected to fake websites. Some compromised WiFi locations will redirect requests to view common websites to fake websites. Since you route your connection through your VPN, you can avoid those tricks.
Try Your First VPN Service Today
With how much data companies collect about you on the internet, it’s no surprise that you’re interested in online privacy. Companies track you all across the internet and use that data for advertising and other purposes.
The good news is that you can take action to protect yourself online, and a VPN is one of those ways. Now that you know the benefits of a VPN, you can invest in a VPN service to see the benefits for yourself.
Head back to the blog to find more advice that will help you in other parts of your life.
