Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are a vital solution to hide your IP address and your whole internet activity. The key goal is to protect your online privacy and provide access to geo-restricted content.
People all around the globe use VPNs for various reasons. Nearly, a third of internet users are availing the VPN services to secure online protection. Based on VPN research, 50% of VPN users use virtual private networks to protect data transfers on the public internet. And many users use it to access restricted video content in their region. The rest of them want to browse the web anonymously.
Let’s explore the usage of VPNs and how people are benefitting from them.
What Can You Do with a VPN?
Whether it’s your privacy concerns or you are looking to unlock parts of the internet you didn’t know existed, VPNs serve great value to users. The two primary purposes include:
- Hiding IP address
- Encrypting your web data
These two functions can open up a world of endless possibilities for users to improve their security, and privacy over the internet. Apart from keeping you safe in cyberspace here is a quick summary of the popular uses of VPNs
Quick Summary: 10 Popular Uses of VPNs
1. Protect your Online Communication. Vpn stops ISPS and government to have your full-fledge browsing data
2. Change your IP address. Use of VPN to shift Your Ip address to the VPN server for information transparency.
3. Stream Content from anywhere in the World. With VPN speed your location and see content from all other countries.
4. Stay Safe on Public Wifi. VPN servers stop hackers to steal information on public Wifi networks.
5. Avoid targeted bandwidth throttling. With VPN you can stop your ISP from slowing down your public internet.
6. Unblock Websites and Avoid Government Censorship. With VPN, get instant access to blocked websites and access free internet in highly censored countries.
7. Save Money when Shopping Online. Get access to goods at a cheaper price while changing your location through VPN.
8. Fast and secure file downloads using VPN P2P servers. Use VPN to keep your data secure while sharing and downloading files.
9. Torrent Files Securely. Protect your online activity when torrenting shows that are banned in your country.
10. Security When working remotely. Establish secure and remote connection with your team using a high-quality VPN.
Protect your Online Communication
Without VPN, your Internet Service Provider can see all the websites you visit and can easily record the entire data. In some countries, all across the globe ISPs are in charge of collecting all the browsing data. Government and other departments can access information whenever they like and keep track of all your web history. This is the case with most of European countries that include the UK, USA, and other parts of the world.
Countries that collect browsing history are often members of international agreements like Five Eyes Alliance which are entirely focused on the collection of mass surveillance data. By encrypting your data from your device to private server, VPN totally hides your web traffic. This makes it complicated for ISPs and other institutions to track your data. Even if they get their hands on your data, the information they collect is extremely difficult to decode.
Change your IP address
When using VPN, you can completely mask your internet protocols (IP) With VPN servers in place. VPN completely changes your IP address and changes it with the IP address belonging to VPN server.
Changing IP address means when you visit website you will see VPN server IP address and therefore making it hard to identify you. It comes with various benefits including privacy, geo-restriction lifts for content streaming. Furthermore, it prevents other dangerous things people can do with your IP address.
Stream Content from anywhere in the World
For people who are crazy fans of soccer, cricket, basketball, and other such sports, live streaming options are not readily available in different countries of the world. The same is the case with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video they have different content libraries based on your location. To unlock the content, VPN comes in. VPN allows you to change your geolocation and unblock the content of various regions all across the world.
VPN masks your IP address and changes it with IP address with the country of your desired choice. This way you cannot miss any sports updates and chill around while lazing around on your couch. The strict geo-fencing policies site by sport and other streaming sites are bypassed easily through VPN. So, no need to worry more, you can easily trick around streaming websites through VPNs.
Stay Safe on Public Wifi
“Free Wifi” is the magical phrase for urbanites. But believe you me, free Wifi is suspicious. Criminals can easily take up all the information related to your bank account, credit cards and all other personal information. This means that you are putting your personal data at high risk.
VPN is an invaluable tool to protect yourself from security threats. VPN encrypt your internet data makes it difficult to exploit your data. Anyone trying to collect your data via unsafe public Wifi hotspot can be stopped using VPN. As long as you are connected to VPN server, your data is safe and unreadable.
Avoid targeted bandwidth throttling
If you are streaming video games online that use a lot of internet bandwidth, Your internet service provider might implement speed throttling and bandwidth limiting tactics. Unfortunately, this will affect your internet experience and will keep you annoyed due to slower internet issues. A VPN connection helps you avoid bandwidth throttling and slower connection issues.
Using a VPN solution will encrypt your online traffic so your ISP can no longer track your online activity. Moreover, this allows your traffic to pass through unfiltered, resulting in increased speed and bandwidth. You can relax and enjoy your games without major bandwidth disruptions.
Unblock Websites and Avoid Government Censorship
Authoritarian governments choose to block certain website to limit the access of information to the public. For instance, China uses its infamous “Great Firewall” to prevent people from accessing sites like Google, Facebook and YouTube. Know exactly which websites are blocked using China Firewall test.
During the times of turmoil, many countries limit the usage of social media platforms. For internet censorships VPN is used to bypass website blocks and access to the global internet. The obfuscation technology offered by some VPNs are a good way to evade censorships.
For journalists and news agencies, VPNs are of great value to speak against governments that limit freedom of speech. For the public living under censorship, VPNs are an essential way to access information.
Save Money when Shopping Online
E-commerce sites and various other retail companies offer their products at different price ranges worldwide. An electronic device that might cost $1000 in the USA costs $800 in UK. The difference is huge and companies are using the tracking information to manipulate the pricing range of various products.
Are you ready to save your money through thoughtful online shopping? If yes, let me tell you the process. You can use VPN to avoid targeting advertising and price manipulation. By hiding your IP address and spoofing your location, you can easily get goods at a nominal and lower price.
Fast and secure file downloads using VPN P2P servers
Peer to peer file sharing is a modern networking technology that allows sharing of digital media assets across networks. However, ISPs are not happy about customers engaging with P2P activities and access to restricted file-sharing websites.
As all the users in the same network have access to your information, it poses a great threat to cyber security. To keep your data secure and private while using P2P, turn on VPN. With VPN, your IP stays hidden so no one can invade your privacy. In addition, you will be able to use P2P without slowing down the connection and stay safe in the meantime.
Torrent Files Securely
Torrenting files with famous software’s like BitTorrent and uTorrent are risky. Your IP address is visible to all and your Internet service provider (ISP) can see all the files you are downloading. Without a VPN your IP address, copyright trolls are visible to all the users. Your ISP can identify your activity and work with the higher authorities to issue you legal notice for copyright infringement.
No one life intrusion into personal life, we do prohibit downloading copyrighted material, but if you are torrenting legal files than go for VPN. VPN is essential to encrypt P2P activity and keep it safe from prying eyes.
Best VPN for torrenting
ExpressVPN is regarded as the best VPN for P2P file sharing and blazing fast torrenting. Moreover a part from this the top tier options are NordVPN, Surfshark, NortonVPN and CyberGhost.
Security When working remotely
Big techs want to exploit your personal data and poses serious privacy concerns for the users. With VPN, data is putted in coded format making it obscure. This allows you to keep confidential information safe and secure.
If you are an individual thinking to connect with employees through VPN, one key benefit is that workers can easily connect with the office network and look at the data while being away from the office. Even after the pandemic, VPN is a good investment to keep your company’s information confidential.