Imagine sitting in a restaurant and using public Wi-Fi on your phone. By then, you log in to your accounts, and someone else with a laptop can easily access the network and hold on to your emails, passwords, and other information. But when you use a VPN, nobody would be able to do that, no matter wherever you are and what network you use.
Perhaps everyone has heard about VPN, and it might be most of you have used it. But do you know what it does and how it works? Let's dive straight into the details about VPNs.
What is a VPN?
VPN is an acronym for Virtual Private Network that enables you to have privacy online. Business organizations and governments use VPNs to secure their data from hacking or loss of personal information. Nowadays, everyone uses VPNs to ensure your location is private, encrypted data, and you can serve the internet anonymously.
How does a VPN work?
Usually, when you browse the internet, you indirectly send data to the server, then it translates the data and sends you a response back to the internet browser or explorer. The data includes your IP address, location, windows operating system, and other information.
The daily websites collect your information to study demographics, which is not harmful. However, when you want to protect your identity and privacy, you must use a VPN. So let's now see how a VPN works and protects your privacy.
Connecting to a VPN provides a virtual tunnel between your device and the internet, which helps your data flow securely. The total traffic that passes through the channel gets protected through encryption. Moreover, data can be monitored or altered. In the process, your IP address remains hidden and replaced with a fake address to ensure your identity is secure. A VPN protects your online identity and the data you send and receive online. However, you can not protect yourself from malware, scams, and data on your device.
Why should you use a VPN?
A VPN keeps your data safe and private from your ISP:
VPNs prevent ISP (Internet Service Providers) from tracking your activity online, such as the websites you visit and the time you spare browsing, your emails and passwords, digital transactions, queries for search engines, and everything you do on the internet.
A VPN can help you use public Wi-Fi safely:
If you have a VPN service on your device, you can anonymously connect to any public Wi-Fi and stay hidden on the network. You will be safe with your identity hidden and encrypted data.
A VPN helps you access blocked websites:
Some websites and pages can be inaccessible in certain countries due to restrictions on those web pages, but VPN can help access them through an encrypted connection.
A VPN can prevent you from cyber hacking:
VPN blocks trackers, hackers, cybercriminals, the government, and your internet service provider.
VPN can provide you cheapest deals online:
You need a VPN service to save money on flight tickets or car rentals. Based on your country, you can be offered the prices differently. Therefore you can purchase tickets from the cheapest location with the help of a VPN.
What are the different types of VPN services?
You can find various VPN software; however, personal VPNs are the most common. Following are the VPN services you may find in the market.
Personal VPN
Personal VPN is also known as consumer VPN, which shields your IP address and encrypts your online activity (transfer of data from you and to you). In addition, it hides your location and lets you access inaccessible content on the internet.
Site-to-Site VPN
Various companies use a Site-to-Site VPN to establish a WAN (wide area network) among networks. For example, a company with multiple branches across the country or the world with employees that need to have access to data.
Remote Access VPN
A remote-access VPN is commonly used by employees working in a company that needs you to log into a private network. VPN protects your privacy and data, which gets transferred between the web and employees.
Mobile VPN
It is similar to remote access VPN; however, this is specially designed for mobile devices. VPN keeps the connection going and keeps you connected if you lose a Wi-Fi connection or cellular network.
How secure is a VPN? 5 main VPN protocols
Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol
PPTP is one of the oldest protocols that Microsoft created. Therefore, using it on an older Windows operating system will be best.
Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol
SSTP is also created by Microsoft, which is useful for encryption by websites. It secures the transmission of data between two parties.
Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol
L2TP/IPSec is the combination of PPTP and L2F protocol created by Cisco Systems, networking hardware. Comparatively, it provides you more secure data tunnel than PPTP however lacks encryption or other privacy capabilities.
Internet Key Exchange, version 2
In advance, with more security terms, Microsoft and Cisco created this version of L2TP, IKEv2. Moreover, this protocol is best applicable to mobile devices.
OpenVPN
An open-source (free to use) VPN technology that is known for its high security and is widely used. The best part is that various developers constantly enhance the technology to provide you with the best user experience. Anyone (individuals or companies) can use and modify OpenVPN according to their needs.
A VPN protects your privacy and provides more security to your identity and activity online. So let's enjoy your activity online, not even being monitored by Internet Service Provider.
