When is vpn used

To protect their data, they set up VPNs between offices, encrypting the data as it traverses the public internet. This is a corporate or enterprise VPN, and it's characterized by the same organization controlling both endpoints of the VPN. If your company controls the originating point say a sales office and the endpoint like a VPN server at your corporate HQ , you can be quite well assured unless there's a bug that your data is securely transmitted.

This is for those of you who compute in hotels or at coffee shops and connect to web applications like social networks, email, banks, or shopping sites. Consumer VPN services help ensure that those communications are protected.

The VPN service provides a secure tunnel between your computing device whether laptop, phone, or tablet and the provider's data center. This is important to understand. Consumer VPN services protect your transmission from your location to their location, not from your location to the destination application you're using. If you think about it, this makes sense: A consumer VPN service is operated by a completely different company than, for example, Facebook or your bank.

The VPN service gives you an app that you run on your local device, which encrypts your data, and it travels in its encrypted form through a tunnel to the VPN service provider's infrastructure. At that point, the data is decrypted and sent on its way. Two things happen here: First, if you're using an https connection, your data is encrypted by your browser and then by your VPN app. Your data is decrypted only once at the VPN data centre, leaving the original encryption provided by the browser intact.

That encrypted data then goes on to the destination application, like your bank. 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.

We have tested most major VPN providers of this moment on their usability and quality. Most good VPN providers offer trials so you can check out their service free of charge. They offer several thousand fast and stable servers, applications for all devices, and a great customer service. This VPN also works with Netflix , so you can unblock all your favorite shows.

ExpressVPN has a day money-back guarantee, so you can try it out before getting a lengthier subscription. ExpressVPN aims to offer you the best quality, and that comes with a price tag. This subscription allows you to protect five of your devices with ExpressVPN. You can read more about this provider in our full review of ExpressVPN.

This good and trustworthy service offers high levels of security. Its software looks sleek while also being easy to use. Moreover, the applications are user-friendly and well-structured. Read more about this provider in our full NordVPN review. NordVPN also offers more advanced options. For instance, NordVPN offers dedicated IP addresses and obfuscated servers, which make circumventing geo-restrictions, such as those enforced by Netflix, easier.

NordVPN has a day money-back guarantee. They also have very affordable deals, especially on their long-term subscriptions. Surfshark has earned a third place in our top 5.

The VPN-software that Surfshark offers is very user-friendly. You might want to watch one of the countless movies and series on the American Netflix. Aside from their standard VPN service, Surfshark offers plenty of additional features. To give you a short summary: Surfshark is a fantastic VPN for every beginning VPN user but is also suitable for the more experienced user who wants to have a wide array of possibilities at their disposal.

Would you like to try out Surfshark? Click the button in the box below to visit their website. Installing this can be a challenge. If you need help installing a VPN on your router, you can consult our article on this topic. And then there are also quite a few companies that offer business VPN packages. We like to help and have tested many VPN providers already.

You can find more information about testing and the results in our VPN review section. We also state under which jurisdiction each VPN provider falls and whether the VPN provider is located in a 5, 9 or 14 eyes country ; the governments of these countries exchange information. The jurisdiction may have implications for the privacy of VPN users, as each country has different privacy laws.

In practice, there are therefore differences in which user data VPN providers store. This is just a small selection of the available VPN providers. At VPNOverview. In addition, there are also some VPNs that are linked to questionable governments. Choosing a reliable VPN is therefore a must; after all, you redirect all your internet traffic via this party. Large companies and governments can use these VPN solutions to allow employees and other authorized people to access the network remotely.

Well, a VPN offers more anonymity, safety and freedom online. An increasing part of our lives takes place online. We do our banking, keep in touch with friends, check our medical records and work online. If you do not secure your internet connection, you run the risk that hackers, governments, your internet provider, websites, your employer and others will find out more about you than you would like. A VPN shields your data from all these groups.

Most people will know that the things you share online, for instance on Facebook or Instagram, can follow you around for the rest of your life. In the same way, almost everything you do online can have a lasting effect.

What if a hacker can see where you do your finances online? Or what if your employer knows how you spend your time on social media during work hours? However, a VPN will considerably lessen the chance that anyone can see your personal data, browser history and other online activities. It provides its users with more online privacy, security, and freedom. These providers constantly make sure that their security and the speed of their servers is in order. After extensive testing, we have identified the best VPN providers for you.

If you have a burning question about VPNs, we might be able to help you out. Simply click one of the queries below to see the answer. There is a large price difference between the various VPN providers. This makes it difficult to give a a clear answer to this question.

There are also free VPNs. There is also a large number of free VPN providers who abuse your data or resell it to others. Always read reviews of VPNs to see if they are suitable for you. There are many free VPNs to be found on the internet. However, not all of those VPNs can be trusted. Unfortunately, even good free VPNs often have speed or data limits. We have tested free VPNs to see which ones can be trusted. Take a look at out best free VPNs article.

Choose a trustworthy VPN service and get a subscription with them. Install the software on your device and turn the VPN application on. A VPN is a secure connection between you and the internet. This connection is sent through an external VPN server, meaning your IP address , location, and data traffic remain hidden. This way, a VPN provides you with increased online privacy , safety , and freedom , which comes with all sorts of new possibilities.

Therefore, your location will no longer be visible to everyone on the internet. The encrypted VPN tunnel is able to keep your data secure because it uses high-level encryption protocols. A good VPN will allow you to watch Netflix movies and series that would normally only be available in different countries. The American version of Netflix , for example, has a bigger library than the versions in many other countries, including Spain, The Netherlands, and the UK.

I use Avast but it continually blocks my connection. I then have to manually turn the VPN off to get through. This allows you to select which sites or apps you want to open through the VPN, and which ones you want to open with your regular connection. Hi David, I recently purchased a VPN for gaming specifically to reduce ping as I heard it can do that when routing me through the USA where the server is, however it makes the ping slightly worse!

Do you have any advice for using a VPN for this purpose. A lot of sites state that a VPN will increase your connection speed and ping, while the opposite is usually true.

Where do they get the new IP addresses? Genuine VPN providers usually work with data centers all over the world to make sure they get new IP addresses. We would advise you to stay as far away from these types of VPN providers. Hi David. Many thanks for a great, well researched and informative review. The software side of vpn makes sense, but do you have any thoughts on vpn hardware that could be used between the wall and the router for home WiFi?

Then presumably all laptops, phones and tablets using WiFi from that router would be covered? My additional dilemma is that my network signal at the office is extremely poor and annoying, so am considering a mobile router on another network, and wondered if this could perhaps be incorporated with a vpn?

Many thanks, Nigel. This may improve the security because everything is connected to the VPN , but also gives you less control over the connection on each individual device. It depends on your preferences what the best call to make is in this case. About the mobile router, it depends on the router itself whether it supports VPN or not.

Hi — I have a couple of questions here because this is all new to me. Is it best to use the VPN on all devices or just some? Should it be used all the time or some of the time — I have heard mixed feedback on this.

When you sign up for a VPN, you generally get to connect multiple devices with a single subscription. If you use a VPN for unblocking purposes, you might only have to use the VPN on the device you want to access content with though. Nice website — do you have a little more detail of exactly what happens after the packets are decrypted at the VPN server?

Like between the VPN server and the final website on the internet. Thank you! After the packet is decrypted it should act like any non-encrypted packet. The difference being that the server the VPN server is communicating with sees the VPN server as the point of origin, and not your device. If you are connected to work via VPN, but use your home browser to go online can your work track what your doing on your home browser? If all the internet traffic goes through your work VPN, then, in theory, it is possible.

However, in most cases, workplaces will not have this kind of monitoring active. I say this because YouTube and Google are two websites that I would most prefer to be anonymous with and protected from. Thank you, Brad. If the pc is connected to VPN by software, does the data traffic on the hdd connected usb to the router also pass through VPN, or need a separate VPN setting for the router?

If it is connected to the router, you have to set up the VPN on your router if you want its data to be protected. They should be able to help you fix this. So is it totally impossible to trace the origin of an email that was sent via VPN or are there means to trace the author? If possible any suggested programs. Emails are a bit of a different story because you have to log in to an email service provider in order to send one.

Also, be sure not to use any of your personal information when making the email or sending one. Usually yes is the right answer. A VPN needs to modify your network settings so it can set up the tunnel properly. Is my VPN running correctly? The extra step to authenticate yourself when using a VPN is common. We sometimes get these as well, though this usually lasts only a little while and depends on the VPN-server.

This can be IP which is referenced to a certain database. If you have your time set to New York time, then the timestamp should read the New York time.

Though if someone else has their email set to a different time zone, they will ee the time they received your email according to their time zone.

You use a VPN to unblock a site such as Gmail. As long as you gain access to a site, you can use it to send and receive emails. For example: if you are in China and I am in the US, I can just send you emails and these will be sent to your inbox.

You only need VPN to gain access to your email provider in order to open your inbox and read and send emails. Very informative, Thanks!

I use a point-to-point VPN client Pulse Secure , installed on the laptop to connect to the company network — I have no other option for work from home.

I want to upgrade the old router with something I can install a VPN on. Should I expect problems running the point-to-point tunnel through a VPN on the router?

Assuming you want to install a VPN different from Pulse Secure on your router, this could cause some problems. Chances are that this double VPN connection will keep your laptop from getting access to the internet at all.

As you listed, there are unlimited benefits of VPNs. Most of the business VPN providers offer discounts as well. My question is, despite of so many benefits, why is it banned in many countries? Some governments across the world limit internet freedom and want to block certain parts of the internet, such as social media platforms and news websites.

You can read more about the legality of VPNs across the world right here. And if so how do I do that. If you want to protect your other devices, you should install it on those devices seperately. We have a guide for setting up a virtual router here. Thank you for article! But I missed newcomers. I mean there are a lot of shady free VPNs in the market right now, but recently I found Atlas and it seems to be quite alright.

I used it for a couple of days and still do not have any issues. Works good with streaming services. Did you heard about them? In the meantime, we can tell you that, sadly, Atlas does log information, namely your IP address among other data. I actually wanted to know more technical details, like does the VPN software overwrite the customer network settings? If multiple devices are connected to the same internet connection, it may be easier to implement the VPN directly on the router than to install a separate VPN on each device.

A router VPN is especially useful if you want to protect devices with an internet connection that are not easy to configure, such as smart TVs. They can even help you access geographically restricted content through your home entertainment systems. A router VPN is easy to install, always provides security and privacy, and prevents your network from being compromised when insecure devices log on.

However, it may be more difficult to manage if your router does not have its own user interface. This can lead to incoming connections being blocked. A company VPN is a custom solution that requires personalized setup and technical support.

As a user, you have no administrative influence from the VPN itself and your activities and data transfers are logged by your company. This allows the company to minimize the potential risk of data leakage.

The main advantage of a corporate VPN is a fully secure connection to the company's intranet and server, even for employees who work outside the company using their own internet connection. Yes, there are a number of VPN options for smartphones and other internet-connected devices. A VPN can be essential for your mobile device if you use it to store payment information or other personal data or even just to surf the internet. It is important to note that VPNs do not function like comprehensive anti-virus software.

While they protect your IP and encrypt your internet history, a VPN connection does not protect your computer from outside intrusion. To do this, you should definitely use anti-virus software such as Kaspersky Internet Security.

Because using a VPN on its own does not protect you from Trojans, viruses, bots or other malware. Once the malware has found its way onto your device, it can steal or damage your data, whether you are running a VPN or not. It is therefore important that you use a VPN together with a comprehensive anti-virus program to ensure maximum security. It is also important that you choose a VPN provider that you can trust.

If your VPN provider is compromised, so are you. For this reason, it is crucial that you choose a trusted VPN provider to ensure both the concealment of your internet activities and ensure the highest level of security. Fortunately, smartphone VPN services are easy to use and generally include the following:. But keep the following in mind: A VPN is only as secure as the data usage and storage policies of its provider.

Remember that the VPN service transfers your data to their servers and these servers connect over the internet on your behalf. If they store data logs, make sure that it is clear for what purpose these logs are stored.

Serious VPN providers usually put your privacy first and foremost. You should therefore choose a trusted provider such as Kaspersky Secure Connection. Remember that only internet data is encrypted. Anything that does not use a cellular or Wi-Fi connection will not be transmitted over the internet.

As a result, your VPN will not encrypt your standard voice calls or texts. A VPN connection establishes a secure connection between you and the internet.

Via the VPN, all your data traffic is routed through an encrypted virtual tunnel. This disguises your IP address when you use the internet, making its location invisible to everyone. A VPN connection is also secure against external attacks. A VPN allows you to access regionally restricted content from anywhere in the world. Many streaming platforms are not available in every country. You can still access them using the VPN. There are now also many providers of VPN connections for smartphones which keep mobile data traffic anonymous.

However, remember that only your data traffic on the internet is anonymized and protected by using a VPN. The VPN connection does not protect you from hacker attacks, Trojans, viruses or other malware. You should therefore rely on an additional trusted anti-virus software. Kaspersky Anti-Virus. Work securely online in your home office. Security of public WiFi networks. Defence against a man-in-the-middle attack. We use cookies to make your experience of our websites better.

By using and further navigating this website you accept this. Detailed information about the use of cookies on this website is available by clicking on more information. How does a VPN work? What are the benefits of a VPN connection? Why should you use a VPN connection? What should a good VPN do? This allows you to send and receive information online without the risk of anyone but you and the VPN provider seeing it.

Encryption of protocols: A VPN should also prevent you from leaving traces, for example, in the form of your internet history, search history and cookies.

The encryption of cookies is especially important because it prevents third parties from gaining access to confidential information such as personal data, financial information and other content on websites. Kill switch: If your VPN connection is suddenly interrupted, your secure connection will also be interrupted. A good VPN can detect this sudden downtime and terminate preselected programs, reducing the likelihood that data is compromised.

Two-factor authentication: By using a variety of authentication methods, a strong VPN checks everyone who tries to log in.