A virtual private network, better known as a VPN, keeps your data private and your Internet activity anonymous on both public and private connections. VPNs conceal your Internet protocol (IP) address so hackers, bosses, Internet service providers, and people with whom you share your Internet connections can’t see which sites you have visited and who is sending you email. VPNs give you an encrypted secure connection with the greatest amount of privacy possible on the Internet.
Why do you need a VPN?
‘Just about all of us occasionally visit sites that we don’t want other people to know about. It’s not just your traffic to adult entertainment sites or alternative news sites that you might want to keep private.
Let’s say you are using your computer to solicit bids for a purchase for your company. You don’t want one of your vendors to be able to eavesdrop on your conversations with their competitors about price.
Or suppose you need to contact your doctor about the results of lab tests that could mean you have a serious health condition. You want to control the time and place you reveal this information to your family, your friends, and your employer. Maybe you want to leave room for the good news that the tests show that you didn’t have the problem at all without having to answer unnecessary questions or squelch rumors.
Or maybe you want to surprise your spouse with tickets for a dream vacation for your anniversary. A VPN can protect you from the hackers in your life who could find things about your life you want to keep to yourself.
VPNs are essential when you are using a public wi-fi connection.
‘Anytime you use your browser while your computer is connected to a public hotspot, especially an unsecured public hotspot, you could be revealing more than just the names of the naughty sites you don’t want everyone to know you visited.
Every larger public Wi-Fi venue, like a library, a doctor’s office, a hospital, a coffee shop, or an airport, can have one of more hackers physically present in close proximity to your computer just waiting to steal your data. These hackers can steal your passwords. Your bank account data. Your email address. Even your emails.
The time and money you would have to spend undoing the damage from just one hack of one credit card account far outweighs the convenience of using public Wi-Fi unprotected. And leaving your computer open to a cyberstalker could create a nightmare.
How VPNs work
An easy way to think of a VPN is as a tunnel for your data, or a data runnel. Your data leaves your computer and goes into your local network. It emerges in another network that could be in the same room or on the other side of the planet.
When you don’t have a VPN, a tech-savvy Internet eavesdropper can ascertain your IP address, and from that, your location. There will be a digital record of where your computer was and when. But when you use your VPN as a data tunnel, the VPN substitutes another IP address, or dozens of different IP addresses, that hackers cannot trace.
Your VPN runs the data going out of your computer through an encryption protocol. Encrypting your data makes it unreadable to other computers. Then the VPN decrypts your data and sends it to the sites you are accessing.
Your VPN conceals your browsing history by substituting one of their IP addresses for your own. Without this function, your ISP will know your search history. So will Google. But if you use a VPN, Google won’t be able to collect the mountains of data about where you are, which sites you visit, which pages get your attention, and all the other information about using the Internet you don’t want to become part of your permanent record with them.
You really need a VPN. Your VPN will:
- Keep your browsing history private.
- Keep the physical location of your computer private. (This can be very important when you are traveling internationally.)
- Enable you to stream your favorite programs when you are traveling.
- Keep all of your devices, your laptop, your desktop, your tablet, and your smartphone safe from prying eyes.
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