If you landed on this page, there's a good chance you're looking for a VPN, or virtual private network. Perhaps someone recommended a particular product or service, or an ad caught your curiosity? Before you jump into unfamiliar territory, you may not actually need a VPN after all. I would like to tell you that no.
Today's VPNs promise a lot, from protecting your privacy from surveillance to increasing your internet speed and protecting you from malicious online threats. Simply put, a VPN provider privately routes all of your device's internet traffic under the premise of protecting your information from prying eyes like governments, online advertisers, and even your home internet provider. Focus through the system.
The question is, how can you trust a VPN provider to protect all your private internet browsing information? The simple answer is that you cannot and should not trust VPN providers, free or paid. As TechCrunch's Romain Dillet notes in his explanation of what a VPN is and how it works, VPNs are only useful in limited situations, and in some cases using a VPN is better than not using a VPN. can be just as dangerous.
We have good news! The simple flowchart below will help you decide whether you need a VPN for your situation or whether there is a better option for what you're looking for.
If you need a VPN, the best VPN provider is one you create yourself. We have an easy guide on how to set up your own encrypted VPN server, including open source software that has been reviewed and audited by security experts.
And if you don't think you need a VPN, we'll also look at privacy tools and other steps you can take to improve your privacy online.
Let's go!
Are they trying to circumvent government censorship?
If you live in an area where governments or authorities restrict access to the Internet or block certain websites, you may be subject to censorship. This means that the government could monitor local Internet traffic and decide which websites and services can and cannot be accessed.
If certain websites are blocked, a VPN allows you to access them as if you were from another part of the world, no matter where the VPN server is located. However, governments have been known to block IP address ranges used by VPN providers, rendering VPNs disabled or unusable.
To avoid censorship, it's much better to use Tor, a network service that encrypts, scrambles, and anonymizes your internet traffic through several different proxy servers as you browse the web. The Tor network is typically slower to browse than the regular Internet because encrypted Internet traffic continues to pass through various servers to ensure anonymity, but it allows you to bypass local Internet censorship. Masu.
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Want to browse the web anonymously?
Whether you're censored or not, you may want to browse the web anonymously without anyone knowing who you are.
When you browse the web, you leave behind many digital footprints. Websites know when you visit them (and can also tell other sites what you're looking at) thanks to the large number of ad trackers placed on each web page. can). Internet providers that route your Internet traffic may collect and monetize information about your browsing habits. And governments can seek grounds to request access to your browsing data whenever they want, including requesting access to data from your VPN provider, giving you exactly the privacy you were looking for. It could break that point.
Avoid online surveillance by leaving no trace of your personal information in the first place. We recommend using Tor to browse the web for anonymity, as Tor routes your internet traffic through multiple servers around the world, ensuring that no server can see your browsing data. Masu. As such, Tor may be slower to load than the regular internet, but it still offers the best privacy benefits.
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When should you use Tor?
Security experts consider the Tor network to be the gold standard for private browsing because it allows access to the internet without censorship or surveillance.
Rather than relying on a single tunnel to hide your internet traffic, Tor encrypts your internet traffic and routes it through thousands of servers around the world, keeping your activity from other servers and the outside world. Protect. Tor's implementation does not allow a single Tor server to see your browsing data. This means that even if a Tor server is compromised, an attacker will not be able to access the browsing data of internal users.
Because Tor is open source, anyone can inspect its source code to ensure it is safe to run. Tor is free, so anyone can use it on a variety of platforms and devices.
In fact, accessing Tor is as simple as downloading and running the Tor Browser, a custom version of Firefox. The Tor browser privately routes everything that happens in your browser window through the Tor network.
The Tor Browser, maintained by the non-profit Tor Project, blocks and isolates ad trackers and prevents websites from “fingerprinting” your device. It allows you to uniquely identify and track which websites a particular device visits as it moves around the web.
When it comes to Tor, understand its limitations. Designed with privacy and anti-surveillance in mind, it typically runs slower than the regular Internet and is not designed for streaming content. Some governments and authorities are trying to block Tor traffic. Tor includes a variety of built-in “bridges” that allow Tor traffic to be disguised and blended into regular Internet traffic, making it more difficult for governments and authorities to block it.
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Do you want to bypass geo-blocking of content?
Geographic blocking (or “geo-blocking”) that prevents you from accessing websites, video games locked to a particular geographic region, or online streaming services such as watching television shows while abroad There is.
This may be due to licensing restrictions on content providers or the inability of some websites to meet legal obligations required by some regional authorities, such as the European Union.
A VPN can help you get around geo-blocking restrictions, but be aware of their limitations.
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Need to remotely access something in another location?
VPNs were originally designed to allow users to “virtually” access office networks from anywhere in the world. To this day, using a VPN to remotely access another computer or network is still common and a very typical VPN usage.
If you work from home, you may use a VPN provided by your workplace to access email and other web-based work applications when you're not in the office. This secure private tunnel allows you to use your computer as if you were actually in the office. If you use a VPN for work, we provide one for you. No need to create a VPN.
One possible use case for a VPN is to allow access to your home network from anywhere in the world. For most people, this isn't necessary, but it can increase the risk of outsiders gaining access to your home network if your VPN is compromised.
Developers may also want to use a VPN to access another system hosted in their data center, or use a VPN to connect systems even if they are located in completely different regions. there is.
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A VPN can help you avoid geo-blocking of content
A VPN can help you avoid restrictions on access to content hosted in another region, known as geo-blocking. Geoblocking can restrict access to specific online videos, games, or entire websites.
By using a VPN server that is hosted in the region where your content is located, you may be able to access your content as if you were physically located there. VPNs set up using modern infrastructure, such as data centers or cloud hosts, can typically handle large amounts of bandwidth, which can slow your internet speed or reduce the quality of your browsing, gaming, and content streaming. Very unlikely.
It's worth noting that some content providers are increasingly blocking access to devices they don't know are located in the regions they claim, such as users suspected of using VPNs. Some providers will completely block some VPN provider's IP address ranges and disable your VPN.
There is no guarantee that a VPN will work in all cases. However, the best VPNs are the ones you set up yourself. This is often because you can set it up in a region of your choice and under your own control.
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VPN helps with remote access
If you have one or more systems that you want to be able to access remotely at any time, you may need a VPN. A VPN allows you to access that system virtually from anywhere in the world. This could be a system in a data center or a cloud host for storing files, a home computer on another property, or an office location that you own.
It is worth noting that no product, service, or software is completely free of security flaws, even when using the most secure technology. So even if you set up a VPN at home, there's a good chance that it could be maliciously exploited by someone on the internet.
The best VPN is a VPN server that you set up so you can configure, secure, and control it yourself.
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