More and more people are becoming aware of the term VPN lately. VPNs are great tools for helping to protect your online privacy, but some people have written them off as being the brain food of paranoid individuals.
Regardless of what some people may think, there are plenty of reasons that you would want to use a VPN – even if you’re not engaged in any questionable business. In this article, we’ll touch on why VPNs are important and why it’s a good idea to use one.
How Do They Work?
A VPN works by rerouting your computer’s IP address. This means that all the information that you send out – things such as requests for web sites, searches, or services on the internet – won’t be easily traced back to you. Instead, they will be tracked back to the middleman IP address that the VPN uses.
There are lots of different VPN services that you can use. Some of them are quite simple and require minimal configuration, such as browser-based VPNs that can be accessed from a simple Google search. Other VPNs are more complicated and require more setup and technical prowess, but they can provide more protection. Windscribe is one of the newer VPN services gaining popularity and worth checking out https://www.cloudwedge.com/reviews/windscribe/.
Why Would I Use a VPN?
VPNs aren’t just for paranoid web browsers. There are a lot of reasons that even the most average internet user would want to use a VPN.
- Unfortunately, most websites that we used today, such as Facebook and Google, track all of our data. It’s quite easy for these companies to develop what’s known as an “Online Fingerprint,” or an identification that can be used to describe our preferences, activities, and contacts online.
- Many ISPs (internet service providers) record all the data that we send out to the internet. Using a VPN can help to prevent this and further obscures your online fingerprint.
- Most ISPs in the United States are allowed to sell user data to advertisers, so if you live in the US you might want to get a VPN solely for this purpose.
These are just a few of the most common reasons that people would want to use VPNs. You don’t have to be engaged in shady Dark Web business to seek the protection of a VPN – though certainly, these folks will want to use one, as well.