A Beginners Guide to Using a Virtual Private Network
The aim of this article is to enhance the reader’s knowledge about the virtual private network (VPN) service by increasing awareness of its uses, popularity, and limitations. The focus will be on why a person would want to use a VPN service, what are reasons for its increasing popularity of late, types of VPNs available, and their advantages/disadvantages.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is software that establishes an encrypted connection between your PC or laptop and another computer via the internet. For all intents and purposes, your IP address becomes your digital identity when you are connected to that server.
A VPN can provide some added benefits in security because it allows you to “tunnel” into applications over an encrypted connection. For example, VPNs that work with netflix Netflix, ESPN Plus Hulu, etc. are now commonplace, giving users access to libraries from around the world, as well as potentially improved connection for an ultra-smooth viewing experience. As with all VPN services, a VPN provider manages the network, so it is able to guarantee a certain level of service and uptime.
There are different methods for implementing a VPN and there are protocols and technologies involved in this process: PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol), L2TP/IPSec (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol), and OpenVPN protocol. Each has its advantages/disadvantages, however, most providers will use L2TP/IPSec because it is newer than PPTP and more secure than OpenVPN. For this reason, recommendations in this article will be about using an L2TP/IPSec connection between yourself and your server.
If you have a good, fast internet connection at home and you are the only person on the network it is relatively safe to use a free VPN service, however, if you do use one of these services your data could be given out to copyright enforcement agencies or law enforcement. This is because they have no legal obligation to protect your data or privacy.
Paid VPN services are more secure because all of their traffic is encrypted via an external server certificate that has been issued by a certificate authority for this particular VPN provider. Since the traffic from your connected device is encrypted by your router or computer before being sent out across the internet, ISPs cannot read it. However, Paid VPN providers log activity and may share this information with authorities if needed (although not obliged to do so).
Free VPN providers are often limited in what servers they have available to connect to, whereas paid VPN providers normally have a larger number of servers that you can choose from. However, it can be a good idea to try a vpn linux free before purchasing, as this means you can ensure you’re happy with the service. Make sure to test the customer service, and see if the interface is user-friendly before upgrading to a paid plan. Paid services will provide more bandwidth than free ones which means you get better speeds when surfing the internet or playing games online. This may be important if you enjoy watching videos via websites like YouTube..
Another advantage of paid services is the availability of features such as malware blockers and IP leak protection for desktop clients (the latter feature does not work on mobile/tablet devices), secure DNS servers, obfuscated servers, and dedicated IPs.
(Figure 1: An example of GUI for OpenVPN)
Secure DNS server: Your browser will contact a DNS server (https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/dns/what-is-a-dns-server/) which will resolve the website address you wish to visit. It is possible for your ISP or government authorities to record all these requests and use them against you, however, VPNs have their own secure DNS servers that do not keep logs.
Obfuscated servers: If you try to access a website from an IP address that looks like it is located somewhere else in the world where there is no extradition treaty with your country then it might get blocked. Therefore if one were to access a US Netflix movie from Canada they may find themselves unable to view certain content due to this blockade even though VPN software has been used. Specific obfuscated servers can allow people living in countries under such regulation(s) to
To sum it up – should I be using a VPN?
If you don’t value your privacy or believe your data is already public, there is no need for you to be using a VPN.
On the other hand, if you would like to access content that may otherwise be blocked or censored such as YouTube videos of anti-government demonstrations (while living somewhere where such material is illegal), want to safeguard your internet traffic from ISP snooping (which they definitely do!), don’t want your browsing habits on the web being tracked by advertisers or others then yes, using a VPN service can help.
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