Connecting to public Wi-Fi these days isn’t a good idea as it could compromise your privacy. Someone could get access to your social media accounts without you knowing. Worse, they might even get a copy of your credit card numbers and other personal details. This is why you should use a VPN in 2021.
With a VPN, you’ll be able to protect your important information from prying eyes. This is especially important when you’re using public Wi-Fi. You can log into your social media accounts with no worries and transact with your credit cards without compromising your bank account.
How Does a VPN Work?
VPN means Virtual Private Network. This network provides an encrypted tunnel between the remote server and your network. So, when you access the Internet, all the traffic will be routed into a tunnel. That way, your data will be kept secure. Since the traffic will be exiting from the VPN, your device will show the IP address of the VPN server. Therefore, your location, as well as your identity, will be masked.
In order to fully understand the importance of having a VPN, think about a certain scenario where you will find it useful. A good example is connecting to Wi-Fi in a coffee shop or airport. Everyone connects to these types of networks without even thinking if they are secure or not. But what you don’t know is that someone might be observing the traffic from this public network and could slowly be stealing your data. Before you know it, they already have access to your password, bank credentials, credit card numbers, etc.
But if you’re going to use a VPN when connecting to public Wi-Fi, you can rest assured that these intruders won’t be able to get a hold of your personal information. You need to remember that some network providers lure users by pretending to be something they are not. For instance, they could use the name of a popular café. This way, you will immediately connect to it without giving it a second thought.
You might think that a VPN isn’t useful in your house because you won’t be connecting to any public Wi-Fi network while there. But a VPN is very useful in your home too. In case you’re not aware, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) has full control over what you’re doing over the Internet, all thanks to Congress. Because of this, your ISP can sell anonymous data to third-party companies, which means that they are actually making money out of your data.
Should You Use a VPN on All Your Devices?
As for the mobile device, the situation is somewhat different. Most VPN companies provide VPN apps for Smart TV devices like the Fire TV Stick, iPhones and Android and this is a great thing. It lets you use your iPhone or Android phone to access public Wi-Fi at all times. However, there are instances when VPNs don’t work well when used with a cellular connection. But the good thing is that intercepting data from the cellular network requires some serious effort so you won’t be that vulnerable.
In the case of intelligent agencies and law enforcers, however, they have a much easier way of accessing data through cellular connections. They also use specialized tools for this. You might think that you are less vulnerable since the OS you are using is less common. But this is not always the case. People who want to spy on you won’t care much about the type of computer you are using.
How to Stay Safe with a VPN?
With the birth of the Internet, not much thought was given to user privacy and security. The focus was mainly on openness but not much on defense.
Nowadays, most people own several devices that can connect to the web and are usually more powerful than the computers of the early days. Yet, there hasn’t been a lot of improvements. In fact, https became widespread only in the last few years.
Therefore, you are solely responsible for protecting yourself. Sure, you can rely on password managers and antivirus apps, but a VPN is different and more powerful.
IPVanish – Our Top Recommendation
IPVanish is one of the best VPNs out there. It works by establishing a secure connection between the IPVanish server and your local ISP. All the data that gets transmitted is encrypted, which means no one will be able to decipher it.
No tool or software can find the information that’s being transmitted, thanks to the advanced encryption methods. Furthermore, the IP address of your device will be completely masked so your location and identity are hidden.
What’s great about IPVanish is that using it is pretty straightforward. After installing this tool, you don’t need to modify the settings or anything and you can immediately start using it. Even if you’re not a tech person, you can easily use IPVanish and browse securely in your phone or use it on your Fire TV Stick.
Conclusion
IPVanish comes with an OpenVPN protocol that provides 256-Bit AES encryption support that’s secure and safe. Your ISP won’t be able to figure out what you are doing for as long as you stay connected to this VPN. Furthermore, they delete connection logs and this means that no third-party can ever retrieve them.
In addition, all the IP addresses will be shared between users. So, even with a connection log, it will be impossible to figure out what a particular user is doing while connected to the Internet.
This is very important because you probably will be using the VPN to surf anonymously. It’s just useless to have a VPN if anybody can gain access to your usage logs and monitor your activities online.
Let us know in the comments down below if you use a VPN already! We love hearing from our readers!
