Black Friday sales are here, offering some amazing deals and discounts across all product categories. However, there's nothing quite like beating your fellow shoppers and undercutting even the lowest of prices to grab the ultimate bargain deal.
VPNs are no exception, with some great Black Friday VPN deals around this weekend. But given their IP-spoofing powers, many of you might be wondering if they can help you get better deals online? Right off the bat, I'd like to tell you that the best VPNs can certainly help you access online stores and websites in different countries - and in the odd instance, save you some money as well - but their real value this Black Friday is their safety credentials.
In this article, I'll shed light on why you must absolutely use a VPN when shopping for Black Friday, so read until the end.
Can a VPN help save you money?
While a VPN can help you get access to overseas sites and find products for a better price, it's not going to prove very beneficial because of shipping costs. Additionally, such instances, i.e., finding goods at a cheaper price on a site abroad, are quite rare to begin with.
However, switching to an alternate location with your VPN can indeed be a viable solution for software purchases, such as Tidal, Spotify, etc., since there are no shipping costs involved. But do note that there's a caveat here as well, which is that these offers are often tricky to find, and you may need a credit card registered to a different country.
With that said, a VPN is a fantastic way to sidestep dynamic pricing, which is when online stores and websites charge different rates from different customers - by analyzing their online shopping behavior, such as the number of times they open a page or the amount of time they spend on a particular website. A VPN spoofs your real IP address and anonymizes your online activities, so you're protected against any such tracking.
How can a VPN help keep you safe during Black Friday?
The real use case of a VPN in the context of Black Friday is protecting you from fake sites and phishing scams. While people are busy finding the best Black Friday deals, cybercriminals use this opportunity to lure innocent buyers with dubious online shops, which are exact replicas of the original and may offer over-the-top discounts.
Top VPNs like NordVPN offer useful features like Threat Protection Pro, and Surfshark, too, comes with a built-in malware and ad blocker, which are quite effective at spotting dodgy sites.
However, I'd like to point out that using a VPN is not a foolproof defense against scams, and it's equally important to stay vigilant and never hand out any of your personal information online unless you're absolutely certain about the legitimacy of a website. Check out our guide on how to spot a phishing scam for more details.
What if you're on the high street?
If you're traveling abroad this Black Friday, you can use a VPN to connect to a server back home and continue enjoying online shopping exactly as you would if you were in your home country.
Alternatively, you may not be outside your country, but if you're out and about shopping, you'll probably connect to public Wi-Fi at some point - perhaps to compare the store's prices to what's available online.
We always recommend using a VPN on public Wi-Fi networks because they're hotbeds for cybercriminals, who may exploit the network's lack of security to steal your sensitive information. A VPN, by encrypting your internet connection and routing your data through one of its own servers (and not your ISP's), protects you from snoopers.
