Almost anything you do online leaves a digital footprint, and there are advertisers and hackers left and right waiting to track your behavior for their benefit. This makes the best VPNs more attractive than ever.
Whether it’s gaming or casual browsing, using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) can provide you with a lot of benefits. You can use it to hide your internet activity, protect yourself from snoopers, get past online censorship, and so much more. Keep reading to learn about the seven ways a VPN can make your life easier.
1. Online privacy and security
VPNs are primarily known for the privacy and security they offer. Using a VPN safeguards your online activities by transmitting your data through an encrypted tunnel, which is often far away from your actual location. This makes it really tough to trace your online activities back to you.
Many websites request cookies that store data whenever you visit, usually for the sake of bombarding you with advertisements. You can block third-party cookies and other tracking technologies by using a VPN—no company or website will have access to what you do online.
For enhanced security, many VPN providers come with split tunneling, wherein you can decide what part of your internet traffic routes through the secure VPN tunnel and what goes through as normal internet traffic. This will allow you to, say, operate your local banking sites and access geo-restricted content at the same.
2. Hide your IP address
Every internet connection gets a unique string of numbers, which is known as its IP address. This address contains details like your geographic location, your ISP, and other personal information that could be abused by an online predator.
VPNs mask your IP address and replace it with a fake one in an entirely different location to your real one, making it look like you are using the internet from a different place. This ensures the safety and complete anonymity of your activities.
3. Access geo-restricted content
It’s frustrating when your favorite shows aren't available where you live or where you are traveling. A lot of streaming platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, and more are entirely unavailable in certain countries either due to their own restrictions or the government's.
With VPNs, you can watch your favorite TV shows, movies, and sports events no matter where you are on the map. The best VPN for streaming boasts powerful unblocking capabilities to remove geo-blocks on streaming sites (including hard-to-crack locations like Japan), giving you access to streaming libraries and game sales worldwide.
4. Public Wi-Fi safety
Public Wi-Fi connections are certainly useful, except for the data threats and ease of hacking that come when you carry out financial transactions through an unsecured network.
What's shocking is that most users are aware of the fact that public Wi-Fi is unsafe but do nothing about it. If a Wi-Fi connection isn’t encrypted, connecting to it could expose your browsing activity to hackers and intruders.
You need a VPN for public Wi-Fi. It will act as a shield by encrypting your data in a manner that even if a third party manages to get their hands on it during transmission or otherwise, they won't be able to decipher it and use it against you.
5. Bypass censorship
A lot of governments – for security or political reasons – impose restrictions on what sites their people can access. For example, TikTok has been banned in countries like Australia, India, and Denmark. PUBG, too, has been banned in India.
You can bypass censorship and access all sorts of websites and applications that are unavailable in your country by simply connecting to a foreign server, which makes it look like you’re using your device from a different country.
6. Online gaming
If you're a hardcore gamer with a knack for knocking down opponents in competitive multiplayer games like Call of Duty and League of Legends, you’d want to protect your IP address from the opponent. This is because the opponent could try to throw you out of a competitive game by using a DDoS attack or even track your location to send a SWAT team.
The best gaming VPN will safeguard you against DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attacks, swatting, and bandwidth throttling while allowing you access to region-locked games and international game sales. And, you may also be able to enjoy entry to easy bot lobbies—increase your rank with the minimum of fuss.
7. Online shopping and flight tickets
Charging different rates in different countries is a common practice in the aviation industry, which is also something a lot of online stores resort to in order to crank up their profits.
You can save big bucks if you know how to leverage currencies and what places have cheaper rates and purchase your online monthly plan or book your flight tickets while using a server in that location.
It's worth noting that you must clear your browser cookies before you use the VPN to explore different prices and choose the most profitable deal for you.
Bottom line
VPNs hide what you do online, and from where you do it. They are a go-to choice for anyone looking to reclaim their digital privacy and
With the increasing dependency on the internet for online transactions and entertainment and everything in between, it has become extremely important that you take steps to protect and anonymize yourself on the internet.
Having pointed out the most noteworthy benefits of using a VPN, it's now time to pick a reliable VPN service capable of doing all the above-mentioned tasks. The numerous options may make it difficult, but our guide to the best VPN services, where we have thoroughly reviewed and compared the top providers across core aspects, will make the process a whole lot easier.
