What is a VPN? What is it for ?
Many of us are aware of the existence of a VPN and even use it to stay anonymous online. But not everyone knows what it is and how it works.
In this article we'll tell you what a VPN is, how it works, why you need one, what its advantages and disadvantages are, and how to set up your own VPN server.
What is a VPN?
VPN translates to «virtual private network» and is a technology that allows you to remain anonymous while using the World Wide Web.
With a VPN, other people can't track someone's movements or find out their IP address in order to get any information about you. With a VPN, you connect to a special VPN server that encrypts your movements on the World Wide Web in real time.
How does a VPN work?
When you use any website without a VPN, your device communicates directly with the server hosting the site. The hardware has access to an IP address, which has a lot of important things associated with it, like your location and everything you do on the internet. And unfortunately, this information can sometimes fall into the hands of attackers.
This is why many people download a VPN, which allows them to hide their IP address and data about the sites they visit. This is possible because you connect to a special server that will change your location and hide all your activities from other people, so your device will not interact with the site directly, but through the VPN server.
Why do you need a VPN?
Many people know that VPNs are often downloaded for personal purposes in order to keep their visits to certain resources or their movements secret from intruders, but this technology is also used for:
- Security features: As information technology is constantly evolving these days, so is the level of cybercrime, as every year there are more and more hackers looking to steal information in order to sell it or hack into important accounts. That's why business owners who need to receive important information from customers, such as bank card numbers, purchase a VPN to encrypt the files being transmitted and keep them out of the hands of intruders.
- Secrecy of corporate information: Many modern companies use corporate VPNs to secure important information about employees and production processes. Such a VPN enables secure connection of an employee's device to the organisation's corporate resources and takes the necessary steps to encrypt files transferred between employees and corporate resources.
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- Protections for individuals using public Wi-Fi: If you provide Wi-Fi to your customers, make sure you have a VPN in place, as the risk of the network being hacked to steal data is very high, so take a responsible approach to organising a public Wi-Fi network for business. Individual users of such networks should also take these precautions into consideration. Therefore, if you are in a café or hotel, and you are connecting to their Wi-Fi, make sure to switch on the VPN.
From this, we can judge that VPN – is a very important tool that will help to keep not only your data, but also the corporate information of the business safe, thanks to the ability to connect to a VPN server that encrypts all files.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of a VPN ?
So why do you need a VPN after all? In fact, there are many benefits to VPNs, including:
- The ability to remain anonymous: thanks to the fact that the VPN does not give access to your IP address, no one will be able to track your location and movements on the Internet. This mechanism will allow you to protect yourself from hackers, as well as from advertising companies that collect too much information about your queries and the sites you view in order to offer you the most appropriate adverts.
- Secure file transfer: Due to the fact that VPN encrypts all the text that a person sends to someone, no one will be able to understand its essence, because after encryption all the files will be just a meaningless set of different characters.
VPN also has some disadvantages, including:
- Internet speed slowdown: many customers complain that when using a VPN, their internet speed slows down to a great extent, and this negatively affects the emotional state of the user. Of course, as a rule, such situations arise when using free VPNs, as such applications do not provide this service as qualitatively as paid services, used, as a rule, only by business owners who need to protect corporate and client information, for example, card numbers. Experts also note that there is another reason for slow speeds – the VPN server is too far away from you. If the server equipment is indeed too far away from you, then try to find another server and connect to it.
- The cost of quality resources is too high: if you are planning to apply VPN for your business, you should consider that quality resources that are suitable for this purpose are quite expensive.
How to create your own VPN server?
In the process of reading this article, you might have had a question: «How to create your own VPN server? ». To do this, you need:
- Rent a server located in another country;
- Set up a VPN connection or purchase equipment that already has this technology installed;
- Connect devices to your VPN.
Our company offers numerous different options for renting servers in different countries. You can see our offers in the «Choose a server» section. If you need help with your choice, you can contact our support team, who will answer any question you may have.
Conclusion
So, VPN – is a tool that can help you maintain anonymity and secure your data on the Internet. At the same time, this mechanism is used not only for personal purposes, but also to secure corporate information of large companies.