Jeremy Kaplan
VPNs are a necessity in this day and age, like it or not. They may slow your bandwidth a bit and slow your CPU a bit, but they provide benefits that far outweigh the disadvantages.
For those of you who don’t know yet, VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. There are both free and paid VPNs; generally the paid ones are worth what you pay for them. Free VPNs may not work so well, and are often accompanied by malware or at the very least, constant ads. If you are not sure what VPN you should choose read the review written by Anonymster.
Now, let’s look at some of the main reasons VPNs are so necessary:
1) Privacy
The vast majority of us don’t engage in any sort of even remotely illegal activity on the internet. Unfortunately, more and more governments are treating us all like potential criminals. And companies are collecting our personal data and often selling it and passing it around unscrupulously. A VPN renders you untraceable and renders their data useless.
2) Travel
Many websites restrict content by country. It can be so annoying to log into Netflix or Hulu from abroad to find that you can’t see anything because of one of those restrictions. A VPN lets you work around that. Netflix in particular has been trying to crack down on VPNs, but they are already way ahead of the game; there is a fix for that here.
3) Convenience
You’d have to be crazy to do your banking over a public wifi network or using your phone’s data. However, with a good VPN it’s not so crazy anymore. VPNs are excellent at providing the kind of security you need to do your important and sensitive transactions with peace of mind, no matter where you are or what kind of network you have to use to do them.
4) Freedom
VPNs are even more of a necessity in countries like China, for example, where the internet is restricted. China, like Netflix, is trying to crack down on VPNs but they are largely unsuccessful; it’s just too difficult for them to do a thorough job of something like that. And even in the USA or similar countries, you may find yourself connected to a network that has severe content restrictions, like eliminating social media, for example. With a VPN, you can connect and go to those sites regardless of any restrictions.
The smartest thing to do is to have a VPN for all you devices, including and especially your phones. Once you get one, you will wonder how you ever got along without it.
