Why A Personal VPN Is Essential Cybersecurity?

Introduction

Four out of five Americans use the Internet every day, including 97% of children under 18. Internet use is increasingly mobile, and a lot of it takes place on open networks. Regardless of how or where you go online, you need the protection a VPN offers.

Personal VPN services help you browse the Internet anonymously and protect your private information online. Advanced encryption protocols prevent hackers and malicious websites from stealing your data. VPNs also mask your physical location, and they can even let you unlock content that isn’t normally available to you. 

Below are just a few of the reasons why you need a personal VPN, regardless of what you’re doing online.

Enhanced Security On Public Networks

One of the major benefits of a personal VPN is the enhanced security it offers you online. Most VPNs use state-of-the-art encryption protocols to seal your data from the rest of the Internet. By encrypting your bank account information, passwords, and browsing activity, VPNs shield you from unwelcome attention.

That attention can come from almost anywhere. Malicious hackers often try to access public WiFi networks to snoop on your web traffic. Spoof websites can trick unwary visitors into giving up sensitive information. Even governments, your ISP, and major corporations can view your browsing habits. The encryption protocols a VPN uses protect everything you send across the Internet.

Geographic Masking

Personal VPNs work by sending your stream through an open network to a remote VPN server. Here, your data is decrypted and you can browse the Internet normally from the VPN company’s data center. The geographic location of the VPN server is now where sites believe you’re accessing them from. 

What this means is that you can open your laptop in the UK and appear to be browsing from the United States. For a country that has recently blocked, of all things, the Philip Raby Porsche Dealership website, location spoofing can come in handy countless times.

Unblocking Content

Depending on where users of streaming services live, they can get dramatically different offerings based on what shows and movies are licensed in their countries. The geographic flexibility of personal VPNs allows users in any location to view the content they pay for.

Better Internet Speed

One surprising benefit of using a VPN is connection speed. Since a VPN routes your traffic through a remote server and adds a level of encryption, it would make sense for speeds to decrease. However, you can still see serious improvement in your bitrate because of one sneaky issue: ISP throttling.

Many ISPs, especially the ones that offer steep discounts, sell more bandwidth than they technically own. When an ISP finds that it’s overstretched, they will throttle, or artificially slow, their users’ connections to keep data usage below an arbitrary cap. 

VPNs, by masking your IP address, blind your ISP to how much data you’re using. This is why you need a VPN, especially if you’re a gamer or a streamer.

Conclusion

Any of these benefits by themselves would be a great reason to use a VPN. Taken together, they make a safe, encrypted, high-speed VPN service a must-have. 

VPN.com can help you find a personal VPN that keeps you safe and improves your browsing security and speed. Browse our guides and articles to learn more about why you need a VPN.