You sign up. You install it. Of course, you turn it on. BOOM. You are secure. You are free. Except, that’s not always the case. You aren’t always free, and you certainly aren’t always secure. There’s a few thing to know before using a VPN otherwise you might be missing out on security. Whether that’s because of your lack of knowledge or because of the company that you are using.
Some people use a VPN merely to connect to for instance an American server to watch their favorite show that’s available there but not in the UK. When it comes to security, some people use it to stay secure in Starbucks.
But there’s this misconception that if you only use a VPN when you need it that you will be fine. That’s not the truth. Turning your VPN on to pay for something and hide your information is great, but PrivateVPN’s 256-bit encryption with 2048-bit DH key that would take trillions of dollars to crack is of no use to you at all if you turn off your VPN while in that Starbucks after you make that payment. Somebody can use simple software to find out your passwords just because you are on the same network. That could be the password to your PayPal. Encryption is great, but once you get rid of it, you are putting what you encrypted at risk.
This one of the most important things to know before using a VPN.
If you open up your PrivateVPN client and press on Advanced followed by CONNECTION GUARD, you will see a bunch of options. These are there to protect any data from leaking in an unlikely event that your VPN will stop working.
The main purpose of a virtual private network is for it to be private. A lot of companies don’t stick to that. This especially happens with free VPN companies. They tend to make their profits by selling customers data. Using a VPN is meant to provide you with security. You are the only person that’s meant to know what you are doing. Yet, that’s not always the case.
Onavo is a company owned by Facebook that offers a VPN service that is free. But that service also may “collect your mobile data traffic.” This “helps us improve and operate the Onavo service by analyzing your use of websites, apps and data. Because we’re part of Facebook, we also use this info to improve Facebook products and services, gain insights into the products and services people value, and build better experiences.”
That is everything a real VPN does not do. Sure, perhaps you are protected in some sort of a way but data is still collected on you, and then it’s used. That’s not what a VPN is meant to do. It’s meant to prevent exactly that by encrypting your data so that nobody can access it.
Not all companies really care about your security. This is one of the things to know before using a VPN. Be careful. Especially with free VPN services.
Due to Swedish privacy laws, there are no traffic logs kept to be seized by governments. At PrivateVPN we don’t know what you are doing. And frankly, we don’t want to.
This is one of those things to know before using a VPN that people think they know. A lot of people assume that a VPN slows down your internet. Not true. Actually, let’s rephrase this. A good VPN service does not.
Now, of course, a VPN will never bring the speed of your connection up. It can’t get any faster than your current internet. But at the same time, if your internet provider uses speed throttling, then when connected to a VPN, you might actually experience faster speeds.
Other than that, it mostly depends on of course how many servers a company has but also on latency. Latency is the time it takes for a pack of data to get from your device to the server location of your VPN. The further a server is from you, the slower the connection.
This is why the internet capacity purchased by your VPN service matters. PrivateVPN buys its internet capacity directly from the IP transit provider rather than from a hosting company which most companies do (which we do too to some degree) which results in higher latency and thus slower connections.
A good VPN service won’t slow your internet down, but it also won’t make it any faster than your current internet unless your internet provider is involved in speed throttling.
Here’s a picture of tests done on speedtest.net.
The higher download speed is without a VPN on, but it’s higher by only 3MB. There’s just about no difference at all.
Security isn’t always provided. It also needs to be constant to work. And if you are using the right service, it won’t slow your internet down.
Our service? Be the judge of it by yourself. You have a 30-day money back guarantee when you sign up. Click the Buy button and then it’s a 3-step registration process. After that Download our client by going to the bottom of our page and clicking on Download, install it, open it, and you are good to go.
Written by Michael Smolski.