The expert told about what VPN is and how to use it

A video explaining VPN was posted on the YouTube channel of this project back in April last year, but today, for obvious reasons, it is rapidly gaining views. Now you hear about VPNs on word of mouth and not only more often than before. How does it work and does a VPN really “help with everything?”

"You can always read: if you want to bypass blocking - VPN, if you want anonymity - VPN.

But few explain how this VPN works.

Let's figure it out.

VPN stands for "Virtual Private Network".

And in general terms, this means creating an encrypted private network on top of the Internet, that is, using the infrastructure of the Internet.

Previously, VPNs were mainly used to create corporate networks. But recently, due to global trends, surveillance of people by states is increasingly being used for secure access to the network.

We will consider this option.

In its simplest form, a VPN can be thought of as a secure connection between your computer and some computer on the Internet, it is called a VPN server.

Simply put, all the actions that you perform on the network while connected via VPN will look like they are not happening from your computer, but from that remote computer of the VPN server. Thus, if the VPN server is located abroad, then neither your provider nor the Russian intelligence services will be able to see what exactly you are doing on the network.

They will only see encrypted traffic to the VPN server.

And, by the way, if the VPN service you choose uses obfuscation technologies ( code obfuscation - bringing the source text or executable code of the program to a form that retains its functionality, but makes it difficult to analyze, understand the operation algorithms and modify during decompilation - approx. " NI"), then those who will analyze your traffic will not even be able to unambiguously determine the fact that you are using a VPN.

This is how activists circumvent censorship in China.

Also, using a VPN is very useful when connecting to wi-fi in public places. This eliminates the possibility that passwords and other sensitive data will be stolen from you.

Also, with the help of a VPN, you can bypass censorship, because in the country where you go online from the VPN server, there is no censorship in your country.

Does this mean that VPN traffic is not monitored? Yes. But only between you and the VPN server.

The VPN server itself, or rather, its owner, has the ability to perfectly see what you are doing on the network, intercept data, transfer this data to third parties, or insert something into your traffic that is beneficial to them - for example, replace advertising on the site.

Now about free VPNs.

To run a free VPN service, the host of the service itself must rent or buy hardware. Buy the ability to pass a large amount of traffic through yourself, because many will want to use a free VPN. All this costs money.

It turns out that if they are not charged from you for using the service, then they are received in some other way.

Probably, it happened to you that after using some kind of Proxy or VPN, your social networks or mail were hacked. And then your friends were asked for money. That was your price for a free VPN.

Sometimes, however, there are less severe cases. For example, advertising banners are simply replaced by others, for which money is dripped not to the site owner, but to the owner of the VPN service. Or additional banners are shown, sometimes the entire width of the screen.

But there is also an honest version of why a VPN can be free.

These can be decent VPNs that provide promo rates for testing purposes. But usually they are very limited in speed or traffic volume in order to buy their paid versions.

Therefore, if you want to use a VPN, you have to pay. The question is to whom?

You can rent a dedicated server, download, for example, Amnezia-VPN, and the VPN will install itself on the dedicated server.

For more advanced users, there is AlgoVPN, Streisand.

If you do not want to fool around yourself, then your option is to buy a VPN from a company that will not follow you. How to identify such a company, because there are a lot of VPN providers?

The only option is to look at the jurisdiction. That is, it is better not to use the services of services that belong to companies in the same country where you live. Well, google information about the reputation of the company itself.

Usually cases where a company is spying on users or otherwise behaving badly become public. Well, I can't help but recommend our VPNLove service, where we select services with an impeccable reputation and recommendations from Internet activists".