Privacy on the Internet is a matter of great concern because identity theft and other illegal activities are very rampant. Websites you visit, major search engines, and social media networks track and record your searches so as to serve you with relevant ads and links. Your ISP tracks your online activity to find out if you are downloading torrents of copyrighted material. Therefore, anonymity on the Internet ensures freedom from hacking attempts, surveillance, monitoring, and other restrictions.
If you are a business owner, you might expand your activities to several remote locations around the country and even the world. In order to ensure smooth and efficient running of your business at these locations, you and your traveling employees need a reliable, fast and secure way of sharing critical information across computer networks.
A virtual private network (VPN) enables you to anonymously surf the Internet and securely transmit data. In fact, these are the two key benefits of using a VPN. The aim of this article is to provide some information about these two aspects related to a VPN.
Anonymous Browsing
A VPN ensures anonymity by masking your IP address. This provides much greater privacy as far as your online activities are concerned. As you will be exchanging the IP address of your device with that provided by a VPN server, it is possible for to virtually connect from any geographic location which is different from where you are physically present.
For example, imagine that you are sitting inside one of the coffee shops in your area. When you connect to the Internet, it may appear as though you are accessing the World Wide Web from other countries, where the VPN server is located. This also allows you to bypass restrictions imposed by certain regions/locations and obtain access to content such as YouTube or Facebook, or Internet services such as Skype, Gmail and Viber.
Social media scripts and advertisers may be able to track your browsing habits through the use of cookies even if you use a VPN. An effective way of avoiding this is by switching the browser to the private mode when using the VPN.
Security
A VPN makes use of encryption to ensure data confidentiality. The tunneling mechanism encapsulates encrypted data securely into a tunnel with headers that contain the routing information to get across a public network. Packets of data thus passed over the public network cannot be read without decryption keys. This prevents disclosure or exchange of data during transmission. A VPN is also capable of checking for data integrity to ensure that tampering has not occurred during transmission.
The encryption of data from and to your computer makes a VPN an important tool that you can use when you log on or off from Wi-Fi hotspots provided by hotels, airports, shops or any other public place. This is because these networks are not only unsafe but also easy targets for hackers.
Summarizing, a VPN provides an encrypted connection between your device and a server. Traditionally, it is employed in corporate environments to enable remote workers connect securely to company resources. A VPN also helps you to anonymously browse the Internet by swapping your IP address with that of the server you are connected to. For more information, visit here https://topvpnsoftware.com/.