At some point or another, every internet user asks the question “What is a VPN?” and the answer isn’t as simple as telling you it stands for ‘Virtual Private Network’. A VPN is a tool that lets you connect to the internet via servers in different locations around the world. The best ones can bypass regional restrictions and hide your internet activity from your internet service provider (ISP), malicious hackers, villainous governments, and anybody else who might be profiling you based on your data.
We’re sure that you have other questions besides “What is a VPN?” and so we’ve got answers to all of the most commonly asked VPN questions here. As far as we’re concerned, VPNs are an important part of the online landscape, and essential for anybody who values their right to privacy online.
If you’re coming to this article with absolutely no fore-knowledge about VPNs, don’t worry. We’ve written this specifically as a reference point for those who have not yet been immersed in the VPN world. By the end of the article, you should feel a little more confident about all things VPN. If you want to learn more about specific VPN providers, you should also check out our guides answering questions on NordVPN and ExpressVPN.
Here are some of the most commonly asked questions about VPNs:
What do VPNs actually do?
Put most simply, VPNs allow you to connect via different servers around the world. The benefit of this is that it stops your ISP (and anybody else) from seeing what you’re doing on the internet, including search and social media activity.
For many people, privacy alone is a good enough reason to invest in a VPN. Not just in the sense that you might not want businesses accumulating or selling data about you, but also because you wouldn’t want malicious parties to monitor your activities so that they can steal your identity or exploit you in other ways.
In addition to the privacy, some VPN providers might even be able to help enhance your connection speeds. Most ISPs will slow down the connection speed of a particular task when it uses a lot of bandwidth, but with a VPN masking your activity, they won’t be able to identify the connection-hungry task to throttle your internet speeds. Of course, having to connect through a VPN can also slow things down sometimes, but the fastest VPN providers have a good chance of speeding things up for you.
Another benefit comes from a VPN’s ability to give you access to regional-exclusive content, be that in video games, or on streaming platforms. It’s frustrating when you’re travelling overseas and then you find you can’t access your favourite TV shows because they’re exclusive to the streaming platforms back home, but a VPN can let you connect through a server in your home region. Likewise, connecting through other regions’ servers can give you access to events in video games that might not normally be available in your own.
We’re really just scratching the surface here, but those are the biggest VPN benefits. Some VPNs also give you encrypted storage space, and/or provide ad-blocking services – it all depends on the provider, but the point is that VPNs can do a lot to enhance your experience on the internet.
Which are the best VPNs?
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