Looking at YouTube these days,
there are so many videos screaming why you should not use a VPN.
But to be honest, this absolutely contradicts my experience.
So which is it?
Do you need to use a VPN or are VPNs a scam that should be avoided?
To begin with, I'm very familiar with VPN scams.
There are free providers like HolaVPN,
SuperVPN, or Betternet, that openly record and sell user data,
don't provide an acceptable level of security,
and even get breached.
It's like, what's the point?
Providers like Google VPN or Touch VPN are just some of the examples I can name.
Do you need a VPN like that?
Absolutely not.
But then again, there are serious risks
that can be avoided by using a top VPN provider.
In the age of greedy internet service providers,
your ISP might try to sabotage you.
That's why I prefer to hide my online activity from them.
This helps me avoid bandwidth throttling,
as ISPs really like to slow down the connection
when I'm watching a lot of streaming content or torrenting,
to avoid traffic congestion and save themselves a little money.
In some countries, including the US,
ISPs are allowed to pass user data to third parties for marketing purposes,
and who wants that?
In other countries, quite far from the US,
ISPs also have severe censorship capabilities,
preventing access to websites and even passing data
to law enforcement to punish people.
I don't want any of these issues to affect me,
whether I'm at home or traveling abroad.
That's why I use a VPN.
It encrypts my connection and reroutes it through the VPN server,
so my ISP can't see what I'm doing,
only that I'm connecting to a VPN server somewhere.
There are a couple of very good VPNs that I trust to do the job,
so if you want to pick yourself up a VPN,
check the link in the description for an exclusive discount.
Hiding from an ISP is useful,
but wanting to change your IP address is another valid reason to use a VPN.
The IP address is assigned to your network by the ISP,
and it can be tracked back to you.
This can be used to gather sensitive information about you,
your online searches, and more,
giving threat actors space to plot phishing attacks
or plant malware on your device.
It's worth mentioning that the difference between a VPN versus antivirus
is that the former won't do anything to the malware
that's already on your device,
but a VPN will hide your physical location through an IP address.
Yeah, that's possible.
Also, unprotected connections in places with public Wi-Fi
can straight up give anyone with basic programing skills access
to your device and all the data, and it gets worse.
A lot of marketing nonsense is tied to your IP address,
resulting in biased search results, targeted ads,
and advertisers recording your preferences.
So even your browser is not going to help you.
It actually tends to save region-specific cookies and cache,
letting websites recognize you and your location.
But when using a VPN,
my browsing IP changes to one belonging to a VPN server.
This way, none of the issues I just mentioned will happen,
since your real IP address stays hidden.
This is almost everything about VPNs explained,
but I want to add a tiny little bit.
I bet you don't like ads, pop-ups,
and other annoying nuisances like that, right?
Well, the best VPN providers have built-in ad-blocking features,
and some of them can even take care of malware threats
that you encounter when browsing.
But ad blocking is not the only thing
you need to be concerned about when choosing a VPN.
The security of a VPN begins with a secure
jurisdiction in a country without data retaining laws,
like NordVPN's jurisdiction is in Panama,
and ExpressVPN's is in the British Virgin Islands.
Another big consideration is a no-logs policy.
If a provider has a no-logs policy,
that means they don't retain any user data for any reason.
So most top VPNs like Surfshark,
NordVPN or ExpressVPN, have an audited no-logs policy.
These three even switch to RAM-only servers,
which can't even keep any user data on the hardware level.
Not a lot of VPN providers do that.
Personally, I also pay attention to the server list.
The more servers a VPN can offer,
the more reliable the connection is going to be.
Plus, if you were wondering what to use a VPN for,
a provider with a lot of servers can give you access
to way more foreign streaming platforms.
Of course, I also look at the extras.
For example, I mentioned anti-malware measures
and NordVPN's threat protection can block malware downloads,
or in Surfshark's case,
there is a built in antivirus available, which is an even better option.
I hope you can see all the benefits of VPN use,
especially now that VPNs are striving to expand and cover
the antivirus protection as well.
Make sure you subscribe if you enjoyed the video
and I'm going to see you in the next one. Later.