how's it going everybody welcome back and today we're going to be talking about the pros and cons
of using a vpn and of course if you would like to check out any of the vpns mentioned today
as usual you'll find links to special deals and discounts in the description down below
as well as full reviews if you'd like to learn more about these vpns as in this video i'm not
exactly going to be getting into the nitty-gritty of uh the features all the features and the
privacy policies and whatnot we're just going to be talking about some of the pros and cons
of using a vpn now using a vpn brings many benefits including better privacy and access
to blocked content but they come with a few downsides as well so we're going to be checking
out these pros and cons starting with the pros first of all you've got privacy a vpn encrypts
your internet connection and routes it through an intermediary server in a location of your choice
this improves your privacy in a couple of ways first your internet service provider can no longer
see what you do online because all your data goes through the vpn server okay say you're in iceland
once you connect to let's say canada your isp your internet service provider
will no longer see any activity on your ip address because you are connected to the ip address
of the canadian server that you're connected to because all your data goes through the vpn server
your isp can't tell which websites you visit or which apps you use additionally the encryption
prevents your isp from seeing the contents of your data so it can't discriminate against specific
types of or sources of data this combats bandwidth throttling and also stops surveillance by any
other parties on your network if you're let's say in a perhaps a little bit of a censorship heavy
country or a country where um certain opinions may not be welcome this is how you can kind of
keep the authorities away from you likewise the websites and apps use cannot identify you
or your device by your ip address instead they can only see the ip address of the vpn server if you
use the vpn in combination with your web browser's private browsing mode you will be very difficult
to track provided you don't post any identifiable information yourself if you torrent a vpn also
hides your ip address from other users in the same torrent swarm and hides the contents of your
downloads from your isp okay so already privacy is just such a big pro here the second would be
security so a vpn encryption does more than just stop snoopers it also protects your connection
from attack open wi-fi hotspots and public networks can be prime hunting grounds for hackers
a vpn encrypts your data before it ever leaves your device so even if it gets intercepted on
an unsecure network it cannot be read by the attacker or access in the first place because
vpns prevent many types of the man in the middle type of attacks as well as attacks that target
your ip address like ddos attacks many vpns now come with features that block malware ads
and trackers automatically and in this case you'll notice that in more vpn you have
the ad blocker right here and in surf shark you'll find it uh right here it's called clean web
so yeah expressvpn doesn't have an ad blocker but it does have other things which i'll talk about in
just a second moving on and well speaking of the other things actually that's exactly what i wanted
to talk about which is bypassing censorship all of these vpns can bypass censorship but
let's just talk about china for a bit because in countries like china much of the web is censored
now because much of the internet is censored using a vpn in china is very uh necessary a vpn
can bypass censorship by routing your web traffic through the vpn server censorship systems can only
see that you're connected to the vpn server and not that you're visiting a blocked website this
allows you to freely and privately access the open web in addition to nationwide censorship vpns can
also be used to unblock specific websites from schools and offices um so yeah just a note about
expressvpn nord and surfshark and while nord and surf shark i have spoken to some of my uh
team members in china and um you know nordvpn and surf shark do work in china but they have
reported some just hiccups here and there um they do work that's that's for sure so if you're if you
want to use a vpn and you're in china north vpn will do just fine and so will surf short
but there are some inconsistencies here and there okay and to avoid such inconsistencies
you will need to install the uh version of nordvpn that works in censorship-heavy countries
specifically and you can find it on their website and with surfshark you might have to do some
manual configuration and then you'll be able to use the vpns or you can just download express and
it will work with zero configuration and this is the cool thing about expressvpn and this is
also part of the reason why it's a little bit more expensive than other vpns because it does come
with ultimate ease of use and you really can just kind of plug and play it's it's as much of a plug
and play vpn as it can be really now another thing is that you can stream content so i got the page
here as you can tell um and by the way i just brought up this page if you want to read more
about censorship and how a vpn can help you you can there's this pretty good article on expressvpn
anyways so with netflix as you can tell here uh i have access to paranorman and it's only because
i'm connected to the united states uh server now i'm not in the united states and paranorman
is only available there so if i go ahead and turn this off you'll notice that it will just simply
disappear because i no longer have access to the united states library as you can tell so yeah this
is what a vpn can pretty much do when it comes to unblocking streaming services and it's the same
with uh net well netflix obviously you can unblock a whole bunch of libraries using netflix as a
reference expressvpn will be able to unblock up to 18 netflix libraries 10 with nord and 15 with surf
shark keep in mind these are only the confirmed libraries you might as well be able to unblock up
to 30 libraries with express nord and surf shorts so if you want to go ahead and do your own testing
obviously there's a 30-day money-back guarantee with all these vpns so you can test as many as
you would like but most people just go for the western library since they're uh they tend to
be the biggest okay so now a couple of uh cons when it comes to using vpns is that obviously
you will get slower connection because all vpns will slow down your internet speed to some degree
and of course that comes with the encryption because first vpn apps have to encrypt
outgoing data and decrypt incoming data and uh the encryption process adds some overhead which
tacks on some extra time for data to get through the delay due to encryption is more noticeable
and on low power devices like smart tvs and streaming devices secondly all your data has to
pass through a vpn server this adds an extra hop to the path that your data must take to reach its
destination slowing down your connection however you can minimize the delay by selecting the
vpn server that's closest to you so let's say you're in japan and you connect to england you
know there's quite a bit of distance so you should expect some slower speeds but if your vpn if your
internet connection is already fast in the first place perhaps past 50 megabits per second you
should be fine anyways and you'll still be able to upload uh excuse me download or stream 4k
but you know keep in mind all these vpns will make sure that you don't lose that much speed and yeah
just make sure you're using the best performing protocols that'll be the lightweight udp protocol
with expressvpn the nord lynx protocol with the nord vpn and the wireguard protocol with
surf shark okay now another con or disadvantage to using evpn is that your vpn provider can see your
data so this is why it's very important to use a vpn with a strict no logs policy with independent
audits to show as evidence and obviously if you check the reviews below you'll know what i'm
talking about another thing is cost you know as i said before expressvpn is one of the more costly
vpns out there vpn is kind of in the middle and surf shark is kind of the best budget bang for
the buck kind of vpn uh it's very good vpn for the price especially for the long term obviously
most vpns will cost a few bucks a month anyways but expressvpn is a little bit more expensive
and for good reason you know the ease of use is uh completely i i would say that in terms of
usability accessibility and ease of use i think it's safe to say that expressvpn as at the very
very very top of the entire industry uh and yes i you can quote me on that and i can say that
with utmost confidence that's how easy to use and kind of a it really is a plug-and-play type of vpn
no configuration needed what are you looking for locations here they are they're they're
kind of listed by continent you're looking for options there's nothing you have to mess
with besides protocols and on general here you've got the kill switch in split tunneling and that's
pretty much it with shortcuts for example you can set up shortcuts so that when you turn on the vpn
you'll have let's say you can set up an amazon prime shortcut a netflix shortcut a google chrome
shortcut whatever it is so this can be pretty useful another con is that vpns can be blocked
especially in places like china so you might have to find roundabout ways like accessing these vpns
through the dark web in order to download them but thankfully there are uh all these vpns do have
specific websites that do bypass the great firewall of china and you can download them from
any browser other inconveniences of using a vpn can result in a few additional inconveniences when
surfing the web or using applications you might be required to enter or re-enter your username
and password more often for instance you might be barred from accessing your online bank account
or you might have to decipher a lot more captchas to access websites your online banking portal
might not be accessible if you're accessing it from an ip address you haven't used before
printers security cameras and other home iot devices might not be accessible while the vpn is
enabled though this varies from one vpn to another okay so that'll be it for the pros and cons of
vpns um these vpns are some of the best vpns in the industry which is why i have them listed here
so again if you guys are interested in any of these vpns you'll find links to special deals
and discounts in the description down below as well as full reviews if you'd like to learn more
about these vpns you know as a quick conclusion i guess or a quick brief expressvpn is the best
of the best if you're just looking for something that's super easy to use and super reliable quick
very secure anonymous and a solid no locks policy one of the best in the industry
go with express if you're looking for something with more features um
with this kind of uh nice interface going on quite a bit of servers and a whole lot more
extra features go with nord and if you're looking for the best budget-friendly vpn that just gets
the job done at the cheapest possible cost then just go with surf shark that'll be it for this
video comment below if you have any questions i'll be happy to answer all of them like and
subscribe if you'd like to support the channel stay up to date with everything vpns and cyber
security thank you guys very much for watching and i'll see you in the next one have a wonderful day