- In this tutorial I'm gonna walk you step by step,
exactly how to setup a VPN
on your laptop or desktop computer.
Now, there're some very complex,
do it yourself ways to get a VPN set up
and there're also some relatively easier ways to do it.
What I'm gonna be showing you here,
it costs a few dollars,
but it is an easier way to set it up
and it's something that I would recommend my mother to do.
By following this video,
you can get a VPN set up on your computer
in 15 minutes or less.
And I'm not only gonna show how to install the VPN,
I'm also gonna help you understand how to use it
and the basic questions and problems
that you might come up against.
For this tutorial, I'm gonna be using my MacBook laptop,
but don't worry the process is exactly the same
even if you're using your Microsoft Windows computer.
Oh, and I one last disclaimer before we get started.
There are literally hundreds of VPN services
on the market today,
I'm gonna be showing you one of my favorites
and one of the more popular, ExpressVPN.
I've got affiliate links to that in the description below,
which is one way that you can support this YouTube channel,
but honestly, you can use any VPN that you want.
What I'm about to show you,
it's gonna be very, very similar
with any other VPN service that we use.
Okay, here we are on my computer,
I'm gonna type in, in the address bar, vpnsetupguide.com.
Now, I'm very transparent about the fact that
that is an affiliate link,
right now it leads to ExpressVPN,
maybe down the road I'll point it elsewhere,
it's really just what's gonna be most advantageous to you,
and this homepage may not even look the same.
I just want you to understand that as you're going,
whatever VPN you decide to use,
it's gonna be a very similar process,
like I've stated before.
So I'm gonna go, and for the sake of this tutorial,
I'm just gonna show you,
I'm gonna signup for a month,
and I'm going to go ahead and get this downloaded
so that we can see how it works on our computer.
So I'm gonna run through right now,
and just go ahead and signup.
(tick tock beat)
Okay, now, I've finished paying for ExpressVPN.
A lot of VPNs are gonna do it differently,
for ExpressVPN it sends me to a page
that automatically gives me this activation code,
which is great.
They're also gonna email it to me,
in a lot of cases the VPN's going to email you
either your password or an activation code,
or something of the sort.
So what I'm gonna do is,
I'm gonna go ahead and download this for my Mac,
which is what I'm on right now.
If you're using Windows, you'll open it in Windows,
and I'm gonna go ahead and set up
the ExpressVPN software on the computer.
Okay, so as you see, it's asking me
if I want to continue installing,
and I am gonna do that.
It's gonna take up some space on my computer,
it might require you to put in your password,
I already have an account with them,
but I'm gonna go ahead and remove the existing account
so that we can set up this new one like I'm fresh.
And then I'm gonna just go ahead
and start the software so that you can see how it looks.
All right, now I'm gonna go ahead and copy this right here,
copy this activation code,
and then when I sign in,
I'm going to paste that activation code in and sign in.
Again, every VPN does it slightly differently,
the VPN, for some others I've had
where you have to just create your own login and password,
and then that's what you use to sign into the software.
Either way you do it, you're gonna notice
that it's just gonna require some sort of proof
that you have an account already.
All right, we're gonna look at three different pieces
of software quickly.
I'm gonna go through ExpressVPN,
which I've just downloaded.
I'm gonna show you NordVPN as well as Surfshark,
and the reason for this, is I want you to get kind of a feel
for all the similarities that these VPN softwares have.
You're usually gonna have just one big connect button,
or a power button, and then in someway you're going
to have a look at all the different servers
that are across the globe.
So when you're dealing with a VPN,
what you're actually doing is
you're connecting, you're having
an end to end encrypted connection
with a VPN in another location,
excuse me, a VPN server in another location.
So that could be in the United States,
it could be in Singapore,
it could be anywhere you want.
So let's say I want to connect somewhere in Germany.
So I'm gonna search for Germany,
and they're gonna have different cities
that I can connect to,
or I can just connect to Germany in general
and you're gonna see when I connect to that,
it's going to take a moment,
it's gonna find the right server,
it's gonna make that end to end connection.
And now, once it's connected,
when you're setting up a VPN on your computer,
or even on your mobile device,
once it's connected, you can just close this down
and continue working on your computer
like nothing else is happening.
Now, for me personally,
I only connect to a VPN when I need it.
So when I'm at home, I usually don't connect to a VPN,
but let's say I want to watch a show
on Netflix in another country,
then I'll connect my VPN,
I'll have this running,
and then I'll open up Netflix and watch whatever I want to.
But then when I'm done, I will disconnect.
So I will have this running in the background,
either on the top bar of my computer
or down on the dock of my computer,
but I don't have it running all the time.
So that's ExpressVPN.
Let's take a look at NordVPN.
The NordVPN is slightly different,
but again, very similar.
The difference that here is you'll see
some VPN actually have a map.
So instead of going through a list,
which I can do here as well,
I can choose a server on a map.
Let's say I want to do something,
or watch the BBC in the United Kingdom,
I can just click here on the United Kingdom,
and then you're gonna see that NordVPN is connecting
to that server in the United Kingdom
and now I'm connected.
You have a lot of different preferences
that you can do.
I didn't show that in ExpressVPN,
but really, there's not much that you need to change,
even after you've set up the software on your computer,
but that is NordVPN.
Let's look at one more.
Okay, Surfshark is the last piece of VPN software
that we're gonna be looking at,
and the primary reason is, you're gonna see,
these all look very similar.
You've got a list of servers on one side of the software,
and then you've got some sort of button
that's gonna connect you to that server.
So in this case I can actually choose the fastest server,
and it will automatically connect to that,
you're gonna see it changes my IP address,
it gives me the option for a kill switch,
which if you don't know what a kill switch is,
click on up here, where you'll see a better description,
a video description, of what a kill switch is.
And then of course we have our different settings
that we can work with,
whether that is this kill switch,
different types of connections based on
what network I'm connected to, different features,
and then of course advance connections
which most of us will not have to worry about.
Again, you connect, you do what you need to do,
whether you're out on a public network
or whether you're trying to bypass geolocation
to watch a Netflix show or BBC in another country,
and then personally, once I'm done doing that,
I'm just going to disconnect and close the software.
That's exactly what a VPN is used for,
and that's exactly how you set it up on a computer.
All right, you now set up with a VPN.
You're already doing better
that 75% of internet users, that's awesome.
You've completed a very important step
in securing yourself online, but wait.
Don't stop there, there're so many other things
that you can be doing to secure yourself
with your passwords, with your email,
with your banking and more.
You can check out more of my videos,
but don't forget to like this video
and subscribe if you want more great,
easy to understand tech videos
that won't go over your head.
And remember, don't wait until it's too late,
take some time to secure yourself online.