In recent times, more and more people are using services that allow you to increase the level of security and privacy when browsing the Web. In particular, the most used services are VPNs (Virtual Private Network), which can be translated into Italian as a Virtual Private Networks.
Using a VPN can be very useful on various occasions, for example, when you connect to a public Wi-Fi network, such as that of a hotel, shopping center, or airport. Or, more simply to use or view services or content blocked in the country where you are.
Indeed, VPNs are capable of disguising your IP address and making your online activity invisible. To know in detail what is a VPN and how it works suggest you read the following paragraphs, you will see that at the end of the reading, everything will be clearer to you.
What is a VPN, and how does it work
When you surf the internet, your computer is constantly sending data, receiving others, for example, the content of a web page. All data sent and received can be monitored by your ISP (Internet Service Provider) or by third parties capable of intercepting your PC while browsing.
By using a VPN, the outgoing and incoming data on your computer are encrypted and therefore made incompressible to anyone who does not have the keys necessary to decrypt them.
When you use a VPN your data is sent securely and encrypted to an external server: the VPN-servers, from the latter are sent to the requested destination (for example the server on which the web page you wish to visit is hosted). To do all of this, the VPN uses a technique called tunneling.
As mentioned above, while surfing the Web, your PC constantly sends and receives information, they are found within the so-called packets; the latter contains the request made, the IP address of the sender and that of the recipient, the path, data type, etc., all this information is called headers.
These packets are visible to anyone accessing the communication channel, even when accessing an HTTPS connection. To avoid this, the VPN sends and receives the headers through a private and encrypted channel. This operation is called tunneling.
To recap.
When you use a VPN, your request and related headers are forwarded to the VPN server via a private channel. The VPN server then connects to the server hosting the requested content, receives a response, and sends it back to you privately and encrypted.
The decryption keys are only present on your PC and on the VPN server, so anyone who does not have the latter will never be able to access the private channel and get hold of the information contained in the packets sent or received.
VPNs protect our privacy by allowing us to hide our online activity and therefore making it much safer. Furthermore, VPN servers can be located in every corner of the planet, this allows us to access sites or services that are not reachable from our country.
Which VPN to choose
Now that you understand what a VPN is, let’s move on to another very important topic, namely: which VPN to choose.
There are so many VPNs, some of these are even free, however, I strongly advise against using free VPNs, as in addition to being slow and unstable, some of these are unreliable and even unsafe. I therefore suggest that you use a paid VPN, generally the prices are quite affordable. The average cost is around 5 euros per month. Here are the VPNs I recommend you try:
NordVPN
NordVPN it is the most famous and used VPN ever. It allows you to protect your online activities and bypass regional restrictions.
NordVPN has over 5,200 servers worldwide, offers a fairly fast and stable connection, allows you to use the VPN on 6 devices simultaneously using a single account, allows you to choose between different servers with different characteristics and offers the possibility of getting a dedicated IP address.
The service cost is around 3.50 euros per month (the price varies according to the active promotion, but generally never exceeds 4 euros per month). For more information, visit the NordVPN site.
Surfshark
Surfshark it is an excellent alternative to the VPN seen above. Also in this case, the service allows you to browse safely and access services or sites blocked in your country.
It has thousands of servers around the world, automatically blocks ads and malware, and offers several very interesting services. All this at a very low price, the cost of Surfshark starts from around 2 euros per month. For more information, visit the Suftshark site.
CyberGhost
The last VPN I would recommend is CyberGhost. This VPN also has over 1000 servers located in different countries, so in addition to protecting your privacy, it allows you to access services and websites that are blocked in your country.
It allows you to connect up to 5 devices at the same time and is cross-platform, so you can use the VPN on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS.
The price of CyberGhost starts at 10.99 euros per month. To find out more, connect to CyberGhost’s official site.
