Why everyone should use a VPN

The internet is an evolving environment and the most obvious proof is to look at the new tools, techniques (and ‘apps’) we use today when compared to a few years back.  Another way to understand the evolving nature is to overview the protective security measures we’ve to adopt.

Ten (or even 8) years back, a simple anti-virus was considered enough to secure our life online.  Today, anyone venturing online (or even staying off the net) without a decent Security Suite would be considered careless - to be polite.

Within a couple of years, I expect that anyone not using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) would be considered the equivalent of the village idiot.
:-(

To be frank the tech savvy among us are already on the bandwagon - the smartest already connect to the internet through one VPN or another.  BTW, I am not as smart as I put out to be - still don’t login through a VPN on regular basis.
:-D

One of the reasons I do not use a VPN (or TOR) on a regular basis is the connectivity problem.  The connection speed slows down so drastically it feels like one is back in the old days with a dial-up connection.  Such a drastic slow connection speed is not because of the VPN technology alone - it is compounded by the fact that most VPN servers or endpoints are located elsewhere - not in India.

Then there are the login problems - again for an Indian user.  While using any of the Google services, trying to log in with an IP from Germany or USA flags the attempt as suspicious and generates an alert.  It is an irritating but a nice security measure - if there is an actual hacking attempt, we get to know of it in real time.  But if we repeatedly log in with different IPs from different countries (using a VPN), this security feature in effect is neutralized.  Mind you, VPNs assign a random IP from their available pool, just like the regular ISP.

On the other hand, VPN provides the best security against man-in-the-middle attacks by encrypting the connection.  There is no (easy) way anyone in the middle can hack an encrypted connection (in real time).

Also to be kept in mind is a VPN does not provide anonymity, but privacy.  The difference between privacy and anonymity may seem subtle, but is quite significant.  And this article is about VPN and safeguarding privacy, the anonymity issues will be dealt later, if at all.

So for privacy, there is nothing to beat a VPN.  But as I have written above, the trick is to find a VPN who/which affords us (in India) good speeds with expected protection.



(image courtesy rustedreality.com)

---