Many people rely on VPNs when they use the internet, in an attempt to maintain anonymity and prevent others from seeing what they do while on the Internet. VPN services work by tunneling your web traffic through their servers. Hence, your data is encrypted and inaccessible to the outside world. While VPNs give you the necessary anonymity and ease of accessing geo-restricted sites, there are plenty of myths surrounding the same. Here we bust some of the misconceptions associated with VPNs
While a VPN service can help protect your privacy, there are many myths surround VPNs that people believe but are not exactly true.
Why pay for a VPN service
Who wouldn’t like a free offer when you can gain one? This might apply to many other cases, but when it comes to VPNs, better safe than sorry. A free VPN is never going to live upto the security, anonymity, and features offered by a paid VPN service. It works at an annoyingly slow rate and may suffer from an IP leak. You do not have facilities like the ‘kill switch’ and accessing sites like Netflix is out of the question. Some free VPN service providers may sell your information to afford the server costs and other facilities. Hence, choose a paid service based on your requirements and budget and enjoy all benefits.
Your internet connection gets slowed down with VPNs
This does not hold true at all. Many people do not opt for VPN services for this precise reason. However, how your internet speed is affected depends on the server speeds of the VPN service provider you utilize. When you use a free VPN service, it may be that the VPN provider is far away, thereby making it slower to connect. A good paid service helps you use the service for streaming Netflix and other geo-restricted streaming sites with reliable speed.
Any VPN will get past all geo-restricted websites
While it’s true that quality VPNs can successfully access geo-restricted web content, many average VPNs might fail in accessing content providers (e.g. Netflix). These services have strong algorithms that disallow VPNs of any kind. Hence it takes a good VPN to work around geo-restricted websites in case you need the same.
VPNs are illegal to use
One of the biggest myths is that using a VPN may land you into legal issues. VPNs are totally legal and were created by organizations that needed to transfer data securely. Hence the usage of a VPN is legal in almost all countries. However indulging in fraudulent activities, child pornography, theft, and other such activities is considered illegal by the VPN services. So if you use a VPN to defraud internet users, the law will catch up in all probability.
VPNs Provide 100% Anonymity and Security
There is no fool-proof method to give you 100% anonymity. If you think you can do anything because you have a VPN protection, you’re wrong. This may include using good antivirus software, staying safe whenever connecting to public Wi-Fi, making use of the Tor browser, among others.
All VPNs are the same
Many top VPN services speak of military-grade encryption, numerous servers across geographic locations and no-logs policy. While this may sound like all is needed for a good VPN service, it’s important to not get carried away and opt for research on other areas like customer support, compatibility with a number of devices, DNS leak protection and more. It is these that set apart a great VPN service.
VPNs prevent hackers from hacking your computer
Those whose PC has an open attack vector will eventually get hacked sooner or later. A VPN data can protect your data on the net through tunneling but it does not stop malware from infecting your computer nor does it prevent a hacker from finding your real IP address and attacking your computer. Some VPN providers provide you with feature to block malware and ads automatically. However, this will not exactly protect your PC.