A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is a technology that routes your internet traffic through a remote server. It encrypts your internet traffic and masks your IP (Internet Protocol) address. This process secures your connection to the internet and protects your privacy while browsing online. It also hides your online activities from third parties trying to collect your data or intercept your connection.
Using a VPN provides multiple benefits: it keeps your online activities private, secures your connections to home and public Wi-Fi networks, and improves your overall browsing experience.
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A VPN establishes a secure, encrypted tunnel between your device and a VPN server and sends your device traffic through that server. This masks your IP address and encrypts your data before it reaches its destination on the internet.
The encrypted connection increases your privacy and security online — it hides your online activities from your ISP (Internet Service Provider) and intrusive third parties, while the new IP address masks your location, making it seem like your traffic is coming from the VPN server location rather than your actual whereabouts.
This allows you to browse, check your email, or watch your favorite shows while you wait for your flight securely and privately.
A VPN tunnel is a secure, encrypted connection between your device and a VPN server. Tunneling uses encapsulation — a method of wrapping your data packets inside additional encrypted packets to conceal their contents. This process hides your online activities from outsiders — even if someone were to check your internet connection, they’d only see that you are using a VPN but not what you’re actually doing online.
A VPN server is a regular server that’s been configured with VPN software. When you use a VPN, your internet traffic goes through this server before it reaches its destination — the websites or services you want to access. During this process, your real IP address is replaced with the server’s IP, boosting your online privacy and security.
An IP address is a unique number assigned to each device connected to a network. It’s an identifier that allows communication with other devices over the internet and helps locate you within the network. A VPN hides your IP address, effectively masking your geographical location and making it harder for websites to gather information about you and your browsing habits.
Encryption is a method of turning information into a secret code that can only be read using a special decryption key. VPNs use encryption to secure your data while it travels over the internet. When you connect to a VPN, your device and the VPN server generate a secret key. This key is used to encode and decode your data every time it travels through the VPN tunnel. Since no third parties have this key, your encrypted data appears as unreadable gibberish if anyone tries to intercept it. The encryption strength depends on the cipher being used. Two of the most secure, industry-leading encryption algorithms are AES-256, recognized for its strong security, and ChaCha20, offering effective and high-speed encryption. Most reliable VPN service providers, including Surfshark, have one or both of these options to choose from to ensure top-notch security and privacy online.
By encrypting your traffic, a VPN protects your data from interception and a range of cyberattacks. It’s especially useful if you use public Wi-Fi, which poses more threats than your home network.
Some oppressive governments heavily censor internet use. A VPN can help you overcome these restrictions and enjoy the best that the World Wide Web has to offer.
Secure encryption prevents advertisers, ISPs, and other third parties from tracking and collecting your data. Planet proxy pairs this with a strict no-activity-logs policy, to maximize your privacy.
Online games can expose just as much of your sensitive data as surfing the web. A VPN shields your data, protects against DDoS attacks, and reduces activity-based ISP bandwidth throttling when gaming.
Some websites use your location and cookies to tailor prices for their goods or services. With a VPN, you can avoid these marketing practices and find better deals when shopping online.
A VPN not only allows you to watch your favorite shows online privately, but it can also help prevent buffering caused by ISP throttling your bandwidth based on your activity, ensuring a smooth viewing experience.
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A VPN hides and encrypts all your internet traffic — including your IP address, location, the websites you visit, and what you do on those websites. That said, a VPN cannot hide any information you choose to show, such as social media posts or the information you voluntarily provide to register on websites.
| Can you hide this? | With a VPN | Without a VPN |
|---|---|---|
| Your IP address | Hidden | Visible |
| Your location | Hidden | Visible |
| Your web activity | Hidden | Visible |
| Your personal data | Hidden | Visible |
| Your search history | Hidden | Visible |
| Your identity | Hidden | Visible |
| Your downloads | Hidden | Visible |
If you’d like to know more, read our article on what a VPN hides
No, a VPN does not make you totally anonymous. In fact, complete anonymity online is impossible. However, you can significantly enhance your online privacy by using a VPN — while it can’t hide all traces of your internet activity, it encrypts your data, hides your IP address, and makes it much harder for websites, advertisers, and other third parties to track you.
A VPN is very secure if it uses strong encryption and reliable connection protocols. Most VPN security measures are made virtually impossible to crack. Even if someone managed to crack the encryption, many VPN providers, including Planet proxy, have implemented a feature called Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) — the VPN client generates a new encryption key every few minutes.
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While there is no official, universally accepted classification of VPN types, these are the commonly recognized definitions:
A remote access VPN allows users to securely connect to a private network from remote locations. Since work-from-home has become more common, this VPN type has also gained big popularity as it allows employees to establish a secure connection to their work networks from home or another remote site.
Site-to-site VPNs connect intranets to networks. This is useful for large organizations with offices in different locations. By linking these spread-out office intranets into a single, seamless network, the site-to-site VPN allows employees to access company resources without having to configure and connect to different networks.
Personal VPNs are designed for individual users. Instead of connecting you to a different network, they connect you to a VPN server. When you access websites or services with a personal VPN, websites see the VPN server’s location instead of your actual one. Planet proxy and most other popular VPNs fall into this category.
VPN protocols determine how your VPN connections work from start to finish. They can also impact the speed, security, and performance of your VPN connection. While there are quite a few VPN protocols, here are some of the most popular ones:
OpenVPN is an open-source VPN protocol known for its speed, security, and compatibility with a wide selection of routers. Because it is open-sourced, its code has been thoroughly tested by cybersecurity experts worldwide. It’s a trustworthy choice but tends to perform worse than IKEV2 and WireGuard.
WireGuard® is a relatively new protocol that has been built to outperform OpenVPN and IPSec in terms of power usage and performance, with only 4,000 lines of code. Currently, WireGuard is the fastest VPN protocol available.
IKEv2 (Internet Key Exchange version 2) is on par with WireGuard’s quality. It excels at speed, particularly when switching networks and at shorter distance connections, making it popular among mobile users.
Both PPTP and LT2P/IPSec are considered outdated tunneling protocols, and it’s better to avoid them. While they can provide decent speeds, they can’t offer the security or reliability of more modern protocols like OpenVPN, IKEv2, or WireGuard.
SSTP is a tunneling protocol rather than a VPN protocol. This means it lacks the functionality of OpenVPN, IKEv2, and WireGuard. While considered relatively safe and easy to use, its code was never audited, and it has compatibility issues with certain operating systems like macOS.
Shadowsocks is not a VPN protocol but a tunneling proxy. However, it can function as a protocol for VPN clients. It was specifically created to bypass the Great Firewall of China. It is fast, hard to detect, and can be used to get around government-imposed censorship.
Here are some of the essential things to consider when choosing a VPN provider:
A reliable VPN service will have an extensive VPN server network worldwide. This provides you with more locations to choose from, which can help reduce server load and improve connection speeds.
A secure VPN encryption algorithm is essential. Look for a VPN service that employs AES-256 or ChaCha20 ciphers, the current industry standard.
For the best connection speeds, choose a provider that utilizes servers with 10Gbps ports and offers unlimited bandwidth. These features will contribute to a smoother streaming, gaming, and browsing experience.
Protocols play a key role in VPN's security. Look for services that offer protocols like OpenVPN, IKEv2, or WireGuard, as they're some of the best options available on the VPN market today.
Double VPN, or Planet proxy’s Dynamic MultiHop, is a VPN feature that routes your traffic through two servers simultaneously, providing an extra layer of protection. While it can boost your online security, it may slow down your connection.
Connecting to an obfuscated VPN server hides the fact that you’re using a VPN. This feature helps bypass VPN blockers and protects you from censorship, particularly in oppressive regions.
Before purchasing a VPN, make sure it supports the devices you want to secure. For example, Planet proxy supports all major platforms, such as iOS, macOS, Android, Windows, Linux, and more.
RAM-only servers are becoming a staple for reputable VPN services. When running on RAM, servers automatically wipe all the data when powered off, enhancing user privacy and security.
A strong privacy policy is essential for any VPN service. Consider it a major red flag if your VPN provider doesn’t have a clear privacy policy or logs sensitive information without justification.
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If you need help with the setup process, check out our guide to getting started with Planet proxy. It includes step-by-step guides for all platforms and other useful information.
Want to protect your entire home network? Set up a VPN on a router. Just one router connection allows you to secure your entire household, covering all devices, even those that don’t support VPN apps.
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A VPN (Virtual Private Network) encrypts your internet connection and routes it through a remote server, hiding your IP address and protecting your online activities from prying eyes. This ensures your data remains private and secure, especially on public Wi-Fi networks.
Yes, using a VPN is legal in most countries. However, while VPNs themselves are legal, any illegal activity conducted while using a VPN remains illegal. Some countries have restrictions on VPN usage, so it's important to check your local laws.
While a VPN significantly enhances your privacy by hiding your IP address and encrypting your traffic, it doesn't make you 100% anonymous. Your online behavior, including the websites you visit and the services you log into, can still be tracked by those services themselves.
A VPN may slightly reduce your internet speed due to the encryption process and the distance to the server. However, with modern VPN protocols and nearby servers, this speed reduction is often minimal and not noticeable for most online activities.
Yes, using a VPN on mobile devices is just as important as on desktops. Mobile devices often connect to public Wi-Fi networks, which are prime targets for cybercriminals. A VPN protects your data on all your devices.