VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a technology that provides a secure connection to a public network, whether it is the Internet or a local connection between several computers. The abbreviation stands for Virtual Private Network, i.e. virtual private network. It is configured on top of the public one and connects you to the server through which access will be carried out.
VPN hides your IP address and encrypts outgoing and incoming Internet traffic, so that neither the provider, nor the state, nor the attackers will know which sites you visit. Why you may need a VPN and how it works — we tell you what a VPN is in simple words. $1 Hosting Australia is something one should know more about.
What is a VPN for?
This concept in the public consciousness is often associated with illegal or illegal activities, but VPN is a useful and widely used tool. It is used in companies to establish a secure connection between the corporate network and remote devices — for example, if an employee works from home. In the same way, offices and branches located in different cities and even countries are interconnected, video surveillance cameras and security systems, servers and computing clusters are combined into one network. VPN allows you to secure access to the data of an organization or a specific user.
At the private use level, such networks can be useful for:
- Getting access to blocked Internet resources. Websites may be unavailable due to government censorship or due to their own regional restrictions of services. For example, when American social networks test new features, they most often do not work in other countries. VPN helps to bypass such blockages;
- Ensuring anonymity on the Internet. Thanks to data encryption and address masking, VPN makes it possible to use the public network incognito;
- Protection of personal information.
How VPN works
The principle of VPN operation is quite simple to understand. The program on your device encrypts all outgoing Internet data, they are sent to a remote computer, which decrypts, replaces your IP with its own and makes a request to the public network as if on its own behalf. Then everything happens the other way around: incoming Internet traffic is encrypted, sent to your device, where the program decrypts it and you get the necessary data. At the same time, the provider sees your IP address, but does not know what information you are looking for or entering, and the sites believe that the visitor is in the country where the VPN server is located. Don’t forget checking up 1 Dollar Hosting Canada.
Such a server is a physical or virtual machine configured with software to provide VPN services, and, unlike standard servers, equipped with additional ports. VPN servers use different transmission protocols and encryption standards depending on the type of connection: PPTP, OpenVPN, IPsec, etc. You can also check details on Unlimited Reseller Hosting UK. Simply put, this is the same remote computer that processes the encrypted request, directs it to the desired web resource and encrypts the response before sending it to you. The server may be located on another continent, but this will not prevent you from connecting to it and using its location as a disguise. Moreover, you can connect to several VPN servers located in different countries at once, and thereby strengthen data protection. However, in this case, the connection speed will drop significantly.