A Virtual Private Network, or VPN, provides privacy, anonymity, and security to users by creating a private network connection across a public network connection.
There are three types of VPNs, but as home users will most frequently use a remote access VPN that's what we'll be talking about here. This type of VPN connects a single computer to the internet through special VPN software.
By using this VPN software a user creates a private, encrypted tunnel from his Mac (or iPhone or iPad) to the VPN company's VPN server. From that server, the user's internet connection then goes out onto the internet. This means that the data transmitted from the user's device is secured from Point A (the Mac) to Point B (the VPN company's server). No one snooping the local internet connection—whether that be another user on the Starbuck's wifi or the local internet service provider—can see what data the user is transmitting.
Because the user can sign into any of the VPN company's servers, he may be able to appear as if he is located in a different part of the world. This is commonly used to bypass geographic or regional restrictions. In other words, if I'm in Seattle I can use my VPN company's server in London to appear as if I'm located in that city. (Different VPN companies have servers in different locations; not all are worldwide.) For more authoritarian governments like China, unapproved VPNs are illegal for citizens to use.
When you use a VPN, you are placing a lot of trust in that VPN company. Your data flows straight to their servers, which means bad actors could run a VPN service and monitor users traffic. Facebook rather famously bought a VPN service for this very purpose.
Not all web sites or web services accept VPN traffic. Because VPNs disguise location many financial institutions, for example, will not accept VPN traffic. Since financial institutions already securely encrypt their users' connections to their web sites, there is little to no advantage to using a VPN in those cases anyway.
The three VPN companies we recommend are Private Internet Access (PIA), WiTopia, and Nord. There are others which are also good, but we've vetted these ones and can recommend them with confidence.
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