Benefits and Disadvantages of VPNs
Everything You Need to Know About VPNs
People live in a world where there is a massive threat to their security and safety on the internet. To limit this threat, you may be thinking about the best ways to protect your data and personal information. And that’s when VPN comes along. VPNs are quickly becoming a vital tool for online security and privacy.
Whether you want to watch region-specific web content or create secure remote work setups, a VPN can be more helpful. In this article, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of a VPN, so you can decide if it’s right for you.
They can secure Internet connections, bypass censorship, and allow users to access region-locked content. But what is the downside?
This article will look into some of the distinguishing features of VPN that work as advantages and disadvantages (with solutions).
Let’s start with the benefits.
Eliminate Bandwidth Throttling
Slow streaming, poor torrent speeds, and video game lag are common symptoms of ISP throttling. This guide explains how a VPN can free your internet from throttling. Unethical bandwidth throttling occurs when your internet speed is intentionally slowed down by your ISP or someone else who can control the performance of your WiFi network. This sometimes happens when you visit certain websites or engage in certain activities on the internet. For example, if you use a digital VPN service, mobile traffic from your device may be encrypted. With encryption, other people cannot see the websites you visit.
Since bandwidth throttling can sometimes be triggered by the websites you use or the type of activity you engage in, if your ISP can’t see the data coming in and out of your device, they can’t limit it to these cases. However, they may still limit your data to certain times of the day to free up bandwidth for their other users. A VPN encrypts all internet traffic from a device and routes it through a server to the user’s chosen location. Encryption prevents your ISP and anyone else on the network from seeing the contents of your web traffic while the server hides where that traffic is. VPNs also mask the type of internet traffic; For instance, there is no way for your ISP to distinguish VPN traffic from a web browser or a BitTorrent manager.
Bypass Geo-Restrict Contents
Today, most major streaming services and sports and gaming sites are region-locked. This means that they are only accessible to users in certain countries. Additionally, some countries (like China) restrict access to various services, some extremely popular elsewhere. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to bypass geo-blocking: connect to a virtual private network (VPN).
VPN works by routing your traffic through a server in another country. This hides your actual IP address and replaces the address with a temporary country-specific IP address. As a result, most geo-restricted platforms can’t tell the difference between a VPN user and someone who is actually in the location they need to be.
As an added benefit, a VPN encrypts your traffic so your employer, government, and Internet Service Provider (ISP) can’t see what you’re doing online. This is especially useful if you are in a country with strict internet censorship.
Network Scalability
While a private network can help you start a business, the cost of network expansion can be very high. In addition, cybersecurity breaches are now a matter of ‘when,’ and organizations must be ready to confront hackers head-on. But with, companies so focused on external threats often overlook the role their employees play in exposing vulnerabilities from within an organization.
Whether it’s a co-working space or a shared wireless connection at an industry conference, small business owners and employees often connect from networks not owned and operated by the company. This is a security and privacy risk but can be easily managed by routing all traffic through the VPN and providing remote access to corporate resources.
If you use a fast and secure VPN server, you can simultaneously provide access to multiple employees and remote workers. You can also run different applications in a cloud environment and provide access to them through a secure VPN tunnel.
This can include anything from email to full-featured applications that you usually run on the desktop. When employees connect to the VPN, they access another computer that you use to run the applications it requires. Every employee with a login can access the VPN and thus the application. Adding employees provides more bandwidth if needed and login information for each new team member.
Premium Security and Anonymous Browsing Experience
As we already know, any app or website could be tracking your online activity. So, those apps or sites can then analyze the data they collect and use that data to try to target you with ads. Without a VPN, you may encounter a ton of pop-up ads that can disrupt your browsing experience and cause general annoyance.
Using a VPN can prevent anyone, software, and web browsers from accessing your connection. As a result, the information you transmit and receive is secure and anonymous. There are many reasons you might want to stay anonymous while browsing online, many of which are related to the benefits of a VPN discussed above. Unfortunately, sometimes you don’t even know why you want to stay anonymous online until the consequences of over-sharing hit you in the face.
Do any of these VPN benefits work for you? Symlex VPN offers a free trial of our military-grade encryption network, which you can install on up to 10 devices simultaneously. It’s serious protection at zero upfront cost to see if a VPN is right for your digital life. In addition, you’ll have the freedom to browse securely on any WiFi network and enjoy unlimited access to all the websites you need.
A good VPN will hide your IP address, encrypt your browsing activity, and allow you to unblock censored websites in your area.
But a VPN won’t solve all your problems. It’s essential to understand the limitations and drawbacks of using a VPN to stay safe online. So, let’s find out some of the drawbacks of any VPN service, along with viable solutions.
Increased Data Consumption
Does using a premium VPN cost more data?
Yes, browsing the internet with a VPN utilizes more mobile data than without a VPN. According to different VPN data usage tests, found that VPN increases your data usage by 5% to 20%. Plus, by encrypting your data and hiding your traffic from unwanted surveillance, a VPN improves the amount of bandwidth you use. For mobile VPN users, this means that whenever you use a VPN while connected to mobile data and not WiFi, you consume data faster than when you are using a VPN. This is because VPNs encrypt these files during transmission, and this process creates overhead.
By most estimates, encryption adds about 1015% more data usage. The calculation is quite simple. Let’s say you are downloading a large HD video file containing 2GB of data. On a regular public connection, data usage will be exactly 2 GB. However, on a VPN that encrypts your data for you, data usage increases. Since 2GB is really 2048MB of data, you’re technically transferring over 2348MB in total.
Solution: While you can use VPN over mobile data if WiFi or cellular data is an option, you would choose it over data any day. Using data for your VPN is a good option, as long as you do it in a way that doesn’t use up all of your data and incurs additional charges from your phone company.
Slow Connection Speeds
Since a VPN is a virtual connection inside a physical network, there will always be some slowdown in internet speed. In addition, creating and maintaining a VPN will require a certain amount of bandwidth, which will slow down the connection speed. In a word, using a VPN takes resources from your internet, thus limiting your connection speed through the VPN. However, this is gradually becoming less of a problem as VPN services are improving every day. Most major VPN providers show a minimal drop in connection speed.
Many vendors are now moving to 10Gbps or even 20Gbps servers, meaning overloaded servers are essentially a thing of the past when it comes to the best VPN providers. However, VPN servers have finite throughput. This means when too many users connect to a server, the connection speed will decrease. So, a poorly optimized VPN can definitely affect your internet speed, even with the advancements in encryption in recent years.
Solution: To help reduce VPN latency as much as possible, look for a high-speed VPN provider with nationwide coverage and many servers like Symlex VPN, which offers more than 100+ servers in over 60+ locations. You can also switch to another VPN server location closer to your area.
Some Websites and Online Services Block VPN
Generally, websites locate and track users based on their IP addresses. IP tracking is a simple way to increase account security, create targeted ads, and show users different content based on their country. This IP-tracking practice is one of the main reasons people use a VPN service, but it’s also why it’s so easy to block VPN access to a website. VPN services have a limited number of IP addresses. And since most VPN servers use IPv4 (an outdated IP addressing protocol), it is challenging to create a unique IP address, and a group of subscribers often share the same IP address for months or years.
There are many examples of websites being blocked in certain regions, a measure adopted by both private companies and the government. While governments block websites they deem to be contrary to their country’s culture and norms, companies do so to comply with regional laws and economic purposes.
Some online stores also try to block users from accessing their services with a VPN.
This is because it offers localized store versions with region-specific pricing and release dates. While it’s not illegal to use a VPN to unlock “hidden” content on these sites (in most countries), it may violate the company’s terms of service. If so, they reserve the right to suspend or delete your account if you are found to be using a VPN.
Solution: To bypass VPN blocks, you can try different VPN servers or different kinds of software like Tor Browser, Shadowsocks, etc.
So, is VPN worth it after all?
Over the past few years, VPNs have gained popularity among online users to unblock online content and improve user privacy and security while browsing the web. Privacy is increasingly a concern for everyone. You may think that the websites you visit, the products and services you purchase, and what you view and download are all private. But they are not. Your ISP knows where you go online, and in some countries, this information may even be sold for marketing purposes.
So, we can say that the benefits of a VPN are indisputable — but what will you have to pay to reap the benefits? The short answer to this question is yes, investing in a VPN is worth it, especially if you value online privacy and encryption when surfing the internet. However, there are hundreds of VPNs out there, and not all are built the same. Therefore, it is essential to do your analysis to find a fast and safe premium VPN service that is effective and meets your criteria.
Bonus: Using a trusted VPN is beneficial if you are an online or digital marketer. Watch for the video here on how a VPN boosts digital marketing service.
