Many have become familiar with VPNs over the years, entrusting them with their desktops’ security—as well as their data.
As more workers conduct business remotely, household digital privacy becomes a larger concern. Between intrusive advertisements, ISP data logging, and Internet traffic visibility, securing truly private browsing sessions can seem impossible without a VPN’s help. Check internetetsecurite here.
Multi-Platform Security
While early versions of VPNs arose in the mid-1990s, it took them a while to reach mass adoption. Until recent years, they were considered to be the tools of tech gurus, digital platform developers—and, by perception—online hackers.
Things have changed, however, as the world has come to better understand the nature of VPNs. Today, they’re quite mainstream—both for work-related and day-to-day browsing sessions. By and large, VPNs sored to high popularity levels due to rising digital security concerns in recent years: In 2019, over 110 million Americans were victims of cyberattacks.
Understandably, the world’s leading cybersecurity providers intend to protect online users as much as possible. As such, they’ve expanded the reach of their digital defense toolkits. Now, VPNs aren’t desktop-specific, exclusive tools. You can use a VPN for your smartphone these days—making your digital life locked up tight, regardless of your location.
The Private Data Risk
Most of us don’t think of our smartphones as security-compromised devices. Unfortunately, any digital data exchange, even passively via website visits, puts users at risk—even if they’re using mobile devices.
Nowadays, our smartphones tend to stay connected to the online world—synching, sharing, collecting, and sending out data throughout the day. Every social media account accessed exchanges more data—and every online search, even though secure web browsing apps like Safari, exchange data.
In most cases, a smartphone’s data consists of invaluable and valuable data. Modern smartphones are pretty good at keeping the more valuable data locked down tight, but the way we engage online services, in general, creates too many risks to count.
To better understand the inherent digital security risks smartphone users face, it’s important to explore the full potential of a VPN on any device: The best VPN providers offer a number of impenetrable digital toolkits for modern browsing—but even baseline VPNs cover the core privacy tools anyone can benefit from.
VPN Usage: What Makes Them Secure?
While all VPNs share the same core qualities, it’s important to note that relying on a free VPN service might not be the safest thing to do. VPN subscription service providers are time-tested-and-true professionals who’ve aided the world of cybersecurity for years—constantly rolling out the latest, greatest digital defense tools.
Quality Control
Unfortunately, free VPN providers don’t have the same level of ever-up-to-date security. Because of this, they can’t assure instantaneous defense when used during an online session. Even more troubling are the inherent security flaws free VPNs have—as well as a lack of verifiable quality, in general. In June 2019, Apple identified, flagged, and banned approximately 80 percent of its top-20 free VPN apps on the App Store—as they were discovered to be sharing data with third parties.
Today’s leading, subscription-based VPNs undergo rigorous quality control processes constantly on the other side of things. So, if you do sign up for a VPN—rest assured: If malicious online users discover new ways to track user data, your service provider, likely, will keep you safe from it.
Encryption
‘Encryption’ is one of the leading methods for hiding one’s data from dangerous Internet-goers looking to steal it. In essence, data that’s encrypted is ‘scrambled’ into unreadable and unusable gibberish. This means that, in the event of a thief acquiring your data, your information won’t be accessible at all.
Simultaneously, you as the data owner can still decrypt and access your information whenever you need to. A VPN, used in the form of a digital application, encrypts your data as it’s sent into online environments. In doing so, it assures that every digital step you take is masked from the get-go.
As for a VPN’s data-passage process itself, let’s check out the next benefit it offers—which, for most, is its best.
Rerouting
A VPN is primarily used for its rerouting services. These services redirect your IP address through a separate location—to keep your current physical location entirely obscured. In the realm of digital device usage, an IP address serves as your device connection’s unique identifier. If seen by a malicious user online, it can easily be tracked.
Naturally, the primary concern in such an event is personal safety—as your physical location can be determined. Secondarily, however, a tracked IP address can easily reveal personal data sources—data which, normally, isn’t immediately identifiable to hackers.
Your VPN software offers access to numerous servers worldwide, and each serves the purpose of redirecting your IP address. This process is known as “tunneling,” as it circumnavigates potentially dangerous digital environments altogether. Instead of seeing your IP address, anyone following your digital footsteps will see your VPN server’s IP address instead.
Full Access to Digital Content
Understandably, the ability to change your IP address is useful for things other than security. By choosing a VPN server situated in a certain country, you’ll essentially make it appear as if you’re browsing from the said country itself.
This is incredibly useful for accessing digital content, which isn’t accessible in all countries. While this naturally covers multimedia services like Netflix—which often faces country-based restrictions—it also extends to important news websites, such as CNN and BBC.
Unfortunately, digital censorship does exist—either due to governmental issues or media copyright issues. If you’re traveling to another country, having access to news media is important—especially if this media concerns your home country. The struggles geo-blocked services introduce aren’t limited to digital content, either. Vital service providers, such as banking institutions, may not be digitally available at your travel destination—as they may only be supported within your country.
Getting around these restrictions with a VPN is as easy as it sounds:
Simply start up your VPN.
- Select a server stationed in a location allowing access to the digital services you need.
- Continue browsing.
Because your IP address will stem from this location, you’ll enjoy all of the benefits of otherwise inaccessible content as opposed to your current location.
Using a VPN for Your Smartphone
So, what about VPN support on your smartphone? We know that VPNs are incredibly good at protecting personal computers from online threats—but can their advanced security features extend to our devices?
They do.
Smartphone VPN apps are still relatively new, but they already offer the same digital security level as their desktop counterparts. They even have all of the features desktop-based VPNs offer, assuring that your device is always fully protected.
In some ways, using a smartphone VPN app can be more important than using a desktop-based VPN program. Let’s find out why.
Public Wi-Fi Protection
Because our smartphones are portable doorways to the Internet, they encounter a lot of public Wi-Fi networks. In some cases, devices passing through these networks might connect automatically. Even if the connection is brief, connecting to an unsecured public network is unsafe in general.
Even if your device doesn’t pair automatically, as many are set up to avoid this, you’ll still face an unfortunate situation: If you need immediate access to Wi-Fi, and if you’re in a public location, you’ll have no choice but to expose your smartphone, and your data, to potentially dangerous digital environments.
Even though most of us can simply rely on our service provider’s data plan to access the Internet, there are cases where a Wi-Fi connection’s speed and bandwidth are necessary. Some examples of this include business VoIP calls, live news media streaming, and file downloads from public libraries.
In any of these events, a VPN mobile app will protect your smartphone in the same way it defends your desktop computer: It will encrypt any data your device sends over the Wi-Fi network, and it will do so during the process of rerouting and masking your IP address.
Banking App Security
Many of us use financial applications to transfer funds, check account balances, and make payments. Unfortunately, even secure apps provided by leading financial institutions aren’t completely safe. Even though modern smartphones utilize architectures which section of its different software architectures to contain any invasive threats, the data leaving your device isn’t necessarily secure. Remember: You’re sending financial information over the Internet. This can include information entered into shopping applications, which are far less secure than banking applications.
Ease of Use
Because smartphones are designed for instant, easy usage, they host the VPN apps just as accessible. In most cases, signing up with a VPN provider will give you full access to a mobile version of their VPN software by default. The same settings will still be available—and some providers even synchronize your account preferences to make the initial setup incredibly easy.
Despite being easy to configure, and despite being completely unnoticeable as a background app on your smartphone, your VPN app is just as safe, effective, and reliable as your desktop-based VPN. So, if you haven’t yet, explore some of the VPN options, today’s leading providers have to offer—as most can be used immediately with a free trial period. Even better: VPN subscriptions are incredibly cheap—costing as little as a couple of dollars per month.
Seamless Digital Protection
Few cybersecurity approaches compare to instantaneous device crossover protection. By using a VPN for your smartphone, you can protect your online connection the second you leave your desktop. Get the most out of your Internet safety tools: a seamless way.