What is a Virtual private network?

Nirmal Joshi
3 min readNov 18, 2021
Virtual Private Network

In today’s digital age — information is easily accessible to all via the internet.

Another thing that can also be easily accessible is your data if you are not cautious.

There are websites that do not allow you to access their content. There are websites where your activity can be traced easily along with the files on your device. And guess what — there are websites that install unnecessary trackers on your browser even without asking for permission.

What if you could stop all this — where you can easily access blocked websites, surf some region-specific content, or even secure your data over public Wi-Fi networks.

Sounds interesting?

That’s what a virtual private network does. Most of you might know about it but for those of you who don’t this video will definitely serve the purpose (minus the technical jargons)!

First thing first….What is a VPN or Virtual Private Network?

A VPN simply creates a private network for you to connect to the internet (be it at home or any public connection) & gives you online privacy and anonymity.

How?

VPNs mask your IP (internet protocol) address, so your online actions are virtually untraceable.

Most importantly, VPN services establish secure and encrypted connections to provide greater privacy than even a secured Wi-Fi hotspot.

With the advancement of technology, we are facing greater privacy risks & online threats than ever.

Doing online transactions or even surfing the web on an unsecured Wi-Fi network means you could be exposing your private information and browsing habits literally to anyone who is keen to steal that data. Any data transmitted during your online sessions while you were connected to that network could be vulnerable to eavesdropping by strangers using the same network.

This is where VPN will help you to keep your activity anonymous. Whether you are sending emails, paying bills, shopping online or even looking for places to visit on your next vacation — all this will be encrypted by the VPN keeping your online security intact. Even if someone were to get their hands on your data, it would be totally useless.

Here are the key benefits of a VPN connection:

  • Secure encryption
  • Secure data transfer
  • Access to region-specific content
  • Anonymity
  • Prevent ISP tracking

Now the important question is — do you really need a VPN?

The answer is a bit tricky but I’ll make it simple for you to understand.

Your ISP sets your connection so that you can connect to the internet anytime. But in doing so they also track your activity using your IP address. Every site you visit is traced and a log is maintained. This data may or may not be shared with third-party agencies, advertisers, or even the government.

ISPs can also fall victim to cyber-attacks — if they are hacked, your personal and private data can be compromised.

This becomes all the more important when you use public wifi. You never know who is monitoring or keeping logs of your online activity. Your data is always at risk!

If you believe that all of your online activity or data should not be monitored, traced, or misused — going for a VPN service would be the right choice.

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Nirmal Joshi

A founder and CEO of an IT company in India, I have more than 22+ years’ experience of dealing with people, processes and codes.