How to Choose a Virtual Private Network (VPN) That's Right for You

A virtual private network (VPN) is a technology that creates a safe and encrypted connection over a less secure network, such as the internet. VPN technology was developed as a way to allow remote users and branch offices to securely access corporate applications and other resources.

You can use a VPN to connect to the corporate intranet at your office while you’re traveling abroad, while you are at home, or any other time you are out of the office.

You can also use a commercial VPN to encrypt your data as it travels over a public network, such as the Wi-Fi in an Internet café or a hotel.

You can use a commercial VPN to circumvent Internet censorship on a network that blocks certain sites or services. For example, some Chinese users use commercial VPNs to access websites blocked by the Great Firewall.

You can also connect to your home network by running your own VPN service, using open-source software such as OpenVPN.

A VPN protects your Internet traffic from surveillance on the public network, but it does not protect your data from people on the private network you’re using. If you are using a corporate VPN, then whoever runs the corporate network will see your traffic. If you are using a commercial VPN, whoever runs the service will be able to see your traffic.



The chief of your corporate or business VPN may likewise be liable to weight from governments or law requirement to turn over data about the information you have sent over the system. You should audit your VPN supplier's protection arrangement for data about the conditions under which your VPN supplier may turn your information over to governments or law requirement.

You ought to likewise observe the nations in which the VPN supplier works together. The supplier will be liable to the laws in those nations, which may incorporate both lawful solicitations for your data from that administration, and different nations with whom it has a legitimate help arrangement. Now and again, the laws will take into account demands without notice to you or a chance to challenge the demand.

Most commercial VPNs will require you to pay using a credit card, which includes information about you that you may not want to disclose to your VPN provider. If you would like to keep your credit card number from your commercial VPN provider, you may wish to use a VPN provider that accepts Bitcoin, or use temporary or disposable credit card numbers. Also, please note that the VPN provider may still collect your IP address when you use their service, which can be used to identify you, even if you use an alternative payment method. If you would like to hide your IP address from your VPN provider, you may wish to use Tor when connecting to your VPN.

For information about specific VPN services, click here.



VPN protocols

There are several different protocols used to secure and encrypt users and corporate data:

• IP security (IPsec)
  
• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS)
  
• Point-To-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP)
  
• Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP)
  
• OpenVPN
  

The most common types of VPNs are remote-access VPNs and site-to-site VPNs.



Remote-access VPN



A remote-access VPN allows individual users to establish secure connections with a remote computer network. Those users can access the secure resources on that network as if they were directly plugged in to the network's servers.

A remote-access VPN host or client  typically has VPN client software. Whenever the host tries to send any information, the VPN client software encapsulates and encrypts the information before sending it over the Internet to the VPN gateway at the edge of the target network. On receipt, the VPN gateway handles the data in the same way as it would handle data from a site-to-site VPN.

A remote-access VPN usually relies on either IPsec or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to secure the connection, although SSL VPNs are often focused on supplying secure access to a single application, rather than to the entire internal network. Some VPNs provide Layer 2 access to the target network; these require a tunneling protocol like PPTP or L2TP running across the base IPsec connection.



Site-to-site VPN

A site-to-site VPN uses a gateway device to connect the entire network in one location to the network in another -- usually a small branch connecting to a data center. End-node devices in the remote location do not need VPN clients because the gateway handles the connection. Most site-to-site VPNs connecting over the internet use IPsec. It is also common to use carrier MPLS clouds, rather than the public internet, as the transport for site-to-site VPNs. Here, too, it is possible to have either Layer 3 connectivity (MPLS IP VPN) or Layer 2 (Virtual Private LAN Service, or VPLS) running across the base transport.


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