What VPN is?
When we talk about information security, VPN is the first name that comes to our mind today. VPN Service provider is something that help you achieve this. To have a precise idea of the concept, let me just answer what VPN is? Well, VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It is something that helps you to keep your data and information secure even in the presence of any external WiFi network. Suppose you are out in any public place like a cafe, there if you connect the free WiFi available, there are chances that your data is insecure and unprotected from other users around you.
Speaking of advertisers, they use advanced trackers that correlate your movements between websites. By placing trackers on a variety of sites and watching for requests from the same IP address, advertisers can get a sense of your habits. This is still true when you browse the web on your Android. What’s more, many mobile apps still transmit data without encryption, letting various three-letter organizations keep an eye on you.
Why you need VPN?
The major risk that stands is the chances of someone monitoring your network traffic. Everything from emails to passwords can be opened to anyone who could monitor. So, its really important and significant to know why you need VPN?
As your mobile phone is definitely something you can’t be separated of, they are more prone to such dangers of security. This fact introduced android VPN service providers and made it more common across the folks.
When you connect through a VPN service, you interact differently with the internet. Your data is sent through an encrypted tunnel to a VPN server, either nearby or in a far-flung location. Anyone monitoring your network connection only sees the gibberish of an encrypted connection. Because your traffic exits onto the open web from the VPN server, advertisers and spies see the IP address of the VPN server and not your device. It’s a smart and simple way to keep your information and identity secure.
What a VPN isn’t?
After knowing all what VPN is, it is equally important what a VPN isn’t. So lets talk about this. It can’t be called a true anonymization service and it can’t be used to connect to many of the hidden websites on the dark web.
When you connect to a VPN, your data is encrypted but this is not the case once you leave the VPN servers. It is your browser or app that can secure your information. If it fails to do so, your data will become completely readable to someone with the will to try.
VPN’s- fooling dictators
A common use of VPN’s is location spoofing. Yes, you can hide your location and cause the web traffic to originate from the VPN server. This is exclusively used by journalists and activists to get around restrictive internet control. Through this feature, you can also watch region-locked streaming content. If you are in US and want to watch any live streaming from UK, you can do this through VPN and VPN service provider. You can fool the website into believing that you are a noble UK citizen and can thus, enjoy watching the content.
VPN and Netflix
As Netflix is the new thunder in the town today, many people have already got its addiction. The streaming companies and the VPN services play a game of spoofing and blocking. To avoid fake users, Netflix make efforts and their effectiveness changes on a daily basis. Thus, VPN servers can work with Netflix.
Although Netflix is getting wise too. It has started blocking various VPN connections. The streaming companies also are within their rights to block the VPN users.
VPN service’s statement about P2P file sharing and BitTorrent in its terms of service. Most VPN services don’t allow BitTorrent, since it’s a drain on resources and opens a legal can of worms.
VPN apps are nowadays available for many platforms including android and Windows. We here in this post have considered VPN apps on a whole.There are many VPN servers as mentioned in a report created for 2018. You can have a look on this report titled as The Best VPN Services 2018. A few services allow file sharing on specific servers and even fewer allow them on any other server.
For better understanding and further analysis, we have conducted a small survey on facebook and twitter. On Facebook, its been conducted in a group called, “App Entrepreneurs and Marketers Group”. The results obtained are as follows:
| VPN Service Provider | Votes |
|---|---|
| NordVPN | 7 |
| ExpressVPN | 2 |
| AstrillVPN | 1 |
| CyberGhostVPN | 1 |
| IPVanish | 1 |
| Shadowsocks | 1 |
This was our Facebook survey. Next are the results for the survey conducted over Twitter:
| VPN Service Provider | Votes |
|---|---|
| NordVPN | 40% |
| IPVanish | 20% |
| ExpressVPN | 40% |
As clear from the above survey, the best provider is NordVPN. But to have a close look on the pros and cons of each of these, lets have a closer look:
1.NordVPN
NordVPN is popular for a reason – they do a lot of things right. In an industry where trust is paramount, they do a lot to reinforce their trustworthiness while providing a good user experience. In an industry full of tradeoffs, they position themselves as the “world’s most advanced VPN.” This also makes them the best VPN service provider.
Pros
- NordVPN offers only one plan which is available at several different price points. Moreover, NordVPN also provide free trial for three days with no commitment. You don’t have to provide with your payment details.
- NordVPN has servers in over 58 countries around the world. The maximum number of connections are offered in Europe, so its the best choice if you are the one in Europe.
- NordVPN does extremely well in the security and privacy departments. NordVPN is one of the fastest VPNs for gaming currently available.
- Like all the best VPN providers, NordVPN does things right with a clean, easy-to-navigate user interface.
Cons
- The server speed in areas apart from Europe is a bit low. If we talk about places in the US, NordVPN servers are not strong.
- The diversity of server options with NordVPN is a serious disadvantage. All server options are mainly clustered in Europe which makes it less diverse.
- They don’t offer a proper customer support which keeps it a bit behind.
2.ExpressVPN
The second one in the list of best VPN service provider though quite similar is ExpressVPN. Lets talk about the pros and cons it holds.
Pros
- This is the most widespread VPN servers across the globe. Unlike NordVPN, it is not clustered at any particular location.
- The server count of ExpressVPN servers has been accounted to be over 1000, spread across the globe.
- The server-selection tools are very helpful and handy which makes it even more useful.
- The user-interface is very precise and smart to use.
- The speed test scores of ExpressVPN are pretty decent compared to other servers.
Cons
- ExpressVPN is comparably expensive when we talk about other such servers.
- The major drawback is that it allows only 3 connections simultaneously.
- They lack the presence of specialized servers which are offered by various other service providers.
3.CyberGhostVPN
Then comes the CyberGhost which also offers free access. It has some points to get to this list of To get more into detail, lets talk about its features.
Pros
- It offers some free plans that can be very helpful for the newcomers. But yes the subscribed version is more advantageous over the free one.
- The plans available are really impressive. All the subscribed versions have an option of money-back guarantee.
- The connections are fast and reliable to use any of the streaming services like BBC. The speed is really impressive.
- CyberGhostVPN has a intuitive user-interface which is beautifully laid out and ofcourse is easy to navigate through.
- The user can access it just by downloading and installing, without creating up any account.
Cons
- It has many servers but not many countries. It is restricted to around 30 countries only all over the globe.
- The customer support is not provided which is at times the frustrating to resolve the user issues.
- Some privacy issues in the past, though resolved now but give another reason to think.
4.AstrillVPN
Pros
- Speed matters a lot today. Keeping this in mind, AstrillVPN don’t slow down your internet speed.
- The usability they offer is very smooth with an easy user-interface.
- Offer free trial with money-back guarantee for the subscribers.
- AstrillVPN has been successful in unblocking the geo restricting feature of Netflix.
Cons
- Some issue with there logging Privacy policy, which states the collection of cookies and some other personal data.
- The pricing of AstrillVPN is way more over the average pricing offered by other VPN providers.
- 24/7 Live chat feature is missing which is a drawback in case of user satisfaction.
5.IPVanish
Pros
- The connection speed is reduced by only 18% of what it is without any VPN connectivity, which is relatively lower.
- It is decent working app with zero traffic logs. They have a strict policy against both connection and activity logs.
- The encryption is strong plus torrenting is also allowed.
- The connection limit is of 5 devices.
- Some servers can be helpful to unblock netflix.
Cons
- The third party reviews are a mixed bag of reviews with a lots of positive and negative comments, which gives a second thought to think of the trust.
- The falsely advertised 24/7 support system which is not functional.
6.Shadowsocks
It is a bit different than VPN service provider in the way that Shadowsocks is a secure web proxy. This allows unlimited internet connection. So, Shadowsocks can be used to unblock certain websites and can also be used to bypass network censorship.
Its obviously less used than the other VPN servers, but web proxy is also something that can be useful for many reasons.
With this we sum up all the servers we have conducted a survey for and have concluded the pros and cons through a detailed research of the same. If in case you have any point that I missed out here, you can write us back to [email protected] or you can also reach out to the comment section below.
For more such articles and posts, stay tuned to our blog and keep reading!
Other related posts:
