A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is a tool that encrypts your internet traffic and hides your IP (Internet Protocol) address to ensure a secure and private connection to the internet. This hides your online activities from third parties snooping around and collecting data.
VPNs can help you keep your online activity private, block ads, trackers, and malware, and protect all your devices at the same time.
By encrypting your traffic, a VPN protects you from a range of cyberattacks. It’s especially useful if you use public Wi-Fi, which poses more threats than your home network.
Some oppressive governments heavily censor internet use. A VPN can help you overcome these restrictions and enjoy the best that the World Wide Web has to offer.
Surfshark pairs secure encryption with a strict no-logs policy to keep you safe from advertisers, ISPs (Internet Service Providers), and any other third party looking to profit from your data.
Online games can leak just as much precious data as surfing the web — use a VPN to prevent this. Protect yourself from data leaks, DDoS attacks, and ISP throttling when gaming.
Some websites use your location and cookies to tailor prices for their goods or services. With a VPN, you can avoid these marketing practices and save a buck when shopping online.
Not only does a VPN keep you private when you’re watching your favorite shows online, but it can also help overcome ISP throttling. The result is a secure and buffer-free viewing experience.
Interested in more details? Read our article on VPN benefits!
A VPN encrypts your data and hides your IP address by sending your traffic through a VPN server before it reaches the internet. This encryption protects your data from snoopers and intrusive third parties, while the changed IP makes it seem like you’re visiting from the VPN server location rather than your home.
By connecting to the internet with a VPN, you establish a secure virtual tunnel between your device and the internet via a VPN server. This tunnel is then used to transfer all your internet traffic.
Once your internet traffic goes through the VPN tunnel, your IP address changes. Instead of seeing your IP address, the websites you visit see the IP address of the VPN server.
A VPN encrypts all your traffic to ensure the tunneling process is secure. The encryption hides your data under a code so no third parties can access your sensitive information.
A VPN tunnel is a secure connection between your device and the internet. Tunneling relies on encapsulation, which hides VPN communications on the public internet. So, if someone were to check your internet connection, they’d see that you are using a VPN, but not what you’re doing.
Want to hide the fact that you’re using a VPN on top of protecting your activity? You can use our obfuscated servers for that extra bit of privacy.
A VPN server is just a standard internet server configured with VPN software. Your traffic is first routed through the server before reaching the internet. This allows the VPN to hide your actual IP address and keep your data protected from snoopers.
An IP address is a digital label used for communication between networks. It’s used to identify you and your location in the network. A VPN hides your IP address, which prevents websites from gathering information about you.
VPNs use encryption to encode and secure your data. The VPN client and server generate a key when you connect to a VPN. This key is used to encode and decode your data every time it travels through an encrypted tunnel. No third parties have the key, so your encrypted data looks gibberish if they try to intercept your connection.
Encryption security depends on the cipher being used. The AES 256-bit cipher is considered the best encryption algorithm and is used by the US government, the NSA, and reliable VPN service providers, including Surfshark.
A VPN hides and encrypts all your internet traffic — including your IP address, location, the websites you visit, and what you do on those websites. That said, a VPN cannot hide any information you choose to show, such as social media posts or the information you voluntarily provide to register on websites.
| Can you hide this? | With a VPN | Without a VPN |
| IP address | ✅ Hidden | ❌ Exposed |
| Location | ✅ Hidden | ❌ Exposed |
| Browsing habits | ✅ Hidden | ❌ Exposed |
| Internet traffic | ✅ Encrypted | ❌ Exposed |
| Email you use to register | ❌ Exposed | ❌ Exposed |
| Credit card information used for purchases | ❌ Exposed | ❌ Exposed |
| Googling when signed in to your Google account | ❌ Exposed | ❌ Exposed |
| Information you put on social media | ❌ Exposed | ❌ Exposed |
| Targeted ads | ✅ Minimal | ❌ Very frequent |
If you’d like to know more, read our article on what a VPN hides.
No, a VPN does not make you totally anonymous. In fact, there is no way you can be fully anonymous online. However, you can significantly enhance your online privacy by using a VPN. Though it doesn’t hide all the traces of your internet use, it encrypts your data, hides your IP, and protects you from trackers.
A VPN is very secure if it uses the best encryption and connection protocols, as Surfshark does.
Most VPN security measures are designed to be too tedious to crack. An encrypted session could take millions of years to decode, depending on the computer used. Needless to say, that’s far longer than any VPN session lasts.
Even if someone managed to crack the encryption, many VPN providers like Surfshark have implemented something called Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS). This means that a VPN client generates a new key every seven minutes or so, keeping your private data out of bad actors’ reach.
While there is no hard-and-fast ISO-approved classification of VPN types, here are the currently agreed-upon definitions:
A remote access VPN allows the user to securely connect to a remote network. This way, users can safely access their private network from remote locations. Since work-from-home has become more common, this VPN type has seen a huge rise in popularity as it allows employees to establish a secure connection to a remote work network.
Site-to-site VPNs connect intranets to networks. This is useful for large companies with offices across the world. While the office intranets are spread out, the site-to-site VPN connects them into a single, seamless network that employees can use without having to configure and connect to other networks.
Personal VPNs are meant for individual users. Instead of connecting to a different network, they connect users to a VPN server. When users access a website or service with a personal VPN, their traffic looks like it’s coming from the VPN server, not their home network. Surfshark and most other popular VPNs are personal VPNs.
VPN protocols determine how your VPN connections work from start to finish. On top of that, they can impact the speed and security of your VPN connection. Quite a few VPN protocols exist, but to make it easier, here are some of the best ones to use right now:
OpenVPN is an open-source VPN protocol that is fast, secure, and compatible with many routers. Because it is open-sourced, its code has been examined through and through by cybersecurity experts worldwide. It’s a trusted workhorse but tends to perform worse than IKEV2 and WireGuard.
Available on: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux, and BSD.
Supported by Surfshark: Yes
WireGuard® is a relatively new protocol built to surpass OpenVPN and IPSec in power use and performance with only 4,000 lines of code. As it stands, WireGuard is the fastest VPN protocol available today.
Available on: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, and others.
Supported by Surfshark: Yes
Internet Key Exchange version 2 (IKEv2) is on par with WireGuard’s quality. It can outperform other protocols in terms of speed when switching networks and at shorter distance connections, making it popular among mobile users.
Available on: macOS, Android, iOS, Linux, Blackberry, Unix, and others.
Supported by Surfshark: Yes
Both are severely outdated tunneling protocols, and it’s better to avoid them. While they’re relatively fast, they can’t offer the security or reliability of OpenVPN, IKEv2, or WireGuard.
Available on: Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.
Supported by Surfshark: No
SSTP is a tunneling protocol rather than a VPN protocol. This means it lacks the functionality of OpenVPN, IKEv2, and WireGuard. While considered relatively safe and easy to use, its code was never audited, and it has issues working on certain operating systems like Mac OS.
Available on: Windows, Linux, and BSD.
Supported by Surfshark: No
Shadowsocks is not a VPN protocol but a tunneling proxy. However, it can run as a protocol on VPN clients. It was created for the sole purpose of bypassing The Great Firewall of China. It is fast, hard to detect, and can be used to skirt government-imposed censorship.
Available on: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Linux.
Supported by Surfshark: No
Now that you’ve decided you need a VPN, you should know what to look for when choosing a provider. Here are the essential things to consider:
A strong VPN provider should have good worldwide VPN server coverage. This will give you more locations to choose from and will decrease server load.
A secure VPN encryption algorithm is essential. Make sure to look for the AES-256 cipher — the current industry standard.
If there aren’t enough servers to balance the user load, connection speeds will suffer and become slow.
Protocols are vital to a VPN’s security, and you can use different ones based on your preference. Look for services that offer OpenVPN, IKEv2, or WireGuard, as they’re some of the best options in the VPN game right now.
MultiHop is a VPN feature that directs your traffic through several servers simultaneously. This provides you with even more protection but slows the connection down. Using it is not essential, but it can give your online security an extra kick.
When you connect to an obfuscated server, your traffic seems like regular internet traffic. This helps bypass VPN blockers and protects you from censorship by oppressive governments.
Before purchasing a VPN, make sure it supports the device you wish to secure. Surfshark supports all major platforms, such as iOS, macOS, Android, Windows, Linux, and more.
RAM-only servers are becoming a staple for any good VPN service. When running on RAM, servers automatically wipe all the data when turned off.
A solid Privacy Policy is one of the most important parts of any VPN service. It’s an immediate red flag if your VPN provider does not have a Privacy Policy or if they’re logging sensitive information without any stated reason.
Choose a subscription plan that suits your needs and create an account.
Install the VPN app on all your devices.
Connect to a VPN on the app or do so manually.
If you need help with the setup process, check out our guide on getting started with Surfshark. It includes detailed setup guides for all platforms and other useful information.
Want to protect your entire home network? Set up a VPN on a router! Just one router connection allows you to protect your household, securing all devices, even those that don’t have a VPN app.
