While most of our resources pertain to businesses, this page is about personal VPNs
Tech Horse Electronics believes privacy is an inherit right of being born human. This is why we created this page.
About VPNs
By now you have probably heard something about VPNs or Virtual Private Networks especially since so many jobs in 2020 have gone to a work from home position. When working remotely businesses run into two problems:
The first is that data needs to be shared between the remote party and the business headquarters, most businesses in the modern age have abandoned the old method of horse and rider in favor of the internet. This however creates the second problem: The internet is incredibly dangerous for important information. So much so that it could be compared to a soldier carrying an important message from behind enemy lines.
The solution to the second problem is most commonly resolved using a VPN. VPNs offer varying levels and types of encryption for data being transferred over the internet. All that anyone trying to view the data being transferred will see will be incomprehensible.
What About Personal VPNs?
VPNs for personal use work on the same principles as a business VPN with some differences. The main purpose of a personal VPN is to hide your data from everybody including your VPN provider whereas a business VPN only makes a tunnel between you and your business headquarters.
Generally speaking a personal VPN will begin by encrypting your data on your device and sends it to a server somewhere in the world owned by the VPN provider. From that server your data will be sent to the website that you go to. In the process of doing this your IP address will be changed to the IP address of the server you are using.
Why do you need a VPN?
It's not even a secret anymore that tech companies, governments, and malicious actors are actively spying on what we do on the internet. Some parties are selling your data to deliver creepy personal adds. Some are trying to keep track of everything you do online in case you are ever called to court. Lastly some are trying to steal your information for extremely malicious reason such as identity theft, or gaining access to your online banking account.
A good VPN will encrypt your data so that these third parties no longer have access to it. It will protect your privacy, as well protect you from hackers.
What should I look for when choosing a VPN provider?
There is a few things to look for and a few things to watch out for when choosing a VPN provider. I will outline some key points when choosing a VPN provider.
Don't use free VPN services
Any VPN service that is free is almost certainly selling your data or of very poor quality. High quality VPN services are expensive to run and time and time again free VPN services have been exposed for selling your data to third parties.
Choose a VPN service with a good reputation
A good reputation is critical for a service that is keeping your data confidential. Think of it this way if you were in court would you rather be defended by a public defender or a reputable lawyer known for winning cases?
Make sure the VPN service offers a strong encryption method
While there is other encryption methods that are unbreakable, AES-256 is currently the industry standard.
Choose a VPN that has a strict no-log policy
The main purpose of a VPN is to protect your privacy and data. Logs such as the amount of data transferred in a period of time may seem very useless to the average person, but to data miners it is incredibly useful information and overtime can even be used to pinpoint you which completely nullifies the VPNs purpose of protecting you!
Choose a VPN with fast servers
One downfall to using a VPN is that it will slow down your internet connection to some degree. This is by nature because before your data goes to the website you just clicked it first has to go to the VPN server. Some VPN servers are just plain slow often because their servers are overloaded with too much traffic. Reputable VPN services will have reviews telling whether or not they offer speedy servers.
Choose a VPN that is legally located in a jurisdiction that does not force the service to keep logs
VPN services that are legally located in some countries are required by law to keep a certain amount of information about their clients. This can(and often is) exploited by governments as well as the malicious entities of the internet.
Choose a VPN that is easy to use
Privacy should be easily accessible plain and simple. Privacy shouldn't only be available to advanced users but rather to everyone instead.
What VPN service do you recommend?
We recommend NordVPN as it passes all of the checks on what to look for in a VPN provider. Here are some features NordVPN offers:
-Located in Panama, which has no data retention laws — this means NordVPN can legally follow a strict no-logs policy to ensure users’ privacy and security
-Risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee
-No bandwidth or data limits for VPN traffic
-Can connect 6 devices to one NordVPN account at the same time
-Military-grade AES-256-GCM encryption using only the most secure protocols: OpenVPN (UDP and TCP), IKEv2/IPSec, NordLynx (based on WireGuardⓒ)
-Comes with CyberSec, which blocks dangerous websites and annoying ads
-24/7 customer support (live chat, email, ticket system)
-Customizable kill switch (can shut down individual processes or the internet connection)
-5,000+ servers in 60+ countries (the numbers are constantly growing) — biggest server network for VPNs on the planet. The large number of servers helps distribute traffic and guarantees fast, smooth VPN connections
-Dedicated P2P servers
-Offers Double Encryption servers for extra privacy and security