VPNs, or Virtual Private Networks, protect your information from anyone who might be spying on you, giving you an extra layer of privacy while you are browsing the internet. VPNs work by creating an encrypted tunnel through which your online activity travels, masking your IP address in the process, and keeping it, and other identifying information about you, away from prying eyes. However, most people don’t know that increased security and privacy measures aren’t the only uses of a VPN. Read on to find out about many other interesting ways you can utilize a VPN and make the most of the service you are subscribed to.
1. Commenting Safely and Anonymously
Many companies don’t like when their employees, or anyone else, write negative comments or reviews about their company. Some companies can even sue people for writing unfavorable reviews about their products or services on review sites such as Google Maps or on Yelp. By using VPN services, you are able to successfully hide your identity so you can write honest reviews and comments without fears of being identified and potentially sued.
2. Preventing Video Streaming Throttling
Some internet service providers throttle the internet of their subscribers by giving them internet speeds lower than the ones they paid for. You may notice this the most when you are streaming videos on Youtube or on any other streaming service, especially sites where you can watch videos at high quality. You can use your VPN to block your internet service provider from being able to throttle your internet speed as, in order to throttle certain websites, they have to be able to differentiate between websites they want to throttle and websites that they don’t. A VPN hides your internet traffic so that your internet service provider can’t separate websites into categories and, therefore, you are able to get the internet speed you paid for, free of throttling.
3. Speeding up your Online Gaming
Your internet service provider may also decide to throttle your internet coverage when you play online games as, just like with high definition video streaming, games use a lot of bandwidth. This is especially the case in multiplayer games that require a lot of content to be downloaded and uploaded. Using your VPN can help you speed up your online gaming by preventing internet throttling on your game websites.
4. Saving you Money on Travel
You can save a lot of money on travel with your VPN. In general, travel tickets such as plane tickets differ in price based on the location you are searching from. Switching on your VPN while making a booking can help you save money because some geographic locations receive higher price offers while others receive lower ones. It’s worth doing a bit of research and searching for the geographic locations that receive the cheapest prices before making a purchase.
5. Shopping from Another Location
The fact that your VPN can help you to shop from another location can be a useful trick for people who like to shop online till they drop, even while on vacation. If you are traveling abroad, you might find that you are redirected to the website of your new geographic location and are therefore unable to reach the country-specific website of your home country. This is frustrating if you are looking for a certain product only available on your home country’s website and want to make an order to your home address so that it’s ready to be received when you get home. You can get around this by using a VPN which allows you to access your local website as if you were back at home.
6. Increasing Video Content offered on Streaming Sites
Beyond offering you the typical safety and security, a cool function of your VPN is increasing your span of access to videos on the streaming sites you use. A VPN can allow you to access video content from servers of other countries that have more, or different content from the server you typically access. This is because video content on these websites is typically tailored for users from each region based on their interests. Technology experts at https://invpn.com recommend researching well and choosing a VPN with servers in locations that you wish to access content in. Using a good VPN can allow you to significantly expand the library of video content available to you, offering you access to the specific content you desire from anywhere in the world.
7. Accessing Streaming Websites While Travelling
Another interesting use of a VPN relating to streaming services is them giving you the ability to watch streaming services on an airplane or train, which is usually blocked by transportation companies. If you’ve ever paid for WiFi on a flight or train ride, you have probably discovered that your favorite video streaming websites are all blocked. This is because companies typically don’t want you to use up their entire bandwidth and take it away from others who are using it simultaneously. If you are someone who doesn’t find this fair, you can use your VPN to teleport your IP address anywhere else and allow access to all the videos you want to stream.
8. Accessing Regional Sports unavailable at your Location
Some VPNs can also help give you access to coverage of your favorite sports games that you might not be able to access from your current location. For example, if you are traveling abroad, outside of the United States, you might not be able to watch NBC and this can be a nightmare if an important game is on and you are unable to stream it anywhere else. Connecting to a VPN can help give you the required permissions to access the coverage as if you are at home. Another use of using your VPN to access sports content is to be able to watch commentaries from different countries that may have more in-depth or more interesting insights than those aired in your home country.
9. Taking Advantage of More Free Services
A lot of websites allow you to view a certain number of articles or to read a certain number of books for free per day or per month. Some allow you to stream only a specific number of songs or videos before you are charged. These websites are able to do this by tracking users’ IP addresses so using a VPN can help you get more out of these free services by giving your repeated access to free content. If you connect to your VPN and open the website in a new incognito browsing window, you’ll be treated like a brand new visitor and can have additional free access to the services you desire.
10. Masking your GPS Location
Although this use may not be purposeful to everyone, another interesting use of a VPN is the ability to spoof your geographic location. This can be used in games like Pokemon Go where you typically want to be at different locations to catch new pokemon that aren’t available at your current location. This isn’t just good for games though, using a VPN can also ensure that your location isn’t being tracked by any other app you are using, giving you a higher level of privacy. It can also be useful if you are traveling and don’t want anyone to know about your trip. However, we don’t recommend using it to hide your location on Find your Friends from your spouse!
11. Keeping your Online Chats Private
While you can download a secure messaging app, many applications on the market today don’t give you the end-to-end encryption you need to keep your conversations private from prying eyes. By switching on your VPN while chatting, you can make sure that no one is able to intercept your messages, allowing you to be as comfortable and open as possible in your conversations. VPNs can also help protect the content of calls you make using Voice over IP Services (VoIP) such as Skype and Facebook Messenger, though it’s important to note that they won’t work on your regular phone calls.
12. Beating Dynamic Pricing Algorithms
Websites create unique user profiles for visitors in order to employ dynamic pricing techniques, often through gathering cookies. Dynamic pricing is a technique used by businesses to implement flexible pricing based on various factors that tailor the price of an item to you personally. For example, a user might see a different price if they have looked at the product several times or if they spend a lot of time on the platform. Prices can also be tailored based on a user’s internet activity in general. For instance, if you spend a lot of time browsing and admiring products on luxury goods websites, this could cause a website to raise the price of the product you are browsing on their website. Using a VPN can beat this dynamic pricing algorithm technique, masking your identity and giving you a neutral user profile with typically lower prices that have not been specifically tailored to you.
Besides masking your identity and giving you a higher level of privacy while using the internet, a Virtual Private Network has many other interesting uses. This powerful technology can allow you to do many amazing things such as allowing you to comment anonymously without fear of getting in trouble, giving you access to more content on your video streaming services, and allowing you to spoof your GPS location online if you need to do so, among many other possibilities. So what are you waiting for? Subscribe to a good VPN service today and try all of these amazing tricks for yourself!
