VPN: The Definitive Guide

It’s a complete guide into Virtual Private Network.

So if you want to:

• learn everything about Virtual Private Network,
• find out how to use VPN,
• know how to unblock sites 

… you’ll like the descriptions and tips in this guide. But if you want to choose a reliable service right now, read our reviews of Free VPN and Best VPN.

Without further ado, let’s dive in VPN right now.

• What is a VPN and its meaning?
• How does a VPN work?
• How to start using VPN?
• Network security with VPN
• What is OpenVPN?
• What is PPTP?
• What is IPSec?
• TCP vs UDP
• Easy setup of VPN
• How to hide your IP address?
• VPN to unblock sites
• Watching Netflix from other countries
• Conclusion

What is a VPN and its meaning?

Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a channel between your smartphone or computer and a VPN server.

With the help of the channel, you connect to a configured server which may be located anywhere in the world (wherever the Internet is available ☺), and it is getting your ‘’reflection’’. From now on, everything you see on the Internet, you see with the ‘’eyes’’ of the server. All websites visited via VPN will consider the server to be you.

In other words, VPN may be defined as a technology that is used to create a logical network connection over another network. The connection may be both encrypted and unencrypted. This article is only about protected secure VPNs on the Internet as most of the VPN networks use an open reliable technology called OpenVPN working with the OpenSSL library (Read our dedicated article with the hacks on how to choose a secure free VPN). OpenSSL represents the most modern methods for reliable encryption and protection of the channel.

Do you think it’s complicated?

No, not in 2019! Nowadays one can start using VPN in one minute, even without any experience.

So what does VPN mean?

It’s data protection, anonymity on the network, unblocking sites, bypassing regional restrictions, staff members’ access to the internal network of the company in a remote way.

Read further and you will learn about everything.

How does a VPN work?

The VPN software is downloaded and launched online.

To go in-depth, it works like this:

Your device, for example your Internet-enabled smartphone, gets connected to the VPN server. Indeed, the authentication takes place with the help of the certificate created in advance. After a successful connection, a virtual network is created.

Before your traffic goes through the tunnel, it is encrypted with a special pre-configured algorithm. Then going out of your device, the encrypted traffic goes via the tunnel to a VPN server.

The server contacts the requested Internet resource, traffic is decrypted and reaches the resource in an unencrypted way.

The same way it goes backward: the traffic from the website is unencrypted, then it gets encrypted and transferred via the tunnel to you where it is decrypted.

The process takes instantaneously, and in most cases, you won’t notice any loss of internet speed (of course, if you use a good fast VPN like Whoer VPN).

Be sure you choose the fastest VPN if you want to stream video or play online games. For any other purposes, servers with at least 20-50 Mbit/s are enough.

For example, you are in the public Wi-Fi zone and use VPN. Thus, you create a VPN tunnel between you and a VPN server.

Let’s say a criminal is going to intercept your logins and passwords using the vulnerability of public Wi-Fi. He gets access to you traffic, but it happens on the encrypted part of the connection, that’s why nothing can be done by the criminal. The traffic is encrypted in a reliable way and is useless for the criminal.

How to start using VPN?

There are two ways: create your own VPN server and configure all necessary devices for connecting with it or use the services of free, free trial, or paid VPN services.

You’ll be able to configure your own VPN if you have a dedicated server and experience of its configuring. You will need the technologies of NAT, routing and firewall.

Still, it is easier to start using a VPN service online. For this, you won’t need any configurations on your server or device (especially, if you want to use VPN on Mac or Windows 10).

Good VPN providers offer apps compatible with PC, Mac, Android, iOS, and Linux, router configurations and other devices. Their setup process is quite easy. Besides, you’ll be able to use 3 and more devices simultaneously.

Set up a VPN app offered by the VPN provider you chose and start using VPN in one click.

What’s more, following the detailed instructions, you’ll be able to configure VPN even on ps4.

Prefer VPNs with lots of positive expert and user reviews (like TouchVPN).

We recommend you to use a paid or free trial VPN. Only this way, you’ll be able to get protected from malware, data leaks, and obtrusive advertising.

Read further about free VPN services here.

A detailed review of free trial VPN services is here.

Network security with VPN

Sometimes companies configure their own network. It’s convenient for safe data sharing among staff members, protection from sensitive data leaks and Internet danger.

In order to avoid additional wiring, it’s enough to combine all working servers and computers connected to the network. Then you need to choose the entry point (server) and configure it to be able to get connected to the company’s network via the server from anywhere.

In such a way, network security in a company, opportunity to work remotely and the highest level of information safety are achieved.

But there is a disadvantage – restricted network speed. It will directly depend on the Internet speed and using protocols (types of protocols).

You can even combine several isolated networks and make several entry points. In fact, there is a great number of network combinations, mobile devices, and computers connected to VPN for network security. At home, you’ll be able to launch you own VPN network with the help of a Wi-Fi router. If you configure VPN on your Wi-Fi, all devices connected to it will go to the Internet via a VPN tunnel, configure between your router and a VPN server.

Before you start using VPN, let’s dive in details of the types of VPN protocols. You need to know it to be able to configure your own Virtual Private Network. This information is not so important if you use the apps of popular services as the necessary configurations are automated.

In China and Egypt, you may have problems with blocking of VPN servers configured for OpenVPN and other popular protocols (Read more about Green VPN, one of blocked services in China).

Be sure you contact your VPN service’ s support specialists to find out more about it.

What is OpenVPN? 

I think OpenVPN is the best VPN protocol nowadays. There’s only one disadvantage: it’s an open-source project that’s why it’s necessary to set up third-party software. But if you use a VPN service, OpenVPN software is configured along with the service setup.

To encrypt traffic, OpenVPN uses the cryptographic OpenSSL library with all its broad options.

The protocol is characterized by a high-speed operation and reliability; it’s a standard protocol for commercial VPN services. OpenVPN regularly performs audits of security.

Earlier, OpenVPN didn’t work on mobile platforms without root access. Currently, there are third-party apps that have eliminated the problem.

Nevertheless, you won’t be able to use OpenVPN on iPhones and iPads, because there are serious problems connected with unstable performance of the iOS apps when combined with OpenVPN.

We recommend you to use OpenVPN if you have such an opportunity. It’s one of the most reliable VPN protocols in 2019.

What is PPTP

PPTP – is not safe enough to create a secure VPN tunnel.

Prior to cheap and reliable VPN providers, many users couldn’t configure the OpenVPN tunnel. That is why they used PPTP protocol which was hardwired into the previous Windows versions (before Windows Vista and Windows 7 appeared).

2 connections are required in order for it to work. The first one is necessary to create the tunnel and the second one – to support it. It leads to limited tunneling facilities (PPTP is easy to detect and block). It has insufficient capacity for traffic encryption. Besides, PPTP had some security vulnerabilities.

The protocol is old-fashioned and doesn’t meet modern security demand.

Use PPTP only as a last resort when other protocols don’t work.

What is IPsech

IPsec is one more protocol used for VPN. It is mainly used for gadgets running on iOS.

When a server is customized correctly, it is as reliable as OpenVPN. However, IPsec is behind OpenVPN in speed.

If your device is not running on iOS, you’d better use OpenVPN protocol. IPsec is slow, and it’s implemented not secure enough on some VPN servers.

TCP vs UDP

Be convinced it’s the last boring chapter:) Considering that VPN is web-based, the technology it uses is much like Internet technology.

TCP and UDP are used for data transfer on the Internet.

TCP is reliable but slow data transmission method. Protocol data unit inspection is presupposed. It’s used for the majority of resources – websites.

UDP is a very fast data transmission method, but it lacks the facility to monitor and check errors occurred during the transmission process. This method is used to stream video, use Voice Over IP apps, play many online games and etc.

VPN tunnel might be used to encapsulate traffic into both protocols. But which one to choose? Fast or reliable? TCP or UDP? The answer is UDP. But what about reliability? – you would ask. It’s quite simple – VPN software itself controls the correctness of data packets transmitting. And dealing with TCP network, the control takes place on each node used for traffic transfer. And in case there is half of the world between you and a VPN server, it is a problem.

The exception is provided by the cases when a tunnel through UDP cannot be created. Then TCP should be used.

As far as data and sensitive information security is concerned, the methods are identical, as both UDP and TCP transmit encrypted traffic through VPN.

If you configure VPN yourself, use UDP. In case there is a long distance between you and a VPN server, there will be a significant speed drop when using TCP.

Easy setup of VPN

We’ll answer the question “How to set up a VPN?” throughout this chapter. The most obvious and efficient method is to make use of a VPN service. Or you can try another method – build your own VPN with OpenVPN.

If the only aim to configure your own VPN on Android or Mac is to save on VPN subscription, don’t do it. You’ll require a dedicated server, which is 10-100 times more expensive as compared with the average VPN service price in 2019. In so doing, you’ll have only one VPN location. You’ll need a new dedicated server for each location.

When opting for services, you’ll start using VPN in 1-3 minutes. Apart from it, you’ll get access to several hundred servers all over the world. Besides, you have an opportunity to use several gadgets at once.h

We recommend using VPN services. It’s more convenient, simpler and safer, in general than a VPN configured by your own.

To set up a VPN, you are to download and install the app/soft of the chosen VPN service and launch it (good VPN providers offer soft for PC, Mac OS, Android, iOS and Linux). Done! You’ll manage to connect/disconnect to/from the VPN, choose a location and use many other additional services.h

Want to study an example of a VPN setup?

No problem! Look through the setup procedure for Hoxx VPN.

Don’t use VPN services which don’t provide ready-made apps for mobile platforms. It’s inconvenient, and as a rule, such services are of poor quality.

If you still want to configure your own VPN, read here.