How VPNs Work

Written By Marissa Fegan (Super Administrator)

Updated at May 26th, 2020

This article details how virtual private networks (VPNs) protect you.

How VPNs Work

The Basics

A VPN service works by establishing a secure encrypted connection between your device and our VPN servers and then sending data through it to the internet. An encrypted connection is scrambled/nonsense to everyone else but your device and our server.

There are two primary reasons a VPN service is used:

Prevent your Internet Service Provider (ISP), hotspot provider, or anyone else connected between you and our servers from knowing what you are doing online
Access region-restricted content or hide your device's actual location

What your ISP sees

Your ISP can still track when you use the Internet and how much data you use, but they can't tell what you are doing or what websites you are attempting to access. All they can see is that you are accessing our server. They may know that our server is used for VPN access, but they have no idea what websites are accessible by our servers.

Why is it important to know what your ISP can see and can't see? If your ISP limits how much you can download per month, or throttles speeds based on overall usage, you would still be affected by those things as your ISP can still see your usage.

What Part of the Link is Protected?

A VPN service protects data between you and the VPN server - not between the VPN server and the destination.

Why does this matter? The destination server (ex. google.com) will see your access as coming from our VPN server and not your home computer. However, no matter how much protection there is, if you use a username and password that is associated with your real ID/name/address etc, then that website would still know who you are despite accessing their service from a different location. In other words, you should *not expect* a website to not track what you do if you use personally identifiable information.

Protection

A VPN service will not prevent all forms of Malware/Trojans/Viruses.

Your computer is certainly less susceptible to them for the single reason that anyone outside of our VPN service will not be able to obtain direct contact with your computer unless your computer calls out to them first. However, please note that almost all Viruses/Malware/Trojans are downloaded from the Internet via email or a website. Our VPN service does not actively block anything. In addition, most forms of Malware and Trojans (some select Viruses too) will call out from your computer and initiate communication first, which our VPN cannot stop but our Advanced Security suite will.

Why should you care? A computer that is slowed down due to Malware is frustrating. A computer that is compromised with a Trojan can hurt you financially if your financial records are compromised. A computer that is taken down by a virus is useless. You still need to have proper protection on your computer to combat these things. It's the same idea as getting a flu vaccination: you may not need it, but if you ever do - you'll be glad you have it. So always be sure that your internet-enabled device always has VIPRE Advanced Security installed to ensure a safer browsing experience.

Speed

A VPN will typically not increase your speed to a specific server.

Why? Because when you connect to any website, your data has to cross several intersections or what we call "hops". When you connect to a VPN server, you add more hops; therefore, the distance the data has to travel gets longer. If you connect to a server that is far away, then this will be more noticeable. If you connect to a server that is closer to home, this will be less noticeable. A good example is trying to get video from someplace across the world. Do not expect High-Definition to work from half-way across the world just because you can get it locally from your news station.

However, in certain cases, it is possible to obtain a better route to a destination server using our service. It's the same concept as using a GPS to re-route around a traffic jam. In those cases, you will find that even though the route itself is longer, you can make better time. The only caveat to this is that if the "traffic jam" is really close to the destination (ex. google.com), then nothing is going to help get a better connection to it.

VIPRE Security Knowledge

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