What is a personal VPN?
In order to protect privacy and safeguard data, large corporations outfit their employees with company-backed VPNs. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) creates a secure tunnel between you and a safe server that encrypts and protects you and your information. Everyone needs this type of protection for using wireless hotspots, shared networks or any other internet access that is not completely controlled by the user. While large companies with paid IT staffing can easily create these services for their employees, a Personal VPN is a VPN service created for the average person.

Why do I need a personal VPN?
With the explosion of wireless hotspots and other forms of public internet access, the risk of hackers grabbing your data has become a major epidemic, driven by the sheer number of people out there using wireless hotspots, coupled with the ease of stealing your information. Software is easily obtained from various hacker web sites that allow even unskilled people to scan all the data across a network. When hacking was difficult and required great skill, you were pretty safe sitting at the local coffee shop, fast food restaurant or hotel and using the open wireless. The odds were with you because there were not many people out there with these skills. Now, anyone who wants it can downlad a wireless hacking kit. Anyone in the room could be scanning everyone's data. The Personal VPN solves this and other security issues -- once and for all.

Are all personal VPN's created equal?
There are several Personal VPNs available to the public today, ranging from free to very expensive. Resist the urge to use a free or very cheap VPN service. In exchange for providing the free service, you agree to let them look at your data for marketing purposes. In essence, you give them an exclusive license to look at your personal data. Considering your privacy is what you're striving for - the 'free' solution is not really a bargain.

Some services are built on insecure servers located in all sorts of locations. The thing that makes a VPN secure is knowing that the server you are connecting to is a secure server. If it's not, all of this encryption is useless. Anybody with the know-how can take a desktop computer at home and set up a VPN. They could even begin selling subscriptions to people. But all that would accomplish is a secure connection to a very insecure server.

Is all of this security really necessary?
A lot of people think that they are not doing anything on their computer that requires this level of security. Many think 'what are the odds anyone will be watching me?' or 'I have nothing to hide'. The fact is, if you send email or use instant messaging, people can read every word you write. If you knew someone was listening to your phone conversations, would you mind? If so, what makes your email and instant messaging, or social web site posts any different? As reported in many newspaper and magazine articles, including the Wall Street Journal, the threat of people hijacking your data is very real -- and growing. The personal VPN is about protecting yourself from those who think nothing of doing you great harm.

What other benefits does a personal VPN provide?
When you connect through a secure VPN, your IP address becomes the one of the trusted server you are connected to. Therefore, as you surf the internet, the owners of the websites you visit do not know who you are and cannot collect information on you based on your IP address. Web sites can no longer use your surfing habits to create targeted marketing databases, containing your information, and sell them to anyone willing to pay. Learn how to protect yourself online by reading our VPN  privacy article.

In addition, many places restrict access to where you can surf. When you connect through a personal VPN, you are able to unblock sites because all the requests are made from the remote server, outside the control of the local network owner. Many people living in foreign countries where their internet is limited use a personal VPN to unblock IP phone services and web sites -- thereby getting around those limitations.

A lot of people outside of the USA cannot access certain video and other web sites that are only available from American IP addresses. See how a USA IP address using a personal VPN can solve this problem.

NOTE!--Beware of vendors selling 'Personal VPN' services that use the PPTP protocol included with most operating systems. This protocol is flawed and is the cheap and easy way to do a VPN. If they are not using SSL encryption, like banks and credit card companies do, along with well known and tested software such as OpenVPN, steer clear! You can usually identify PPTP vendors by the advertising claim of  'no software required'. In our opinion, the only place a PPTP VPN makes sense is when using mobile phone devices that do not support any other encryption type.

Where do I get one?
We recommend this Personal VPN service. It is reliable and secure. They run multiple servers throughout the USA, Canada, Asia and Europe. Offering both TCP and UDP connections allows them to thwart blocking schemes that other vendors can't penetrate. Also offered is a PPTP service for mobile phones for situations where other, more robust, encryption methods are not available. Additionally, they provide multiple ports to access the VPN, further enhancing their ability to beat the web blocks. Finally, they change - and never repeat - their IP addresses often, making it very problematic for ISPs to block their IP address. This is a major flaw of other vendors who use fixed servers which often get blocked after a few weeks or months.