Virtual private networks are essential to staying safe online — especially for remote workers and businesses. Here are your top choices in VPN service providers and how to get set up fast.
To find the best VPN service for your personal or business needs, you’ll need to compare brands, prices, features, and more. But first, you need to understand how a VPN accomplishes its primary mission: Keeping you safe and protecting your privacy online. Fundamentally, most VPNs (virtual private networks) provide two services: They encrypt your data between two points and they hide the IP address (from which a general location can be derived) where you’re located. For those traveling or out and about, the first function is critical because most Wi-Fi available publicly is unencrypted — so anyone on the network can see what you were sending. But VPNs also serve to hide your IP address, replacing the address logged on servers with one in a completely different location — even a different country.
