Whether you are concerned about your online privacy or just want to access sites and services blocked in your country – Netflix, Spotify and the like – a VPN (virtual private network) can solve your problem. A VPN service establishes a secure connection between your computer or mobile device and remote servers, and routes the data to the internet through it. This type of secure connection will hide your online activity from the eyes of your internet service provider (ISP), Wi-Fi hotspot provider or anyone else connected between the user and the VPN servers.
The VPN market is pretty crowded with both free and paid VPN services available, so don’t just jump on the first offer. It is also recommended to be careful with free services since they might install unwanted toolbars or third party apps. The best thing to do before choosing a VPN service is to read the terms and conditions and be aware of its limits.
VPN services aren’t designed to protect you from the government’s eyes, malware or cybercriminals targeting website vulnerabilities. Instead, they protect the most vulnerable piece of the puzzle between you to your destination. VPNs have been around for decades, and Apple has supported standard VPN methods since the very early versions of macOS, and has built in native support into iOS as well. VPN was originally designed to allow remote workers to securely connect to an enterprise’s network, regardless of their physical location.
Regardless of which type of Mac user you are, a VPN service is always welcome. Just consider the key advantages it offers: with such a connection it is possible to access websites and media without geo-location restrictions, as well as hide your online activity from the prying eyes of your ISP. As you may already know, when you connect to the internet your device is given an IP address. Your public IP address identifies your connected device, which in turn allows servers to collect relevant data about you such as your ISP, your organization, or the state, region, city and country you’re browsing from. That enables advertisers to serve up ads tailored to you and means service providers can set up a digital fence that prevents users in specific areas from accessing services with copyrighted content such as Netflix or Spotify.
Also, a VPN means it is possible to use public Wi-Fi safely – you’ve obviously heard plenty of horror stories about users being hacked while using public hotspots – since it shields your online activity from hackers looking for new victims.
A VPN service hides your real IP address, opening the door to services, websites and platforms that were previously blocked because of your physical location. Netflix, for example, has declared war on customers using VPNs, despite willingly accepting their credit cards.
One of the reasons why users turn to VPN services is to download torrents anonymously. To understand why you should use a VPN for torrenting, it’s good to have an idea of how torrents work. As you may already know, torrents can only be downloaded by using a dedicated client such as BitTorrent or uTorrent. To download a movie, for example, you first need to download a torrent file, which you’ll then add to your torrent client.
A torrent file is a computer file containing metadata about shared files and folders, as well as the network locations of trackers. These are computers that help participants in the system to find each other and form efficient distribution groups called swarms.
The torrent file doesn’t contain the actual content to be distributed, just information about those files such as their names, sizes, folder structure, and so forth. The BitTorrent protocol makes it easy for many people to access the same file by enabling peer-to-peer networking among people: it divides each file into pieces so that when a download request arrives, the computer requesting the file doesn’t have to access a central distribution hub but instead asks for the pieces located on multiple computers in the network, the swarm.
Although widely popular among internet users – as it gives free access to information – one weakness of this system is that every torrent peer can see your IP address and location. You can address this using a VPN service, which hides your IP address.
When using a VPN for torrenting purposes, it is better to use the L2TP or OpenVPN protocols and skip PPTP, because the latter offers little protection. Another important factor is server selection, as VPN services usually offer a wide variety of servers to choose from. If you want the best torrenting experience, then you should either select Switzerland, the Netherlands or Spain.
A good torrenting or streaming user experience is achieved only by using the best VPN service, so we have selected the top three for your consideration. All these suggestions are paid for services, but they are well worth the price to protect your privacy.
IPVanish made a strong entrance as a VPN service provider in 2012, long before VPNs became so common, and it’s been further improving its service ever since. Fundamentally, this solution specializes in providing customers with secure and encrypted internet connections across all devices.
Offering customers an impressive 2,200 servers worldwide to choose from, IPVanish is both comprehensive and reliable. It’s also one of the few VPN providers that manage a big portion of its infrastructure in-house, owning 80% of its servers and only using self-developed software for its service. This reduces the company’s reliance on third parties, making it an even more trustworthy option.
As one of the strongest VPNs on the market, IPVanish also boasts a vast range of features that not only provide faster speeds but also permit a custom encryption level and all other elements of a VPN connection. With prices starting as low as $2.99 per month, users certainly get a lot for their money.
PureVPN has more than 6,000 servers worldwide with reliable, secire, and uninterrupted connections, compatibility with over 50 devices, and excellent customer service.
Prices start as low as $2.11 per month for the VPN, and those willing to pay a little more can get their hands on a password manager, file encryption, and personal privacy manager – all under the same subscription. Plus, with a 7-day free trial, 31-day money-back guarantee, add-ons, and discounts of up to 83%, it would be a mistake not to consider PureVPN as a viable option.
With an extensive server network spanning 105 countries, apps for all major platforms, and even extra security tools like an ad blocker, ExpressVPN delivers all you need for a private and secure online experience.
The software is easy to use across all devices, and the speed trumps many of its competitors, making it one of the fastest VPNs on the market. Android and iOS customers can make the most of a 7-day free trial with unlimited bandwidth and everyone can enjoy three months for free when opting for annual billing.
There’s nothing wrong with not wanting to pay for a VPN, especially when there are plenty of free services available. Still, there’s that classic idiom you should keep in mind while using them: there is no such thing as a free lunch. If you are using any of the free VPN services, you become the product since these providers collect data about you and your activities. This data is then sold to third party vendors and/or advertisers. Or, the worst-case scenario, such services can open up backdoor access to your system for cybercriminals. You might have heard about Hola, an ultra-popular browser extension used by many to access services such as Hulu and Netflix.
Or, perhaps even worse than that, you might get scammed with a sneaky subscription using a ‘free’ app, such as paying $400 per month for a service that does nothing but just uses the oldest trick in the book to scare you and force you into coughing up the money. Just an example: a scam VPN app allowed onto the iOS App Store managed to earn $80,000 per month despite being full of grammatical errors.
The best way to select a VPN service for Mac is to make use of a free trial with a provider offering limited free accounts ahead of unlocking their premium paid VPN accounts so you can enjoy a service without paying. To help you out, we’ve picked two VPN companies for you.
Hide.me is a VPN service provided by the Malaysian based company eVenture Ltd. Founded in late 2012, they have a strong international focus, which is also why their site is available in German next to English. Although it’s apparent the company has a European edge, they offer their complete VPN package to customers from across the world. A great number of protocols are available for use including SoftEther, and service comes with incredible speed and superb security. Their 85 servers across 23 countries further suggest their global involvement, with three of these servers also offering proxies. In other good news, P2P-based downloads are supported on most of their locations. Rather than offering a free trial account limited in time, Hide.me provides anyone with a forever-free account with up to 2GB of bandwidth each month so you can try it for as long as you want. Upgrading from the free plan to Hide.me’s most complete Premium plan that offers a complete solution is quite pricey, but with the special 35% discount deal the pricing comes down to an affordable $7.58 per month.
Windscribe is a VPN service founded in Ontario, Canada, having launched its service in April of 2015. It provides you full access to those blocked websites you want to visit, but that you are unable to reach due to region blocks for your location. With Windscribe you can virtually travel with your anonymous IP from Hong Kong to the U.S. without leaving you house. All you need to do is download the app – whether you want it on your PC, Mac, smartphone or any other system (there is also a browser extension) – and then create an account. What makes Windscribe different is that there is no misleading information, making everything easy to use. Furthermore, it features an ad block and social network and website tracking preventions. With regards to the pricing, there is an option to create a free account, or you can go ahead and try a monthly or a yearly subscription of $7.50 per month at its lowest. You are eligible to request a refund up to 3 days after purchase, which makes it possible to try Windscribe Pro without any risk.
For advanced (or those struggling to fill their free time) users, there is another option to consider: open source VPN clients. Available for all major desktop operating systems, macOS included, open source VPN clients can use a VPN service provider’s standard OpenVPN configuration files to connect using that protocol.
However, the setup process of an open source VPN client such as Tunnelblick, OpenVPN or freelan is more complicated and time consuming compared to a custom VPN client such as IPVanish or SaferVPN. With the latter two VPN clients, you need only to download their Mac app and enter your credentials and you are good to go.
But there are other things to consider when choosing between an open source and bespoke VPN client. While open source clients generally work very well, they don’t include the handy features offered by paid service providers. For example, the convenience of having the necessary configuration files built into the Mac app is complemented by features such as a VPN kill switch to ensure full protection while connected to the internet, DNS leak protection or port forwarding.
Does it matter? Since you are putting all your trust into the hands of a VPN service provider, a third party that will handle all your traffic, it is important to use a provider that you can trust and that doesn’t keep logs of your activity.
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