Data in the age of the internet is king. Data tells everything about what you like, how you like it, and how often you go online to search. It’s the single most important footprint that you leave. Put together, it has untold value in the ballpark of trillions upon trillions of dollars. The thing is, every time we use our devices, that data is left open to be tracked, documented, and profited off of. That is unless we have a VPN.

What’s A VPN?

A Virtual Private Network or VPN is your protection against unwanted use of your data including your whereabouts, buying habits, and searching habits. With that comes a few tricks of the trade, or “secrets,” if you will. Here are some of the best-kept secrets that VPNs can offer right now.

Get Past Geoblock

If you’re from the West and you’re out to visit another country for whatever reason—let’s say you’re training Muay Thai in Bangkok, there might be some websites that you really can’t get to. Why? You’re geoblocked. If you’re an avid traveler, you might be familiar with that pesky: “this website is not available in your area.” It’s annoying and it’s unnecessary in the age of (somewhat) free information. To bypass that, you can use a VPN. You can try to rely on the one on your laptop, but usually, that doesn’t cut it. To get past this, industry leaders at NitroVPN made it so you aren’t geoblocked. It’s really simple. Find a VPN online that suits your needs. You can get past all that nonsense blocking and get to your favorite shows in between training sessions.

Private Information

Everything you do, everything you say, and everything you look at are monitored. Even if you feel as if you’re not doing anything weird on the internet, there is still sensitive information that you don’t want to give out to just anyone. Credit card information, for instance, can be accessed pretty much by anyone with the causes and loopholes. That’s not very comforting. Having a VPN allows you to keep all those eyeballs away from your personal information. Who is to say that the people running these data mining services aren’t capable of siphoning money from you? It would be near impossible to track and steal with a good VPN.

Cafe Hackers

If you’re on public WiFi, someone can definitely hack into your computer. You can be sitting and studying in a coffee shop, linked up to their free WiFi. Someone with very minimal hacking skills can get into your computer and start stealing information. It happens all the time in Airports and cafes. Having a VPN keeps those people from being able to get any sort of solid info on you by masking your IP address to make it look like you’re in a completely different country.

We’re glued to our devices. The way we use them, our habits are under total ownership by just a few companies. If you value your privacy and prefer that a government, corporation, or even a hacker doesn’t spy on you, you can do something about it.

About the Author

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Mirko Humbert

Mirko Humbert is the editor-in-chief and main author of Designer Daily and Typography Daily. He is also a graphic designer and the founder of WP Expert.