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All you need to know about VPN and how they works

The internet is constantly monitored and every activity passes through the magnifying glass of government organizations, private groups and cybercriminals. We have seen that it is possible to partially protect privacy by hiding your IP using a Proxy server. But we also said that proxies don’t guarantee anonymity, and that the best alternative is to use a VPN to browse incognito.

Today we will go into this last aspect. We will see together how a VPN works, which are the safest protocols and therefore how to choose the best VPN.

How a VPN works: Types of VPNs

First of all we can make a distinction based on the type. We can distinguish three types of VPN, in particular the Trusted VPN, Secure VPN and Hybrid VPN.

Without getting into too complex technicalities, let’s try to see what the differences are in general.

Trusted VPNs are primarily concerned with communication. They usually require special contracts between the ISP and the company. Companies that use a Trusted VPN want to have the confidence that their data moves through a series of paths that have specific properties and that are controlled by an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Initially, the Trusted VPNs traveled on a telephone line, while lately and more and more often, they use the internet as a means of connection.

Secure VPNs were created with the aim of creating secure connections over the internet. Communication within the virtual network takes place by encrypting and encapsulating the VPN protocol within the internet protocol. This encrypted traffic acts as a “tunnel” between two networks (so-called encrypted tunnel).

Finally, there are the Hybrid VPNs that we can define as the fusion between Secure VPN and Trusted VPN.

How a VPN ensures anonymity

To ensure anonymity, a VPN creates an encrypted tunnel between you and the destination server, obscuring your IP address and replacing it with that of one of its servers.This way, no one will be able to access your connections and communications. Your ISP, hackers, government agencies and any other entity will not be able to monitor your online activities.

Of course, the more robust the encryption protocol used, the greater the protection offered by the encrypted tunnel. But to better understand how a VPN works, let’s see which are the main protocols used.

How a VPN works: Protocols

A VPN protocol determines how your data is routed between your computer and the VPN server.

There are several ways in which data is encrypted and transmitted. The technology has improved over time, making protocols more and more secure. To understand how a VPN works, it is important to know what protocol it uses.Commercial VPN services usually support a variety of protocols. Let’s see which are the most relevant:

PPTP

PPTP (Point to Point Tunneling Protocol) was developed by Microsoft to encapsulate another protocol called PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol). Of all the VPN protocols, PPTP is one of the first protocols and is among the most popular, easy to install and computationally fastest. However, it is subject to severe security vulnerabilities.

It can be fine to hide the real identity in situations where security is not essential. However, it is better to choose other VPN protocols.

SSTP

SSTP (Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol) is a tunneling protocol developed by Microsoft and is present in all Windows versions from Vista onwards. It can be considered the successor of PPTP. It uses SSLv3-based encryption, so it can also be used on networks protected by firewalls. However, it is a closed protocol and past suspicions of contacts between Microsoft and the NSA do not make it totally reliable.

L2TP / IPsec

L2TP (Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol) is a protocol that only provides a tunneling service and does not deal with encryption or automatic authentication. But this gap is filled by another protocol, called IPsec, used in conjunction with L2TP.

IPsec (Internet Protocol security) is a very flexible protocol for end-to-end security, which authenticates and encrypts every IP packet of a given communication. IPsec is used in a wide variety of internet-level applications.

IKEv2 / IPsec

IKEv2 (Internet key exchange version 2) is a tunneling protocol developed by Microsoft and Cisco, which is usually paired with IPsec for encryption. It offers a wide range of benefits, such as the ability to automatically restore the VPN connection when the internet is lost.

It is an excellent choice for Smartphone users who frequently switch from their home Wi-Fi connection to the mobile network or use different hotspots, thanks to the Mobility and Multi-homing protocols that make network exchange very simple.

It provides high-level encryption standards, stability and super-high speed performance.

OpenVPN

OpenVPN is an open source protocol developed to create encrypted tunnels. Among the various protocols, it is the most recommended. It takes advantage of SSLv3 / TLSv1-based encryption protocols and the OpenSSL library.

The fact that it is open source represents a big advantage in terms of transparency, reliability and security. Any security holes in the code – which no one knows yet – can be identified and corrected by the open source community.

What is the best protocol?

Of course, my advice is to use OpenVPN as a protocol. Among other things, it is present in almost all providers and is used by default by the most famous, such as iTopVPN.

Now that you have a clearer idea of ​​how a VPN works, you can start choosing and download vpn gratis, the right provider. The one that can guarantee you the right level of anonymity.

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