By now it is a well-established fact: the privacy protection and the defense of our personal data are the main topics of discussion within the agenda of Internet users. Those same topics that more than others capture attention – as it is logical that it is – and stimulate debates and discussions. In fact, when you browse online, you constantly run the risk that your activities and the data you enter in the various forms could be intercepted and exploited by third parties for the most varied purposes.
Or, if our computer or our data connection are not being attacked, we are under the constant threat of suffering a data breach: i.e. the theft of sensitive information suffered by the managers of the services to which we are registered. In this second case we can do very little if not use a VPN, which allows us to keep our information private while we surf the Net.
VPN, for example, can come in handy when connecting to Wi-Fi hotspots in hotels or public places. Or when an Internet site uses an HTTP protocol instead of HTTPS. A suitable tool for comparing some of these offers, including free (or trial) offers is, for example, Wizcase, comparison and evaluation site dedicated to VPN solutions: starting from the highest levels, with maximum security and efficiency up to the extreme compromise in the free offer.
But why not trust free VPNs? In reality, the answer to this question is simpler than expected. First of all, when creating a VPN service there are very high costs involved. Trivially it is necessary to create the technical infrastructure, installing (or renting) servers in sufficient numbers to manage the possible network traffic generated.
Then you have to pay for that same traffic: the passage of data packets over the fiber backbones is not free and whoever manages a VPN has to pay for the bandwidth occupied and consumed. In short, it is an expensive business and, as in life… so in virtual reality, nobody ever gives anything away. Not even on the internet. For this reason, if and when a completely free vpn service, alarm bells should start ringing because in all likelihood the price we are paying is much higher than any subscription to a VPN service… which we will pay in the most expensive “currency”. That of our data and our personal information.
But what are VPNs and how do they work? Acronym of Virtual Private Network, the VPN is a software platform capable of creating a kind of "smoke screen" which protects our online activities. As? Obviously with the help of cryptography. VPNs create what is technically called crypto tunnel: outgoing and incoming data packets from our computer are first encrypted and then sent to the servers of the VPN manager, which in turn directs the requests to the servers containing the web resources we need. Easy, simple, guaranteed and above all, keep this in mind: not free.
