Virtual private networks, more commonly known as VPNs, have already found popularity in all walks of life that involve the internet. There’s no doubt that this technology is essential in keeping your online activity secure, private, anonymous, and protected from millions of cybercriminals that are lurking in the shadows.
While thousands of legit arguments fully support the use of a virtual private network, recently, there’s another reason that is making the news as well. The recent annulment of a U.S. regulation that prohibits internet service providers from selling information about individuals’ potentially sensitive web activity without their explicit permission has given important support to the use of virtual private networks in our daily lives.
Former United States Presidents Donald Trump approved the legislation abolishing the regulation on April 3. The decision was made after weeks of bitter campaigning by various privacy activists who termed this legislation “disgusting.” But this move by the former United States President promoted awareness around VPNs, which the tech-savvy has long been used.
VPNs have been useful friends for many internet users worldwide, especially those living in the countries such as Canada that have higher levels of government surveillance and censorship. Fret not, here are some of the best VPN for Canada by VPNRanks so our Canadian friends can remain anonymous and bypass internet censorship.
While it is true that your internet service provider doesn’t know what exactly you are doing on the internet with the virtual private network connection, that doesn’t mean it is unaware that you are using a VPN in the first place.
Your internet service provider only sees a string of highly encrypted data that can neither intercept nor decrypt. Still, with the recent internet service provider rule change, it is best to know a few ways by which you can easily defeat web tracking.
Defeating Trackers
Virtual private networks have always been the top choice when protecting your internet traffic from getting tracked. It is the most efficient way to keep your data from being tracked when using public Wi-Fi networks such as coffee shops, libraries, airports, or any other public place internet connection.
The biggest disadvantage of such networks is that everyone connected to that network can access your device and keep track of your internet activity.
There’s another way to prevent internet service providers from keeping track of the internet traffic, using encryption by web-based services. It works by creating a secure and encrypted connection to a website by using an SSL/TLS certificate.
The encrypted connection between the browser and the website is shown by a green padlock or with HTTPs at the beginning of the website address.
These HTTPs connections come with various advantages for internet users. Any internet data which is intercepted will be completely unreadable. Unfortunately, the internet service provider will still know which domains you visit.
ISP Locked out
By using a virtual private network, you are completely locking out your internet service provider, but the VPN provider would still know which websites you have visited.
Since most virtual private networks offer completely zero-log VPN policies and have headquarters located in countries outside the jurisdiction of 5-Eyes,9-Eyes, and 14-Eyes alliance, your internet traffic and personal information is completely safe and secure.
Unfortunately, there is another side of the coin as well. Using a virtual private network does come with its drawbacks. However, the best virtual private networks are subscription-based ones.
Since there’s high-level encryption involved in every VPN connection, don’t forget you may face slow browsing issues sometimes, especially when you are connecting to a virtual private network server located in the country farthest from your actual country.
Generally, as a rule of thumb, connecting to a virtual private network server located in a country closest to your actual country is highly recommended. To overcome this slow speed issue, many virtual private networks also deploy virtual servers in nearby countries to give you decent speed and the required IP address.
Opera’s VPN
Norwegian company Opera may have come up with one of the best ways to beat web tracking. Opera has introduced virtual private network services within its browser.
It reached out to a Canadian company called SurfEasy that offer virtual private network service to help them introduce this feature in their browsers.
Opera doesn’t have access to any of its users’ internet traffic. The number of Opera users has also doubled since the United States Congress abolished specific internet privacy protections laws.
The Onion Router
Using an onion router, more commonly known as Tor, is another way to beat web tracking. Available as a browser, Tor is a privacy tool that encrypts your internet traffic and routes it through multiple different servers located worldwide.
By using Tor’s network, your actual location, IP address, and identity will be completely hidden, and the internet will see the IP address of the last Tor server.
While it is free and offers robust encryption for your internet traffic, it is not fast. While it may not be as practical as other security tools, it is still one of the most popular tools that offer completely online security, privacy, and data protection.
Final Thoughts
So there you have it. Those are currently the best ways to beat ISP’s, hackers, cybercriminals, and even government agencies’ web tracking.
Tor browser, Opera VPN, and SSL/TLS certificate encryption are all decent options for protecting your internet traffic from being tracked and staying completely anonymous on the internet.
However, virtual private networks are still the most popular, used, and the best to obtain security, privacy, data protection, and anonymity.
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