A VPN — or a Virtual Private Network – is a connection method that is used to add a layer of security and privacy to your internet connection. A personal VPN has become increasingly popular, especially as more interactions are made online. VPN’s protect your information by replacing your IP address with one from the VPN provider. Subscribers can obtain a VPN IP address from any Gateway city that the service provides. For example, if you’re located in Florida, you can have your VPN provider make it appear that you actually live in a different state — or even a different country.
A VPN provider allows you to hide your IP address, encrypt data transfers, mask your location, and enable access to blocked websites.
Benefits of VPN On Your Phone
More people are realizing that companies are interested in obtaining private consumer data by any means necessary. By gaining access to private data, large corporations can peddle and market-specific products and services. While it may look innocent at face value, this is a critical privacy issue — large corporations should not have access to sensitive and perhaps even confidential information from would-be buyers without their explicit consent.
A mobile VPN works by creating an authenticated, encrypted tunnel to pass data over a network. In the past couple of years, there have been VPN providers that provide a specific service for mobile users since they are a unique challenge. Unlike a desktop or a laptop that is largely static and has a constant Internet connection from the same provider, mobile users are a lot more volatile — they constantly have a changing endpoint connection. Sometimes mobile users will change Wi-Fi providers, rely on mobile networks, frequently lose connection, or move from a public Wi-Fi to a secure connection. Thankfully, third-party providers like Surfshark recognize these “roaming” challenges, putting a spotlight on the unique benefits of the VPN for mobile users.
Enhanced security. Accessing open networks will put your phone at risk. This is due to hackers who are actively logging or surveilling your surfing habits. A VPN will instantly make this a non-issue thanks to encryption. Before data is sent out, the VPN service will cloak it with an encryption algorithm that cannot be deciphered. This makes it nearly impossible for the layman hacker to monitor your usage. Not only that, but spying eyes will not be able to decipher the origin of the data due to the VPN service anonymizing all outgoing information.
Unblocking restricted sites and content. Perhaps you like to watch YouTube videos or Netflix from a different region. However, you cannot easily do that with most streaming services since the services are geo-locked. A VPN service will allow you to access movies from other countries, choose a server, and stream from your favorite foreign streaming sites.
Access to files and accounts from anywhere. Since mobile devices can be taken anywhere, that means that they can be taken from country to country. Unfortunately, you will be subjected to that country’s content laws. While in the United States you have the liberty to essentially go on to any website without any sort of government intervention, that may not be true if you visit another country. International content laws may prevent watching certain movies or TV shows, downloading specific apps, or block whole websites altogether.
Accessing streaming services in another country with a VPN installed on your phone is as easy as logging in and accessing your content.
About Surfshark Mobile VPN
Surfshark is a relative newcomer to the VPN industry. It offers a standard VPN service with certain features that differentiates it from other VPN services.
Surfshark offers ad-blocking support. There’s also P2P support on its servers, and the ability of fusion of two servers for one hop, split tunneling, and zero-knowledge DNS servers. The zero-knowledge DNS servers mean that not even Surfshark can track users, offering an additional layer of privacy. This means that in the off-chance that Surfshark is subpoenaed or investigated by a government agency, they won’t have any sort of records to provide. With the help of Surfshark, you have access to private DNS on each server to reduce tracking. Double VPN hop means that incoming data can be cloaked to look like you are in a different state or country, and outgoing data will be encrypted and anonymized to look like it is coming from a whole different country. This makes it particularly difficult for spies to spy on you.
Surfshark has a dedicated best VPN app for android for easy installation on mobile devices.
