While you do need to set up any VPN you care to use on your Windows 10 computer, going through a manual set up process (as described in this piece) is entirely optional. Also, unless you're browsing HTTPS exclusively, you lose all the benefits of encryption once your traffic reaches the VPN server. A VPN also won't do much to protect your passwords, either, although TunnelBear does offer the RememBear password manager in addition to its VPN product. While some VPNs boast of blocking malware, you should still use standalone antivirus. VPNs are great, but they're not a cure-all for the security and privacy threats that ail the internet. While journalists and activists in repressive countries have used VPNs to avoid censorship in this way, you can also use a VPN to stream Netflix from outside the US-assuming that Netflix hasn't already blocked your particular VPN. You can even pretend to be somewhere else and spoof your location by connecting to a VPN in a different country. Your IP address is closely tied to your geographic location, so hiding it effectively prevents observers from figuring out where you are. The VPN server also hides your true location, because any observer monitoring your activities will see the VPN server's IP address and not your own.

Because your web traffic appears to be coming from the VPN server, correlating it to you is much more difficult than if you didn't have a VPN. When you use a VPN, advertisers and three-letter agencies will have a harder time tracking you across the web. Even your ISP will be effectively blinded when it comes to monitoring your traffic. If there's someone lurking on your network or, worse, the owner of the access point has configured it to steal information, they won't see a thing. Your web traffic travels through this tunnel, and it exits to the wide-open web from the VPN server to which you are connected. When you switch it on, a VPN creates an encrypted tunnel between your device and a server controlled by the VPN service. Read Next: The Best VPN Service for 2019.Best Hosted Endpoint Protection and Security Software.

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