VPNs or virtual private networks are a great way to protect your privacy and expand what you can do remotely. Did you know you can even set up a VPN from your Android phone? By creating a secure dedicated tunnel between your phone and its destination your smartphone suddenly becomes a serious tool for both work and play.
Let’s have a look at five VPN hacks that let you get the most out of your Android smartphone.
1. Keeping Others Out of Your Business
We live in an age where it’s far too easy for people to spy on us digitally. Which sites you browse, the emails you send and much more can be snooped by people with the right equipment and know how.
With a VPN setup on your Android device you can encrypt the info you send and receive, ensuring that only the recipient sees the information. Most good VPN services don’t keep any user logs at all. So there should not be a trace of your activity.
If you live in a country like the USA where your browsing history may be legally sold, this may be the main reason to use a VPN.
2. Get Around ISP Speed Limits
Depending on where in the world you find yourself your mobile internet service provider may throttle certain kinds of internet traffic. For example, it’s very common for data providers to throttle peer-to-peer protocols. If however your are running that protocol over an encrypted VPN the ISP has no idea whether to throttle the data or not.
Of course, some ISPs are now blocking VPNs, but if that’s the case you probably should change ISPs.
It should be noted that VPNs have a small negative impact on overall bandwidth because of overhead, but this is usually still a lot faster than a throttled connection. The best VPN services will have the least impact on speed.
3. Keeping Your Phone Fast and Secure
Thanks to the sheer popularity of Android devices it also means Android users have to deal with more malware than, say, iPhone users. As always, prevention is the best cure and a good VPN can protect you against all sorts of security threats.
One of the biggest threats is using public WiFi. You would have to be very brave (or foolish) to use public WiFi without a VPN, since these are often targeted by people who’d like nothing more than your banking passwords or credit card details.
4. Travel the World Virtually
There’s a lot of content on the web that is restricted based on where in the world you are trying to access it from. I’m not just talking about things like Netflix or Hulu either. You can use a VPN to get around geo-blocking except in the case where VPNs have been blocked as a whole.
If you’re someone who travels internationally it’s a great way to maintain access to your files or services regardless of where you are. Especially if you use a VPN to connect to your work network as if you were on the LAN.
5. Control your Desktop Remotely
Have you ever gone on a trip and then realized you left a file on your desktop PC or forgot to do something important? With a VPN and the Microsoft Remote Desktop Client for Android you can remotely take control of your home (or work) PC to send yourself files or basically do anything else that would have required you to be in front of that machine.
It’s the Right Thing to Do
Modern mobile VPNs are easy to use and generally very affordable. There are very few reasons not to use one, so what are you waiting for? Join the rest of the Android community who have embraced safe and secure browsing.
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