VPN providers and trust If you try to describe VPN in one word, the word "tunnel" comes to mind. Your computer is at one end of this tunnel and your ISP's server is at the opposite end (also called the "VPN exit node"). The computer belongs to you, you are responsible for its protection personally. But the output node belongs to the VPN provider, and the provider chooses the encryption algorithms and VPN protocols, so that the protection of the server and the tunnel rests on its shoulders. The VPN provider also controls all data transmitted over the VPN. It turns out that you have to trust the provider as yourself. To safely use a VPN, you want to be sure that the chosen VPN provider does not intercept packets and does not change your traffic, that it does not write everything in the logs and that it uses reliable protocols and strong encryption. 1. How do I know which VPN provider I can trust? To begin with, when choosing a provider, it is better to consider those companies that have been on the market for a long time. This is an indicator of reliability: if the provider survived, then, most likely, customers did not hurt, did not steal data, and so on. 2. Which VPN Protocol to choose? VPN protocols are also quite a lot, the most popular we described in this post in our blog. Some of them are better protected, some are faster, but if you try to discuss all this in this post, it will turn into a thick volume of the encyclopedia about networks. So let's boil it down to a simple tip: try to avoid the Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) and instead look for solutions based on OpenVPN. PPTP is an old Protocol recognized as unreliable. Well, OpenVPN, in turn, is relatively young, protected and more reliable. In addition, it is open source, so it is constantly checked for vulnerabilities 3. It is important to know the number and location of exit nodes? Typically, VPN providers offer a choice of multiple output nodes in different countries, but in some cases, the output node is selected automatically. What it affects and whether it's any concern to you? Depends on what purpose you need a VPN for. If you need to ensure the security of data transmission, for example, when using free Wi-Fi in a cafe, then any output node is suitable. But if you want to access a site that is not available in the country you are in (for example, trying to get on Facebook or Wikipedia while traveling to China), then you will need to be able to select an output node in some country in which this very site is available. Someone may need to access some resource from a certain country. In this case, accordingly, you need your VPN provider to have an output node in that country. In General, the more servers a provider has located in different countries, the better. If you want to access something that you don't have access to in your country, make sure your ISP provides the option to select the output node manually. Automatic selection here will not work in 99% of cases: most often, the server that is closest to you geographically is automatically selected, and it is likely to be in the same country in which you are located.
