VPN services have become quite prevalent in the last few years. The market is now full of advertisements for various related services, and many people have grown accustomed to the idea of using a VPN for their general surfing needs. Some believe that they provide extra privacy, others are enticed by the prospect of being able to download pirated content without being caught. Others also use VPNs for more malicious purposes, such as trolling anonymously, griefing and cheating in online games, and more. And while some of the claims being made by VPN providers are generally true, there is a lot going on behind the scenes that the public is not aware of.
At the same time, classic proxies have been pushed out of the picture, mostly as a result of aggressive marketing. This is unfortunate because, in the current climate, rotating proxies are likely the better solution for most people’s needs. A good rotating proxy provider like Smartproxy is still the best bet for the average person.
Let’s take a look at what’s really going on when you’re using a VPN.
How Anonymous Are You Really?
One of the most commonly repeated claims made by VPN providers is that their services are completely “anonymous”. They boldly proclaim that they don’t store any user logs or anything else that could be used to trace your activities back to you. And yet, we’ve already seen several cases that have proven that to be false, at least for specific companies. In some more shocking examples, leaked logs have shown a complete lack of security or encryption – users’ entire browsing activity has been made public, including their plain-text logins to various services, as well as a detailed list of real IP addresses. And all of this despite the companies in question claiming that they don’t store anything!
If It Sounds Too Good to Be True…
Anyone thinking that a VPN is a free pass to do anything on the internet should take a step back and re-evaluate their position. Privacy is one of the hottest topics right now, and many companies are working hard to undermine the individual’s right to staying concealed online. With that in mind, how plausible is it really that all of these services are operating without storing any logs? History has countless examples of growing service sectors being crushed by the financial interests of multinational corporations.
It’s no secret that removing your privacy is one of the biggest interests that companies have right now. So why don’t we see them fighting this trend at all? It might sound like a tinfoil hat conspiracy theory but given the number of examples of leaked logs that have proven companies are storing more than they reveal, it’s not far-fetched to assume that some of them might be working directly with the corporations you’re so desperately trying to evade.
What Alternatives Exist?
Proxies are the classic alternative to VPNs and were the more popular way to reroute your connection before VPNs took over. On the surface, the differences between the two aren’t that many – they both allow you to mask your real IP address and connect to sites through a location of your choosing. The main difference is that proxies work on the application level (meaning that each application can be tunneled separately), while a VPN reroutes your entire internet connection. However, proxies can provide the same level of security as a regular VPN, and due to the way the market has shifted in recent years, they can also be much more affordable – even if your typical residential proxy provider isn’t constantly in your face with their marketing.
What Makes Proxies More Reliable?
One of the biggest advantages of proxies is that they are configured for each application separately. This means that you can run each application on your computer through a different IP address if you wanted to. This can be advantageous in cases where your main goal is to unblock some content (like Netflix shows), but you don’t want the effects to spill over to other applications (for example, changing the regional news you receive from Google). Using rotating proxies can give you even more advanced control of such situations.
A proxy can also act as a better safety barrier. For example, many people use proxies or VPNs to download torrents, something which can expose your IP address to others and potentially attract unnecessary attention. With a VPN, if your VPN connection suddenly goes down, the torrent client will merrily continue to download as soon as your operating system has restored its connection, which can typically happen in less than a second. Some VPN clients come with a “killswitch”, which is intended to kill specific applications as soon as the connection goes down.
But in practice, this is very unreliable. One hiccup from Windows can potentially delay the killswitch by an unnoticeable duration, say less than a second. During that time, your torrent client may still be able to get a few bytes through – and over the wrong connection. And that’s more than enough to expose your real IP. With a proxy, that’s not a risk. If an application is configured to use a proxy, it will simply stop working as soon as the proxy server disconnects for whatever reason. It won’t automatically revert to using your default connection unless you’ve explicitly enabled that setting in the application itself.
Some are saying that the “wild west” days of VPN services are numbered. If they aren’t really working in tandem with major companies, then they are definitely not going to be tolerated for much longer. Because of this, investing in a good proxy is a much better long-term solution if you want to keep your connection secure and evade detection. The coming years are likely going to bring some significant transformations to the proxy and VPN market, and it’s a good idea to be aware of what’s coming and prepare for it accordingly.
