The internet isn’t the open plains of free flowing information that its inventors first imagined back in the 1990s. From consuming BBC radio and TV programs to gambling, there are large areas of the internet that are closed off to you unless you use a quality virtual private network (VPN). Here are four use cases for a VPN that range from something nearly everyone would wish to use to those slightly more specialist use cases.
Accessing Foreign Broadcasters from Another Country
A use case that everyone might have for a virtual private network is accessing a broadcaster from abroad such as the BBC. Technically it is only available to UK taxpayers, but in using a VPN in the UK you can often pretend to be one of those. Where the BBC is largely onto it and can fox you out, other broadcasters like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation do very similar. Whether for work or pleasure, in pretending to be from the broadcaster’s home country, so you can often access their content.
EU/UK Internet Users – Every Website on the Planet!
If you are from a European Union country or the UK, you may find that some websites are barred to you. This is because under EU data protection law (that still covers the UK), unless you can opt out of tracker cookies, the website is not allowed to show you its content. It may surprise you but even certain large US media outlets don’t have this option so UK/EU internet users have the choice – either navigate elsewhere or use a VPN server in the USA where they have no such obstacles put before them.
Not everyone likes cookies tracking everything they do but again, once you close the VPN connection the cookies disappear with it. That introduces the next use case – privacy.
Privacy
Cookies are everywhere on the internet and in the US, internet service providers make a certain effort to track your browsing. That’s Thought Police territory, more understandable in China than the USA.
In setting up a VPN you’re effectively putting up a firewall between you and those trackers. Open the connection – use it out of sight then close it and your publicly available history in using it disappears with it.
Gambling and Porn – Specialist Use Cases
Perhaps the most obvious and publicly acceptable blocks to internet use is where you are contravening your home country’s or state’s moralist laws. Not everyone agrees with their home laws and where you are hurting no one then you’re free to disagree with the moralist old men and women in your legislature. To that extent, a virtual private network can get around a state or country’s laws on things like porn and gambling so you are free to explore your interests or personal kinks.
Virtual Private Networks Unlock the Internet
So there we have it – a VPN that make the internet what it was originally designed to be – totally free for all who can access it. Whether free from targeted ads or free to access a radio station in another country, it unlocks the internet so it can give you whatever experience you wish it to!
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