What VPN stands for

For a long time only the geekiest nerds knew anything about VPNs, but that's changed thanks to the popularity of services like Netflix. VPN stands for Virtual Private Network and is a very fancy way of saying that your data is kept secure by passing it through a separate connection when it travels over the public Internet.

What you might not realize is that the data you send across the Internet is not secure, even if you think it's safe because you used a password, or because you're using your browser to hide your identity. None of this is true. The only way to transfer data/use the Internet is to hide your data inside another connection, and this is exactly what a VPN does for you.

So, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) works like this -  you connect your computer, or other device, to the Internet. Once you're online you then use VPN software to create a connection to a secure server in the same country as you, or usually in another country altogether. Once your VPN connection is established whatever data you send across the Internet is then routed through this second connection, making it complete secure.

The best way to imagine a VPN is that it creates a tunnel through the public Internet, and your Internet connection is hidden inside that tunnel. That's why you'll hear some tech heads talking about things like "tunneling protocols". There's no need to get into any of that to understand what a VPN can do for you.

For years VPNs were used to help business people connect to their office servers to collect emails, or view the company's Intranet site. VPNs back then were tricky to use, with unstable software, and physical password devices required. These days VPNs are very easy to use, and give you the level of Internet privacy you've always been entitled to in the first place. They're also an ideal way to access geographically locked content. One example of this is being able to access US-only content when you're based in France. Netflix is one perfect example of why more and more people are using VPNs, even though it's ridiculous that Netflix is forcing paying customers to use a VPN to access content they're already paying for. But anyways...

So what VPN stands for is Virtual Private Network, but what it really offers you is a secure, private way to connect to the Internet without anyone being able to snoop on you.

HMA VPN Allows You To "Unlock" US/Foreign Content

There is no single more annoying message to see when browsing the Internet than "This content is not available in your country" and this is because in almost 100% of cases it's when you're trying to watch a video of some kind. There are lots of political and business reasons why companies lock their content to a specific country or region but I'm not going to get into those here because the end result is always the same - you can't watch the movie, trailer or game you were looking forward to so much.

You can use a proxy to get around this problem but that means manually configuring your web browser and then hoping that the proxy is actually working and that the same proxy isn't actually blocked by the video service you're trying to access. Proxies change so often that you wind up having to change the proxy you're using at least every few days.

In the end I got sick of having to fiddle with individual proxies and decided that a VPN service would suit me more, which is one of the many reasons I signed up for Hide My Ass in the first place. Some people argue that proxies are that bit faster than a VPN but I'll take the convenience of Hide My Ass VPN over fiddling with proxies any day of the week - it only takes 2 click of a mouse to connect and another 2 clicks to change servers. Plus personally speaking it's more than fast enough for anything I'm doing online!

The Hide My Ass (HMA Pro) VPN Service

If you've never heard of Hide My Ass VPN before then relax because I'm going to use this blog to introduce you to one of my favorite tech finds ever. For what this service costs and what it offers me in return it's a no-brainer. Actually if you're involved in any form of SEO, Internet marketing, market research or you're just concerned about your online safety and privacy (thanks Edward Snowden!) then using a service like Hide My Ass (HMA) will be pretty much perfect for you.

I'm sure when you hear the words "virtual private network" your eyes automatically gloss over and you just mentally switch off - it all sounds very complicated doesn't it? A virtual private network basically allows a group of computer to communicate with each other but with an added layer of security because your "data" isn't being sent over the Internet publicly - instead it's travelling through a kind of private data "tunnel" - that's why it's called "private" networking.

If you were going about creating your own virtual private network then yes it could get pretty complicated and you do need a certain level of technical skill to create one. But with Hide My Ass VPN all you need to down is sign up for an account, create a username and password and then simply download the software and connect yourself to it. You won't need to worry about anything except choosing which server you want to be connected to and that's that - and there are literally thousands of different servers in different countries that you can use.

But why even use a VPN and how can it benefit you? Relax folks I'm going to explain all of that and even show you Hide My Ass VPN in action over the next few posts.

In fact once you've used the Hide My Ass VPN service you'll be wondering how you ever managed without it!