VPNs have been in existence for many years now but only around 2017 and 2018 did they become really popular. This surge in popularity in VPNs coincided with the period where various countries have implemented various internet surveillance laws and various corporations such as Facebook were found to extensively track users.
VPNs have been available on Windows devices for several years now but only just recently have they started to become available on MacOS too.
What is a VPN?
A VPN is essentially a collection of computers (called servers in this context). With a VPN client (the app you install on your device) you will then have the possibility to establish a connection to one of these servers.
After this, everything you do over the internet will be routed through the VPN servers. What this does it that the websites you visit will think that the device you are using will be the VPN server and not your actual device.
So, this way, you can hide your real location and real IP address from websites. You can read more about how VPNs work here.
Why You Need a VPN?
If you have read the above paragraphs then by now you may already have thought of a few uses for a VPN. One of these would be to hide your real location and real IP address from the websites you visit. A VPN will also hide your internet activity from your ISP, because all your ISP will see if you connecting to the VPN server, it will be the VPN sever who will then actually connect to the websites you visit.
With a VPN you can also change your IP address to that of another country. This way you will be able to unblock websites that are not available in your country. You can for example unblock websites such as Netflix which may not be available in your country by switching to a US IP address.
Governments are also known to snoop around people’s private data at an alarming rate. New legislation in 2018 in the UK, for example, made people punishable for the content they post on social media sites. With a VPN you can prevent the government from tracking you and your location.
The European Union has also in September 2018 implemented a law that could potentially lead to severe restrictions and censorship on the internet.
What VPN Works on a Mac?
All the above sounds good but unfortunately there are still not that many VPN companies that work on MacOS too. The best ones for Mac are NordVPN, ExpressVPN, IPVanish and CyberGhost. All of these work on Macs too.
You can find a list of VPNs for Mac here as well as detailed reviews for the listed VPNs.
As times goes it however it seems that more and more VPN companies are willing to consider developing native apps for MacOS too.
