The Latest in Online Encryption

There are two critical ways that a VPN guards your private information and improves your online security.

1. First, connecting to VPN servers masks your IP address for better privacy. That means that the personal information normally indicated by that number is hidden behind those VPN servers.
2. Secondly, a VPN encrypts your data. PrivadoVPN uses 256-bit-AES encryption, which means that your data is systematically scrambled before it leaves your computer. That information then travels through an encrypted tunnel, through the VPN, to the destination computer. Only when the transfer is complete will a "private key" be used to unscramble the files into usable information.

The world's fastest computer would take 27,337,893,038,406,611,194,430,009,974,922,940,323,611,067,429,756,962,487 years to break 256-bit encryption by brute force. Put another way: 27,337,893 trillion trillion trillion trillion years. This is the best form of encryption on the planet and the gold-standard for online security.

Without high quality encryption, your connection just isn't secure. Good Internet security requires a VPN that can both hide and guard your data.

First of all, without a VPN, anybody can watch what you do online. In fact, somebody stalking a server probably has several times and you had no idea. Encryption makes that activity impenetrable.

Secondly, a VPN often has better encryption options than other protective measures. A VPN server is made with security in mind, so it will be able to employ better encryption than your personal system.

Your Internet connection is less like a tube and more like a road (or "superhighway" as people used to say in the 90s). Your information essentially travels out in the "open," like a car. And like a car, people who are watching the road can see inside and get access to that data, putting your security at risk.

A VPN is like building a secure tunnel around your data car. Before the data goes anywhere, it creates a wall of encryption using a combination of a public and private key that maintains your privacy by keeping anyone watching from being able to see it.

Moreover, a VPN hides your identity while you're online by hiding your real IP, which is the unique number every Internet-connected device is assigned to facilitate data transfer. In reality, the only true connection your computer makes is to the VPN server. After that, your VPN requests all the data you want and then passes it back to your computer, so requests come from the VPN and your privacy remains secure.

Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is a block cipher used for encryption. It's so strong that the US government uses AES to encrypt classified documents as they travel from server to server.

But AES is for more than just transfers on a government network. In fact, using it for VPN security has helped us provide unbreakable encryption options. Using AES makes your computer and connection more secure.

It works by generating a public key and a private key based on the level of encryption your VPN is using. A "key" is a string of anywhere from 128 to 256 characters that acts as the code for how to rearrange your data.

When your VPN makes a connection to another server, it will send over its public key and receive a public key. Those keys will be used to make what's called a "session key," which is unique to every server-to-server connection and is an agreed upon way that the encryption will work.

At that point, the AES generated private key is used to decrypt all of that information into useful files.

AES encryption on PrivadoVPN is as secure as it can possibly get because our VPN protocols put the plaintext data through 14 rounds of scrambling. Only with the private key can anyone read any of the files that our VPN converts into ciphertext with AES encryption.

I don't think you'll be surprised to learn that we think the best VPN that is both free and keeps zero logs is PrivadoVPN. Here's why:

1. You get 10 GB of data for free every month. That's up to 5 times more than almost every VPN on the market. Your privacy is safer, longer.
2. Users can access VPN servers from around the world, so it's possible to set your location for the fastest possible speed and best security/privacy.
3. You'll be able to stream high quality content and use download services with a free VPN account.
4. Because we are committed to our users' privacy, PrivadoVPN doesn't ask for anything other than a verified email to sign up for VPN service.