3 Reasons Your Family Needs A VPN

Internet safety and protection is becoming more and more important in today’s world, and parents now have to also focus on teaching their kids how to use the internet safely. The internet can present various security and privacy threats, but if you’re simply just aware of the different problems, you can protect yourself and your family.

VPNs are great for families because they provide a lot of other benefits and multiple devices can be on the same VPN. Some parents may not be aware of how to use VPNs, but nowadays, they are easy and convenient to use. Keep reading to find the main benefits of VPNs and how they can be used to protect your family while using the internet.

Data Protection

The biggest reason why people suggest you use a VPN is to protect your data and information from outsiders. While the internet does provide a lot of value and resources to our lives, everytime you connect to it you’re technically exposed and at risk.

It doesn’t matter how often you use the internet or what kind of device you use to connect to it; if you’re on the internet, you open yourself to a lot of potential threats if you don't know how to properly protect yourself.

If someone gets a hold of your information, they could do things such as:

• Get connected your to device and have the ability to control it remotely
• Obtain access to personal sensitive documents such as bank records and tax documents
• Get a hold of your passwords for different sites

A big reason why so much can be done with your information is simply because we do so much more on the internet today then we have in the past, and more data is being collected and recorded on you than ever before. As we said before, VPNs create your own private connection, so no outside network can gain access to your data.

Now don’t think you’re in grave danger every time you use the internet; people say this to make sure that you’re aware of the worst cases possible.

In most cases, normal internet users don’t really need to take proactive steps to protect themselves, but others just want the peace of mind that their data is secure and their privacy is upheld. Also, it never hurts to have extra protection, and it’s good to know that VPNs are an option if you feel like you ever need it.

Why Protect Your Data?

Now the question is: why should you protect your data?

Some parents may not fully realize just how much can be done with their information if it gets into the wrong hands. In some cases it may be inconsequential, but in other cases it could be detrimental; It’s always best to protect your data just in case.

The idea is that you just want to be safe at all times in order to guarantee that nothing harmful happens to you.

Secure Privacy

VPNs are a powerful protection tool because they basically act as a permanent barrier between you and anybody who tries to use your information maliciously.

What’s amazing is that using a VPN can be as simple as turning it on, and it will always be operating in the background. It’s great, and it can provide a lot more protection depending on how you use the internet, but it will always provide a base layer of security.

Website Anonymity

We explained how there are certain people who will try to actively get your information in order to use it for their own gain, but on a smaller scale, websites continuously collect small data from you for their own record.

A major example of a website collecting data from you is website cookies: a cookie is basically a site piece of data that’s used to remember something about you. In most cases, cookies are used to simply make your life easier and convenient.

Cookies are meant to help you, but some people don’t like the idea of websites constantly collecting information about them without their approval, and they feel like it’s an invasion of privacy. Using a VPN can make you anonymous on all the sites you visit.

Protection From Public WiFi

VPNs help with this privacy problem because since your connection is private, you will always remain anonymous when you visit websites. This protection is also great for public WiFi networks: we mentioned before how most people probably don’t need a VPN because they’re not in any imminent risk, and this principle can be said for families using their own private WiFi.

However, the risk is heightened when using a public WiFi network because of the fact that anyone can access and connect to it.

In some cases, people will actually just visit a place that has public WiFi just so that they can try and steal information from the users who are connected to it. This is yet another case where people would want to use a VPN for protection.

To tie it all together, VPNs can be used on any network, which makes it more valuable because it can give you protection in almost any kind of situation. And again, most VPNs just require you to turn them on in order to work, so it’s not difficult at all for you and your family to be safe and well protected on the internet at all times.

Website Blocking

It should be clear to see that VPNs can be very powerful in securing your safety while using the internet, but most VPNs also have a set of features that many parents would appreciate in order to further protect their kids. Most notably, you can make your VPN block certain websites so that your kids can’t visit or access them.

You should hard block websites for kids when they’re young and they could accidentally reach certain sites that are inappropriate for children. VPNs give you the option to block sites, but some also give you the option to monitor what sites are being visited.

When it comes to protecting your kids on the internet, the most important thing is to simply teach them about the potential dangers presented by the internet and how to protect themselves. That way they can avoid those certain sites beforehand because they know they’re inappropriate.

Website Monitoring

For VPNs that offer website monitoring, you can use this to see what websites your child has been accessing.

With VPNs, parents can then monitor what sites their children visit to make sure that they follow guidelines, and if they happen to go on a bad site that you didn’t account for, you can explain why they should no longer continue to go on that site.

Later, the parents can ease restrictions on those sites once the kids are responsible enough to access those sites appropriately. Internet protection can be a tricky area for parents because the internet is so vast and expansive that they might not know whether certain sites are harmful or not.

What’s reassuring is that even if the kids are on a malicious website, whether they knew it or not, a VPN will still provide great protection if the website plans to steal information or data through the connection.

VPNs are just an amazing all-around tool because they have the ability to prevent access to harmful sites, but even if you do they can also stop the damage that can be caused by them.

Conclusion

VPNs are just a great protection package due to all the aspects that you can use it in. Its feature set makes it an amazing tool for families because it can be used as an effective way to teach and enforce children to use the internet responsibly and safely, and you always have the peace of mind that you’re secure because of a VPN’s constant protection.