Why I Use a VPN and Chose NordVPN
I have been on the internet since before it was really the internet we know today, my first access online was I think in the late 80s or early 90s, when it was email, Archie, Veronica, and a few other things. That was long before the idea of a browser or a hyperlink really existed. I have always been online directly without anything between me and the world, but recently I have had to change that for a number of reasons.
First and foremost for me, my privacy is important to me. I am extremely careful as to how much of myself is online. I don’t discuss (even on social media) much about myself, my family, or my friends – certainly not anymore than one might talk about on a crowded bus. While I do understand that companies like Facebook and Google do track and store much of my activities, I do make efforts to keep that at reasonable levels.
The internet has changed as well. From a large, wide open communication tool, the internet is degrading down to services limited by geographic region, by language, or by exclusion of some or most. Many video services are only available in certain places. A lot of websites now use geo blocking (block by country) or deny access to those they think will not make them income.
Most importantly, I want to be able to express myself without having anyone (from government down to my ISP) watching over my shoulder and punishing me for it. I finally made the choice a few months ago to move to using VPN.
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) provider basically encodes all of the traffic from your PC, phone, tablet, or notebook, and sends it in a private encrypted form to one of their nodes. At that point, your traffic is decoded and you connect to the internet from that point. As far as anyone can tell from a cursory glance, you are in that location rather than wherever you actually are. It’s effectively impossible to track your original connection back without help of the VPN company.
That last part is how I ended up using NordVPN. They are located in Panama, which has no data retention laws. This means NordVPN can legally follow a strict no-logs policy to ensure users’ privacy and security. They don’t log where I go, so nobody can ask them for logs as to where I do, what I do, or where I connected from.
Moreover, with more than 5000 exit nodes / locations, I can make myself appear to be in just about any country I like. So in the future when travel is back to normal, I can continue to appear to be in Canada even if I am overseas. This means I can still access Canadian sites without issue. It also means that even if I connect to free wi-fi or similar in remote locations, I don’t have to worry about the local ISP filtering my traffic or trying to capture passwords and such. My connection is safe and secure all the way to the other end of my private network.
There is a lot more, but safe to say after 30 plus years on the internet, I moved to a VPN – and I think you should consider it too.
I was so impressed with the simplicity of NordVPN on my PC and my phone, that I decided to join with them as a marketing affiliate to promote their product because it really is that good. Want to know more? Click here and check out NordVPN – I make a small commission if you sign up, so I thank you ahead of time for considering it.
Be careful out there, the internet is a rough place these days!
