Do you will need a personal VPN service? In the event that you Google around you will see that a lot of people use VPN services to bypass the Internet restrictions from their countries, like in the Middle East or China. But a VPN can do so much more for you personally.

The VPN works by encrypting all of your Internet traffic and redirecting it with a VPN server, typically located in the USA. This can have two immediate effects:

1. Your Internet traffic will undoubtedly be obscured from anyone “listening” on the line. Even your ISP or company will have no idea as to what your actual Internet traffic really is.

2. Your real IP address will undoubtedly be hidden from the sites you visit, thus offering you anonymity while online.

So even if you come in Wireless HotSpots, places that hackers often scout to find new victims, you can be protected with all the VPN. Firesheep, the Firefox plugin is really a preferred tool of the trade and is incredibly user friendly, even by amateur hackers, or “script-kiddies” as they are called in the underground community. The VPN encryption may also keep you safe from the Firesheep attacks.

The bad part is that everything comes at a cost. Two main issues to be discussed here:

1. When using the VPN you will experience a reduction in speed. This is due to the encryption and the traffic routing. If you are in France and you also are employing a VPN server, your traffic will get encrypted, sent from France to the VPN server in USA and from the VPN USA server redirected to it`s original intended destination. From there regarder netflix à l’étranger flows via the same route all the way back in France… That`s a long trip right?

2. Most good VPN services are paid. There are several free ones, but people have had bad reviews before about free VPN service: limits on bandwidth, poor speeds and connection drops some users say. The paid services generally do much better in terms of performance. Be prepared to pay from 10$ – 20$ per month for an excellent VPN service.

Another important aspect is the encryption the VPN uses. At this moment SSL VPNs are considered to have the safest encryption. The most used SSL VPN protocols are SSTP and OpenVPN. Unlike other protocols they use certificates during the authentication process, making a man-in-the-middle hacker attack extremely difficult.

So, my advice would be, if you value your privacy and security, get yourself a VPN service and always utilize it in networks you take into account unsecured (like airport or coffee shops public networks).