There are many reasons to consider using a VPN to secure your online presence. VPNs hide your IP address and location from prying eyes such as hackers, government agencies, internet providers, and the like. Any good VPN service will also feature full data encryption, making it much more difficult for those with malicious intent to make use of your information. Online trackers, invasive websites, over-ambitious cookies, and internet service providers are all out of luck when it comes to VPNs; they cannot track your internet usage or profile you based on your online habits (which can then be sold to interested third parties). VPNs also allow users to bypass internet censorship or restrictive networks. This is a critical feature for those living in countries with oppressive regimes, allowing access to blocked websites like social media. Certain websites and streaming services block content based on your location, using a VPN service is a great solution to this. VPNs also make connecting to public or shared Wi-Fi hotspots safer, protecting your personal identifying information from hackers.

Online Security

This service offers quality that’s a notch above standard when it comes to Virtual Private Networking. NordVPN supports Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android. The real highlight of this service is its extremely high security standards, offering some of the most advanced protection on the market. When using NordVPN, your data stream is encrypted using AES-256 (Advanced Encryption Standard with 256-bit keys) and PFS-3072 for handshaking. AES-256 is widely regarded as the best option for data encryption and is endorsed by security experts around the world. The United States government uses this encryption method to secure its most classified data, as it is incredibly robust and resistant to brute force hacking attempts. Most of these security features are high-quality, but still not anything revolutionary. NordVPN sets itself apart from the competition with the utilization of double data encryption, for ultimate security and anonymity. When using a Double VPN your data travels through two separate VPN servers with independent encryption, which may seem unnecessary to some but for those who truly value their anonymity this feature is a must have. NordVPN has 893 servers in 57 countries and supports IKEv2/IPsec, OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP, and IPSec protocols.

User Privacy, Data Collection, and Policies

NordVPN sports a strict no log policy and takes users’ anonymity seriously. According to their website, they believe that a “truly anonymous VPN service should go beyond the basic features of hiding your IP address and encrypting your internet traffic.”  I think that this resonates well with potential customers, especially those that seriously value their anonymity. NordVPN keeps no logs of users’ online activity, duration of sessions, times logged on, IP addresses, or websites visited. To add another level of protection, they offer Double VPNs as well as utilizing the Onion network “Tor” over VPN. With those safeguards in place, it is just simply impossible to identify a user in any way, shape, or form. NordVPN is based in Panama and is therefore not subject to United States’ Data Retention laws or the European Union’s Data Retention Directive, not that they would have any information to divulge anyways.

Final Details

NordVPN features a 24/7 support staff, many different payment options (including anonymous ones), unlimited bandwidth, multiple device support, a free list of available proxies, and some added tools like encrypted chat and secret notes. All in all, Nord VPN brings a lot to the table. With a clear commitment to user privacy and some truly awesome security features, NordVPN is definitely looking like the top contender.