With worldwide government regulations increasingly cracking down on what content is available, and various streaming services increasingly locking content behind geographic paywalls, more and more people are turning to VPNs.
Setting up a VPN used to be complicated, but in the last decade, the process has become incredibly streamlined. Here’s how to set up and use a VPN on your iPhone.
What is a VPN for?
A VPN is a virtual private network. VPNs act as a private encrypted tunnel for all network traffic. This means even your internet service provider cannot see what websites you are visiting, when using a VPN to browse the web.
Traditionally, using a VPN was all about privacy and security. More recently, people use VPNs to shield their actual location and appear as if they are another part of the world, to avoid local content restrictions.
For instance, you can use a VPN to access streaming services that are normally unavailable in your region. Similarly, VPNs have become very popular in the United Kingdom lately following the introduction of new laws that force websites to hide content with adult themes, unless users verify their identity. Rather than doing the identity checks, people are using a VPN to appear as if they are visiting from outside of the UK, and that means none of the restrictions are applied.
Choose a VPN app for iPhone
To use a VPN on iPhone, you first need to choose a VPN provider. VPN providers typically vary in server locations, speed, and how much they charge, but they mostly all do the same thing. Here’s some recommended options to choose from:
Once you have signed up for an account with one of the providers above, download the company’s corresponding app from the App Store onto your device. Log in to your account inside the app. The quick-access VPN settings in the system are now available.
Before enabling the VPN at the system level, use the app to configure service-specific features. This includes things like choosing your virtual location. So, if you are actually in the US but trying to pretend to be from Algeria, select an Algerian server in the app UI.
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