VPNs are one of the best tools to have installed on computers and mobile devices, since they ensure that no restraints will harm our internet experience at any time. And if, on the one hand, they’re great for personal use to circumvent geographically locked content and stay anonymous to ISPs, on the other hand they’re also a must have for business users, too, regardless of the size of the company.
In fact, nowadays VPNs can easily be configured for both personal and business purposes, with numerous benefits for either party: cheaper VoIP calls, an overall increase in privacy, protection against unreliable Wi-Fi connections, malware, and much more. And given the incentives that many companies offer to businesses – often with special subscriptions and significant discounts – VPNs start to become a sure investment that every team with multiple users should consider.
Top VPNs for Small Businesses
SaferVPN
Additionally, the network will be encrypted with the top-level AES-256 encryption, but even better is the possibility to enjoy reduced latency by creating VPN endpoints in any physical or virtual location.
Business users also receive the added benefit of unlimited bandwidth and can easily manage all the network’s details via the cloud management portal, with detailed activity reports provided by SaferVPN. The basic Business subscription costs $10 per month per team member, but there’s also the opportunity to customize a plan by contacting SaferVPN about the Enterprise plan.
NordVPN
But this doesn’t mean that you should overlook them if this is not the sort of company you’re involved in, since – like with SaferVPN – a private VPN server for only your company can be made available.
The service itself is not much different from what is available to personal users with the same apps, unlimited bandwidth and top security features. However, businesses will get use of a dedicated account manager to check on employees’ activity. NordVPN personalizes the prices to each business according to their needs and the number of connections that are required, so it’s necessary to contact them for an estimate.
VyprVPN
Likewise, there are apps for all kinds of devices with an included management account that enables the adding or removal of users, customizing their privileges and more. Other features include unlimited bandwidth, top-notch security and VPN protocols – including the company’s own exclusive protocol Chameleon – along with 24/7 tier 1 and tier 2 support provided by network engineers.
Prices for the service start at $299.00 per year for the cheapest plan, but naturally the package offering cloud services costs a bit more. In either case it’s possible to make use of a free trial.
Why Use a VPN for Business?
View Blocked Content
Accessing geographically blocked content is one of the main reasons that so many people subscribe to VPN services these days. Certain countries are restrictive about the access they allow, these are the kinds of countries usually denying access to the same targets – Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, WhatsApp and many others – but often there are many other sites (such as global news) that are inaccessible, too.
As such it is the likes of traveling professionals, for instance, that are largely affected by this, since they may end up in a country that is imposing such blocks. If they don’t happen to have a VPN then chances are that they will be unable to access their website to publish their work, nor will they be able to access any social media or VoIP apps to explain the situation.
Along with protecting their connection at airports, hotels and other public spaces, this is an important reason why every travelling professional needs a VPN.
Cheaper Skype, VoIP Calls
Pretty much all VoIP services are used for business purposes and perhaps the most famous of them all is Skype, allowing anyone to easily make a quick phone call to colleagues or organize pseudo face-to-face meetings via free video calls.
However, sometimes it is required to contact foreign local numbers, and with that there will most likely be associated costs, which can become quite expensive over time. VPNs help in this regard, too, by changing the virtual location to the same as the country you’re hoping to call. This will fool the app, making it believe both connecting accounts are in the same country, and will therefore charge at a cheaper rate.
Secure Public Wi-Fi Access
VPNs not only allow users to remain hidden and anonymous from ISPs, but they provide a whole other significant benefit when using public Wi-Fi. Because these networks are public connections, many wrongdoers can use them to gain access to everything that others using the same network are doing.
For instance, when traveling it is likely that you’ll connect to several different public hotspots, but without a VPN your online activity can be easily traced by everyone connected to that same hotspot.
Extra care is therefore needed when using your email, managing bank accounts or performing other online work-related tasks, something that VPNs can help with autonomously. All VPN connections are routed through encrypted tunnels, meaning that no one can see the information as it is exchanged across the network.
Malware and Tracking Prevention
Cookies are delicious, unless we’re talking about the ones used by websites to track users’ movements. These are the worst, most infuriating pieces of coding to come from the internet, whose purpose are simply to deliver targeted ads.
We all know this happens, but they are especially annoying when we need to focus on work, and doing so is especially hard with a popup ad flashing away to get your attention. Once again, VPNs will help with this since many of them already include automatic ad blockers and other methods of erasing our previous online steps, therefore stopping us from being tracked for whatever reason.
This is more important than it might first seem, since many of those ads also carry malware that can infect our computer with serious issues, while some even use Skype or other programs to spread them.
Data and Privacy Protection
Having proper data and privacy protection is vital when doing business online, and VPNs are the best tools to ensure this. As mentioned, they feature military grade encryptions and use specially designed protocols to keep sensitive information accessible only to you and your co-workers. And because users are always anonymous when using this sort of secure connection, they can avoid specific laws for specific states or countries that might affect their privacy or personal data.
Local Search Results
For many professionals it is better to attune their search engine to provide results more suited to a different location, such as how doing research for some work about a foreign country can be made easier if the search engine believes the browser is located from that country.
While Google allows you to filter search results down to those of just a specific country, it still applies a number of other parameters when rendering the highly personalized search results. Some important factors in play here are your IP location, earlier search behavior and history and the Google Account you’re logged into. Clearing your browser’s cache and history and logging out from your Google location is helping you overcome some of these, but you’ll need some help to change your IP’s location.
An American journalist covering a story about some event in Romania, for instance, would most likely have some trouble searching for specific details of such an event when searching through Google using an American IP. However, with a VPN they could easily switch to a new virtual location to access the eastern European country and find much more relevant information from the localized version of Google for Romania. The same applies to many other businesses, since virtually switching locations is the best way of ensuring accurate results about a country’s services or culture.
Best VPN Services of 2024
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Personal VPN vs Business VPN
Regardless of your needs, it’s clear that VPNs are suitable for both personal and business users. However, the two services focus on different aspects, which is why clients should also look for distinct details between the two.
For instance, the number of available servers is more important for private users as a decent VPN network is crucial to unblocking certain streaming services. This is all the better if the service provides other special servers reserved for torrents and unlimited bandwidth, though the latter is sometimes only available for the most expensive plans.
For businesses, however, a large VPN network may not be the most important aspect to focus on, instead it’s more useful to have access to private servers and unique IP addresses, though the usual network of connections is also accessible in these cases. This is something that SaferVPN and many others offer.
Likewise, personal users often look for the number of maximum connections supported to allow for a normal-sized family to have the client installed on each of their most used devices. For business users, a router configuration may be the best choice, but many VPN services – like NordVPN, for instance – also allow for a greater number of connections without having to resort to this.
Differences With a Corporate VPN Network
If you work in a medium-sized company you may already have noticed the use of a VPN, but in these cases there may not be a client to use nor a router configuration that you know of. This is because your company is not using a VPN service, but instead manually creating their own – via relevant technology and software – Virtual Private Networks instead.
This is a closed private network – also known as an intranet – created in your ISP’s client and only available to the company, ensuring that no one from outside the network can access it. This works just like the normal setup you have at home, except on larger scale and with some additional features. For instance, many corporate VPN networks allow workers who conduct their activities offsite to remotely access it via mobile devices after being properly authenticated. The data exchanged in that network is always encrypted, private and secure.
However, this sort of connection doesn’t enable what ‘real’ VPNs can do, such as changing virtual locations and using IP addresses from different countries. However, the two can be used together, therefore combining the potential of a vast, global server network with a closed corporate intranet connection for the safe exchange of work related information.
Best VPN Services of 2024
Rank | Provider | Info | Visit |
1
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Editor's Choice 2024
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2
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3
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