What is a VPN, and when do you actually need one?

VPN stands for virtual private network. When you connect to one, your device builds an encrypted tunnel to a server the VPN provider runs, and all of your internet traffic goes through it. Two things change as a result:

• The network you are on loses visibility. Your internet provider, or whoever runs the Wi-Fi you joined, can see that you are connected to a VPN and how much data is moving — but not what you are connecting to.
• Sites see the server, not you. The services you reach see the VPN server’s IP address and its location instead of your home connection’s.

That is the whole mechanism. Everything else a VPN is sold on is a consequence of those two facts.

• Your activity from the network operator. Hotel, airport, café and campus networks can log which services each device reaches. A VPN reduces that to “encrypted traffic to one address”.
• Your activity from your ISP. In many countries, providers retain browsing records by default and are permitted to monetise them.
• Your home IP address from the sites you visit. Your IP address reveals your rough location and is a durable identifier for tracking across sites.
• Your connection when travelling. An encrypted tunnel on a network you do not control and cannot vouch for.

This part is usually skipped, and skipping it is how people end up with a false sense of security. A VPN does not:

• Make you anonymous. If you sign in to an account, that service knows exactly who you are regardless of where the connection came from.
• Stop tracking cookies or browser fingerprinting. Those identify the browser, not the network path.
• Protect you from malware, phishing or a bad download. It is a tunnel, not an antivirus.
• Encrypt anything after the VPN server. Traffic leaves it for the wider internet, where HTTPS does the rest of the work.
• Hide your activity from the VPN provider itself — which is precisely why the provider’s logging policy is the thing to scrutinise.

That last point is the one worth acting on. See exactly what StreamShield records and what it never records.

• People who stream a lot. The clearest case: your provider stops being able to profile which services your household watches. More on streaming with a VPN.
• Frequent travellers. Hotel and airport networks are the textbook untrusted network, and a VPN keeps your usage private on them.
• Anyone on shared or public Wi-Fi. Apartment buildings, offices, campuses — networks where the operator is not you.
• People who simply object to being profiled. Not needing a threat model is allowed; disliking the default is reason enough.

The market is crowded and the marketing is largely interchangeable. A few questions cut through it:

• What exactly do they log? Not whether they say “no logs” — everyone says that. Whether they will publish the specific list of fields they hold and why.
• Who resolves your DNS? DNS queries are a near-complete record of your activity, and they are the most common leak in an otherwise private setup.
• Does it run on the devices you use? A VPN that cannot install on your TV does not protect the device doing most of your watching.
• How many devices at once? Households have more connected devices than people.
• Is it free? If so, work out what is paying for the servers before you install it.

StreamShield keeps no activity logs and publishes the complete list of connection metadata it does keep. It runs on Android, Android TV and Fire TV natively, and on anything else through a standard OpenVPN profile. Every plan includes several simultaneous connections, and it is a paid service with no advertising and no data sales.

See plans and pricing or download the app.