Here to spare you the trouble of such a tiring task, as VPN providers ourselves, we’ve put our heads together to asses the most desirable features a good VPN should have and are giving you the scoop on all. Just sit back and enjoy the ride, as we list the 10 most important features to look for in a VPN.

 

A well grounded economic notion warning about the unforeseen consequential effects of abundance describes excess as threatening to social welfare. Unlike other economic theories talking about scarcity, this time, excess is the enemy in gradually rendering human labor as redundant when compared with machine automation.

 

Now, let’s take the theory of abundance and apply it to a more trivial concern than that of pondering upon the fate of economics. Let’s think about internet and internet browsing for a bit and how the paradox of abundance can take new meaning here.

 

A simple google search will often return dozens of results to the point that you might find yourself faced with redundant choices, every once too often. In our case, if you stumbled upon the title, my guess is you are looking for a good reliable VPN provider, but don’t really know what to chose as you don’t really have the time or the inclination to do a VPN research among providers promising to sell, products that may look similar or the same, at first glance.

 

No. 1: PRICE

When it comes to free versus paid, there is no debate really. Going with a free VPN service could defeat the very purpose you’re using such a service. “When the product is free, you are the product” – here’s the wild idea. Let’s drill into its meaning a bit to give background:  Let’s start from another similar premise popularized by Milton Friedman back ’75, the phrase “There is no such thing as a free lunch, of great economic relevance today in describing things like “opportunity costs”. However enticing, free VPNS seldom defeat the purpose of what a Virtual private network should be.

• When the product is free, you are the product– A VPN service implies having servers in various countries. The maintenance or renting costs can amount a few figures, depending on volume. using their users as servers by converting them into a botnet, some VPN providers have been revealed, while others admit in their lawyer-eese terms of service, they can sell your bandwidth to other companies.

 

In other words, by searching a bargain you can be faced with two main issues:

 

1. Slower computer and internet connection: as you’re sharing your bandwidth and processor with others;
2. Higher Security Risks: assuming responsibility for what other users do online, that can be tracked down back to your IP.

 

• Data Collection: In depth analytics of your use data can be sold to third parties companies. Choosing a VPN provider, like My IP.io, that goes on a “no log kept” policies is the best approach to the matter.

 

• Ads: modifying the web code to show ads is a common practice for “free” VPN services.

 

• A good VPNwill have its own servers and encryption protocols designed for it, reducing possible security failures to a minimum. Free VPN services are often an open door to malware and can be easily used by scammers.

 

 

In the FREE vs. PAID matter, its is important to understand that most legit businesses will offer 7 days of free trial, but a free connection on a indefinite period of time is sure to get its profit elsewhere; in ways that can harm your security and defeat the whole purpose of having a VPN in the first place.

 

We suggest you do yourself a favor and invest a good 5 bucks for a reliable VPN like the dedicated VPN you can get from My IP.io or from another reliable provider. Prices are raging from $7 to $12 depending on the subscription time commitment, so going with My IP.io is a no brainer considering the unrivaled cost to features ratio.

 

No.2: TEST SERVICE TIME

 

 

To test the service most providers allow 7 days money back guarantee and of course My IP is no exception when it comes to letting users try the service out.

No. 3: COMPATIBILITY

Compatibility with Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices are a given for most VPN products out there. Stepping up a notch come browser extensions and compatibility with Kindle/eReader,  TV or gaming systems.

All My IP.io products are compatible with all major OSes (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android) plus Routers and Linux.

No. 4: ENCRYPTION

 

They say that a VPN is only as good as its encryption capabilities, but encryption in itself is not the simplest of topics. The terminology used to determine how secure a VPN connection is, can get very confusing, very quickly. Slapdash to the point of being misleading, many VPN providers describe the encryption they use in a telegraphic manner or worse, they don’t describe it at all.

 

Before getting familiar with security standards and encryption protocols, let’s just focus on this pretty impressive feature for a VPN to have, the Open VPN Cipher: AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with 256-bit keys — also known as the AES-256. This security standard is basically the same encryption standard adopted by the U.S. government and used by security experts worldwide to protect classified information.

Right below we have AES- 128, the Open VPN Cipher used by My IP.io, which remains secure as far as the AES in general is regarded. The mathematics of the 128 bit AES goes to show that a billion billion years are required and a supercomputer for a brute force attack to crack it.

Pretty impressive, huh?

With this in mind, here’s the actual math of the number of years it would take to crack 128- bit AES (notice the exponential increase depending on the key size!)

 

No. of Years to crack AES with 128-bit Key = (3.4 x 1038) / [(10.51 x 1012) x 31536000]
= (0.323 x 1026)/31536000
= 1.02 x 1018
= 1 billion billion years

Of course AES is not perfect, but hey! math doesn’t lie.

 

My IP.io comes bundled with a variety of VPN encryption protocols, supporting all the latest security protocols including SSTP, PPTP, IPSec, L2TP, SSTP and 128bit –AES, OpenVPN cipher.

When you use the MY IP.io app, you can easily switch between protocols, although it’s recommended that you stick with defaults.

No. 5: LOCATIONS

Generally used to epitomize how the right or wrong location can determine the outcome of a property sale or a new business venture, the phrase “location, location, location” acquires new meaning when referenced in Tech. Just as sometimes access to venture capitalists is somewhat more difficult, if you’re not in Silicon Valley, Alley or Prairie, often digital access requires geographical variables to wire.

 

You might be a french citizen with a industrial Design degree at the OSU in Ohio working remotely from Sidney for an US company that operates in Singapore with an innate passion for video games and plenty of geographically dispersed friends from back in boarding. Naturally, you will encounter geo-restrictions when connecting to your remote workplace or when you digress to getting your hands on Witchers 4 (!on the absolute latest timezone release), or even when communicating with your friends from abroad. Having a VPN in place to bypass geo-restriction, while keeping your privacy, hidden under rocks, is the way to go, keeping your data encrypted, while giving you tunnel vision to distant locations.

 

Geared with brand new locations from California to Florida, from United Kingdom to Germany or Australia to Japan, My IP.io comes with brand new locations to chose from.

Introducing a much more location diverse dedicated VPN service, our latest server acquisitions are located in:

• USA California
• USA Oregon
• USA Ohio
• USA North Virginia
• USA Florida
• Brazil
• United Kingdom
• Germany
• Australia
• India
• South Korea
• Singapore
• Japan

 

Ok, but what’s the right location for you, right?
Long story short, if you’re in east Asia try to connect to Singapore or US; or if you’re in the Middle East, try connecting in Europe. The first thing to consider is the nearest location to yours.

 

No. 6: LOGGING POLICIES

A common misconception goes to say that US VPN services are legally required to log activity on their network. While required to cooperate with US law enforcement, as opposed to other countries, the location of servers is often more important.

Not compliant with DMCA are a lot of server locations outside the US.

 

MyIP.io is a self-managed VPN network platform, delivering fast, secure and reliable VPN service ,with servers located in France, Romania and Canada, hence is not subjected to Ministry of Industry and Information Technology or DMCA compliance.

No. 7: SUPPORT

Most VPN providers offer support centers and entire achieves of How Tos or FAQs, but let’s face it, having a reliable support features means more than that. You want to be able to talk through live chat or with a live representative at times.

A VPN with My IP.io will give you access to one of the most diverse support system a VPN provider could give you. 24/7 Support through live chat or by phone, a comprehensive video gallery of how tos, ticket or email support and even remote desktop support, where the case.

No. 8: DEDICATED IPs

Very useful when playing online games or logging into services such as banks, Paypal, e-mail providers, etc., a static IP is an underrated asset, than not many VPN providers, big names (surprisingly enough), offer.

The ones that do offer a dedicated IP will charge the service as add on and will not always be that transparent about prices.

 

At My IP.io you can get your own static IP address for as little as $5/ month.

Many times, a dynamic VPN service can be rejected by services like gmail, for example. By using a shared VPN IP, Google may flag your account and require 2factor authentication.

For the record, http://64.233.187.99/ is Google’s.

This is their dedicated IP address and no one else’s, the unique address on the web that has been attached to the domain name google.com.

To have and to hold, a pretty alluring thought!

By Purchasing a Dedicated IP your site is the only one on the Internet that will be using that unique IP address.

Apart from the alluring sound of it, with a dedicated IP address, processes are allowed to run for more than 10 minutes as long as they aren’t consuming too much of the server’s memory, which would result in a CPU throttling. Moreover, certain voice chat programs require a dedicated IP address before they can be setup and used or if you have a program that sends out emails every so many seconds, such as from a mailing list program like DaDa Mail, then you would need to get a dedicated IP address, if it’s going to take more than 10 minutes to send out the emails.

No.9: BUSINESS PLANS

VPNs are often the communication platform of choice for virtually any business that takes itself seriously, as they enable site-to-site connection with a service provider managing the end-to-end network. A VPN enables a computer that is located outside the corporate network to connect to that network as if it were inside the building, allowing access to internal resources such as file shares, applications, and printers. Beyond connectivity a VPN implicitly means that a secure bridge has been created between any given device using that connection and your business server, which can be on your premises or in the cloud.

Appliances or servers will give you great control, but cloud-based, hosted or outsourced VPN services are the real deal breaker, with an unrivaled cost-to-features and security ratio, spearing you of the typical technical hurdles of on premise deployment and use.

A hosted business VPN solution will overcome the following thorny issues:

• on premise deployment:
  having a dedicated VPNin place will reduce the complexity of deployment and use to a minimum of only having to run a single interface software;
• data security:
  internal data, sites, git repositories and all information will be coated in multiple layers of encryption;
• remote connectivity:
  you will enable access across a geographically disperse workforce;

 

My IP.io, the platform of choice for many agile businesses, trusted brand by thousands of happy business owners.

With our business VPN suite comes strengthened security, as the service is not limited to encryption. We also support all the latest security protocols including SSTP, PPTP, IPSec, L2TP, SSTP, and OpenVPN.

The level of sophistication depends on the number of accounts and/ devices: our business VPN solution can consolidate all your team’s accounts into one master account, a convenient scenario in terms of having control, management and payment. We can allocate a whole subnet, so that you won’t be constrained as to having to whitelist multiple IPs or we can engineer a custom solution for your, in which we install a LDAP server. You will be given a password manager and VPN server and you’re free to run your own network to your preference. The business VPN solution allows multiple people to be logged in and proxying through a single IP address at one time, simultaneous connection for all on multiple devices, editing and monitor access, from a single, easy-to-use central admin area.

My IP.io Business VPN Benefits:

Multiple VPN Accounts

Dedicated Suppot

One Master Account

Discounts

To get started in full big business connectivity way, just connect with My IP.io and we’ll assign an account manager that will guide you through the whole installation process and assist you each step of the way for the whole period of your subscription. Once the number of accounts and connections are defined, we can set things in motion for you and your team.

No. 10: SIMULTANEOUS CONNECTIONS

Last, but certainly not least, the number of simultaneous connections can be a big plus for any VPN account you might decide to go with. Most VPN Providers will allow 1 to 5 simultaneous connections for each account. With My IP, a master account, available for business plans can get you up to 50 per account.

 

 

Hope the list here helps you make better informed decisions in the future!

Stay smart!