Privacy

A VPN is kind of like sending a letter through the post office using someone else’s address. Like if you put the grocery store’s address on it and then stuck it in with their outgoing mail.

It gets your letter there and the post office doesn’t know your actual address, they think it came from the grocery store. Likewise, the person receiving your letter thinks it came from the grocery store too.

And the VPN handles it in reverse by taking a letter from that person and even though it gets to the grocery store, it gets delivered directly to you and no one else except you and the grocery store know that’s not actually your real address.

For privacy, this is great at protecting you from websites you don’t want knowing your real IP address which can reveal things like your exact location in the world, say Facebook. You want to use Facebook to talk to granny but you don’t want Facebook knowing your real public IP.

Some people also use them for tricking websites into thinking they are elsewhere. When you subscribe to a VPN service, they often show you different servers around the world and you can choose to appear like you’re in the UK even though you’re in the US. A site like Netflix may show Rick and Morty only to UK residents so you use a VPN to trick them into showing you shows like that.