Do I Need a VPN for Mac?
Market these days is loaded with a wide range of VPN service providers, and the surprising fact is that each one of them claiming their platform is best for the Mac systems. In this scenario, people find it a little difficult to make a selection. Well, there are some VPNs that may leak your IP address and end up compromising your privacy, others may not support your favorite streaming channels, and there are many others that get too slow and annoying to operate.
Below we have provided a short but valuable study on best VPNs in the market for the Mac users.
Mac users are always in need of VPNs, especially those who are concerned about their privacy and want to enjoy more freedom online. VPNs are also important for those who want to gain access to geo-blocked content. Generally, as compared to PCs, Mac systems are better protected from malware attacks. But they suffer other huge online risks:
- The chances are that some hackers, corporations, and governments are spying on your activity online.
- One may suffer attacks that divert, modify, or intercept internet connections.
- Some people face issues related to geo-locked content that is restricted to be watched from a few specific countries only.
- Some apps and websites also track your device address and location.
- Web censorship related issues posed by corporations and government authorities.
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network that works by encrypting internet traffic on your Mac device and transfers it via some intermediary server at the selected location. There are several great Mac VPNs available in the market. It means, they can help users to work safely over public Wi-Fi, bypass censorship, unblock geo-locked content, apps, and websites, use Kodi and torrents. These trusted VPNs work on almost all types of systems, including MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and MacBook as well. Few older versions of MacOS as well as OSX are also supported.
It is good to use a free VPN on MacOS?
Experts do not advise using free VPNs for many reasons. The first one is that they limit your download speed. Most of the free VPNs pose some cap on data transfers, and they appear too restrictive even for the basic web surfing.
Next, the freely available VPNs often compromise privacy. The chances are that they are using outdated encryption technologies or may keep logs of your online activity. Few of these untrusted VPNs insert advertisements and cookies on your system and also sell your data to third parties. In short, they do all those tasks that are not expected from a good VPN.
Last but not least, free VPNs also pose threats related to malware attacks and may infect your Mac system. Hence, it is always important to choose trusted and reputed companies providing VPN services.
Why do Mac users need VPNs?
Although Mac systems are rated high for their security measures, still people need to use VPN for numbers of reasons.
The most important fact that promotes the need for VPN on Mac systems is to boost privacy. The fact is that the existing security and privacy measures on Mac systems work on stored data only. Once you connect to the Internet, nothing is secure anymore. Many hackers on public Wi-Fi networks or even your personal Internet Service Providers may track your online activity. The collected information can be further used against you in several ways. They may pose trouble by punishing you for using various P2P applications or limit your bandwidth. Some hackers are always ready to cause man-in-the-middle attacks and infect your system with malware and then lock or steal your personal data.
Along with the above-mentioned safety features, VPN also offers easy access to the geo-blocked content. In case you are interested in watching content that is restricted to some specific country (like Netflix) VPN can connect you to that location so that you can enjoy your favorite videos. Some of the best VPN services to enjoy geo-blocked content abroad are NordVPN, ExpressVPN, ibVPN. They can unblock Hulu and Netflix very well.
Mac security
The chances are that you have seen the years old ads showing the difference between PC and Mac systems. Their major point of attraction used to be the security and privacy features of Mac. Well, that claim was true to some extent. The fact is that Window-based PCs are more common, mostly 90% of all connected computers use Windows. That is why we read about Mac virus not so often. Hackers did not want to invest their money and time cracking not so widespread OS.
But with the advancements in technologies over the years, Apple products have now become widely popular. Hence, the chances of vulnerabilities are also increasing online. Some time ago a security researcher revealed two critical flaws related to Mac OS that could put users at more risk.
These flaws are named as zero-day vulnerabilities because the manufacturer, Apple, is unaware of them. Hence, it is a serious issue for Mac users. As soon as the manufacturers become aware of the flaws, they start working hard to treat the trouble so that users do not suffer.
The announcement about zero-day vulnerability has captured the attention of all malware developers. The Mac systems are at risk until manufacturers find some way to put the patch on this hole.
In such situations, a VPN can help Mac users to add another layer of protection to stay safe against zero-day vulnerabilities. It works helps to mask IP addresses and encrypt traffic.
Content is interested:
