Everyone wants the best for their family. And nowadays, that means getting subscription for streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+, having a reliable and fast Internet connection, and buying the latest online games.
Is there anything missing? Oh right – using a VPN for your family! It’s a surprisingly useful tool that significantly improves everyone’s online experience.
If you don’t know what we’re talking about, no problem. We’ll give you a quick rundown of that VPNs are, how they work, and why your family should use them.
So What Is a VPN & How Does It Work?
VPNs are online services that do mostly two things:
- They hide your IP address. Nobody can see it when you use a VPN – not your ISP, not the websites you access, and not even skilled hackers.
- They encrypt your traffic. Translated, it means the VPN makes your Internet data unreadable. Nobody can spy on it. If they try to do that, they’ll just see gibberish.
How to Use a VPN for Your Family
Using a VPN is extremely simple. All it takes is a few steps:
- Sign up for a VPN.
- Download and install the VPN’s app.
- Use the app to connect to a VPN server.
- Surf the web safely.
You’d have to follow those steps for all your family devices. Alternatively, you could just set up the VPN on your router. That way, any device that uses the Internet through the router will go online with a VPN connection. Most VPN providers have guides that show you how to do that.
Why Should Your Family Use a VPN?
There are tons of good reasons for your family to do this. Here are the main ones:
Unblock Streaming Content
Movie night can be a great way to bond with the whole family – even with teenagers! It’s all about letting everyone have a turn picking what to watch.
Well, a lot of our readers have told us on multiple occasions how movie night was ruined because they weren’t able to find the movie or TV show they were supposed to watch on Netflix.
Sounds familiar? Then you know how disappointing that can be. But with a VPN, that never has to happen again!
Because the VPN hides your IP address, it stops sites like Netflix from geo-blocking your access to its content. Streaming platforms won’t know what country you’re from, so they’ll let you watch anything you want. For example, if you’re in the US, you can watch shows and movies on Netflix that are only available in the UK, Japan, Australia, or other countries.
To do this, you just have to connect to a VPN server in the country where the show or movie you want to watch is available. So a UK VPN server for UK-only shows, and so on.
Tip: If you use a smart TV running Android TV to watch shows and movies for movie night, you can install a VPN app on it. Most VPN providers have apps for Android TV, so you don’t need to manually set up the VPN on your router.
Secure Internet Traffic
The Internet is far from safe. Even your home network can be compromised because all network encryption standards have security vulnerabilities. Not to mention that your kids’ data is vulnerable whenever they use free public WiFi which doesn’t use any encryption.
The best way to protect your family’s data against cyber threats is to use a VPN. The service encrypts your traffic, so nobody can read it. That means you can safely use any unsecured network you want. The VPN encrypts the data end-to-end, so only the VPN app and server can decrypt it.
Prevent DDoS Attacks
As an adult, you probably won’t experience DDoS attacks too much. But your kids might experience them when playing online games. Wannabe hackers can DDoS them for something as petty as feeling “disrespected.” And pretty much anyone can rent DDoS attacks for as little as $10 per hour on the dark web.
If you don’t know what a DDoS attack means, it’s a cyber attack that forces networks offline. Your kids won’t be able to use the Internet, and probably neither will you. And this could go on for a few hours!
But if you use a VPN, this is no longer a problem. It hides your IP address, so hackers can’t use it to find your network and target it with DDoS attacks. They can DDoS the VPN’s network, but VPN servers normally have anti-DDoS protection.
Torrent Safely
Let’s face it – torrenting might be frowned upon, but that doesn’t mean your kids won’t do it if it means they can get their hands on the latest blockbuster movie or AAA video game without having to ask their parents for money. Instead of having a fight with them or trying to control their Internet access, it’s better to just make torrenting safe for them.
With a VPN, you can do just that. The service hides your kids’ IP addresses and encrypts their traffic. Here’s what that means:
- Copyright trolls and lawyers can’t see their IPs when they torrent. So, they can’t use them to find your ISP and send them angry letters.
- Your ISP won’t know your kids are accessing torrent sites.
- Also, your ISP won’t know your family is downloading torrents. Because the traffic is encrypted, they can’t see what you’re doing.
Not all VPNs support P2P traffic, so be sure to pick one that does. We usually recommend ExpressVPN, NordVPN, or Surfshark. Surfshark might be the best option for you because this VPN has unlimited parallel connections. That means everyone in your family can use the service on as many devices as they want.
Does Your Family Use VPNs?
If yes, which services do you like the most? And if the answer is a no, why not? What’s stopping you from getting a family VPN?
Please share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
