A VPN provides a secure online connection between your computer, and a different network. Mac users may have numerous reasons to use the VPN. Some of the reasons include protecting your activity on public WiFI, accessing content restricted to certain regions, or connecting from home to an enterprise network. It’s good to know that installing VPN on MacBook is relatively easy regardless of your tech experience. In this article, we’ll walk you through the steps to manually setting up your Mac to connect to a network VPN with either a free or commercial service.
There are a few important differences between the two options and we’ll cover them both here. Free services typically provide limited server locations or slow speeds. Paid services offer a larger range of servers. If the location or speed of a server don’t suit your needs, you can always change it once you’re connected.
When you connect to VPNs VPN, your data is encrypted, which means it’s encrypted into code that only your VPN is able to decode. This shields you from cybercriminals, as well as ISPs as well as advertisers, governments and other third-party companies. It also makes it harder to monitor your browsing history, even on unsecure networks like Wi-Fi that are public.
Depending on the VPN service, you’ll need to enter your server address and account name (also known as the “local ID” or “remote ID”) and then click Create. Certain VPN providers display these details in the System Preferences best antivirus for PC and others will require you to select your VPN and then enter the information within their own application.