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Keeping your VPN on 24/7 is as easy as enabling the “auto-connect” setting.

These entities may gather personal information, track your online behavior, or monitor your location.

Illustration of a VPN running on a mobile phone

When using public Wi-Fi

Public Wi-Fi is just that, public.

There’s a chance that someone will be able to monitor your connection when you use a free hotspot.

While most of your web traffic is encrypted nowadays, this isn’t true for all of it.

Netflix

Otherwise, you could fall victim to several different types of public Wi-Fi attacks.

This is why your Netflix account serves up different content when you’re overseas.

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It’s not just streaming sites that have to abide by these restrictions, either.

Youll run into news sites, social media platforms, and online games that do it too.

Keeping your VPN on means youll be able to sidestep these blocks with ease.

A VPN can protect you from online price hikes, too.

With a VPN, you’re free to punch through most of these firewalls like cheap tissue paper.

When you want to avoid bandwidth throttling

VPNs are great for avoiding bandwidth restrictions.

This is especially true of torrenting.

When you use a VPN, youre masking all of your traffic behind a layer of encryption.

Your ISP cant tell whether youre torrenting or just visiting a lot of websites.

As such, youre way less likely to encounter throttling when you use a VPN.

When should you turn your VPN off?

Despite all these positive points, VPNs can still interfere with your connection in certain cases.

Here are some scenarios where it might be better to turn your VPN off.