There are a lot of security provisions being introduced on the internet for safety purposes. There is a high risk of losing information over the web and you need to be aware of it. You can ensure that your information is safe and secure by creating a private connection over the web. The most common ways of creating a private connection are through a VPN or a proxy. It is important that you understand the difference between the two before forming a private connection for the same.
The major differences between VPN and proxy are:
Basic meaning
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is the method of accessing internet in a secure and a private manner. VPNs are popular because they hide the IP address of your computer and make you anonymous as no one can identify the location from where you are accessing the information. A proxy on the other hand, acts as a link between the internet and your device. You send a request through a proxy to access a particular website. Once the request is approved like on a YouTube proxy, you can access it and the website is forwarded to you from a different source.
Working
For using a VPN, you need to first register with a VPN service and then install a software which would act as the VPN client. There are multiple locations of the VPN servers all over the world, hence, you can pick up any location and it would help you in staying anonymous. After setting up a server, all the applications connected to the server would be connected through the internet.
Whereas, a proxy acts as a link or a gateway between the website you want to access and your browser. It works on the method of sending requests and hiding the IP address of the machine once the requests are accepted. It is much more beneficial and convenient than VPNs because here you do not have to set up an entire proxy connection and there is no need to redirect the entire connection as a whole.
What do they hide?
A VPN hides the IP address of your machine and helps in creating a private and a secured connection over the internet. It encrypts the data and no one can see eh data which is being exchanged between the website and your computer. A proxy also hides the IP address; besides, it creates a fake IP and the website which you wish to access is not able to see the original IP of your machine, but it sends data to the fake IP which has been created by the server and hence you can access all the information from that.
Conclusion
Hence, VPN and proxy are not the same things and there is a difference between the two. A proxy is much more advantageous as compared to a VPN because of the more benefits which it gives to its users. These are also cheaper and helps you save a lot of money as well.
