So, you’ve decided to download a VPN on your devices, and you’ve never felt so safe and secure while going about your online activities. The world of streaming and entertainment is now your oyster, and geographic restrictions on content are now a thing of the past.

It’s a great feeling, and we highly recommend using a VPN for everything you do online. They’re famous for protecting your data from snoopers on public networks, and just because you’re not in a particular country doesn’t mean you can’t access their Netflix catalog. But what’s next? We’re here to answer that by shining a spotlight on four great VPN uses that many people have never even considered.

1. Get a Better Deal on Your Online Shopping

If you’ve had a VPN for a while, there’s every chance you’ve dabbled in the Netflix and Prime Video libraries from around the world. You’ve revolutionized your entertainment experience, but have you considered doing the same with your online shopping?

No matter what your interests, you might be able to save big if you use a VPN to appear to be from somewhere else. Flight tickets are the obvious example. Companies price differently depending on where you are, so you have every right to ‘change’ where you are to take advantage of the best deals.

It goes further than that too. If you’re a gamer, countries like Brazil have laws in place to say that anything made available as part of a bundle has to be available separately as part of their efforts against loot boxes. So if you’re buying music or other digital assets, you might get better prices by setting yourself as being somewhere other than your primary location.

2. Use Your Home PC From Anywhere

Your home PC and the broader network around it might be the centerpiece of your life, so it makes sense to be able to access it from anywhere, especially if you enjoy remote working from anywhere other than home. You can do this with all manner of remote access tools like RemotePC, but, crucially, you want to ensure you’re the only person that can do so. Opening up your home network to the wider world is generally considered a bad idea!

A VPN makes this possible by using the same tunneling technology as with every other purpose to ensure you have a direct, secure line from your device to your home PC. So whether you’re on public wifi, accessing through work, or anything else where privacy is paramount, the right VPN can make it happen.

3. Avoid Traffic Management Efforts by Your ISP

The internet is free and open, at least in theory, but that doesn’t prevent ISPs around the world from enforcing specific terms and conditions under the guise of network management. For example, they might experience heavy traffic to a certain site or may seek to restrict speeds for certain users on specific activities.

It’s not a practice that’s easy to support at the best of times, but it can be downright infuriating if you expect certain speeds, have a favorite activity, and find you’re not getting what you pay for.

A VPN makes you immune to this simply because your ISP has no idea of what you’re doing through your internet connection. Slowdowns on certain sites and apps don’t work because there’s no way to tell whether you’re using one of those apps or not. It might not line up entirely with those terms and conditions, but it’s easy enough to consider it as fighting fire with fire!

4. Extend Free Trials and Avoid Paywalls

When you use free trials for software and online services or access paywalled content that requires a subscription after a few free articles, your IP address matters. Now, in most cases, we support the idea of paying for services that require it, as that’s what keeps them going. However, you might find you need to read something else in a pinch or haven’t had time to test out a piece of software as extensively as you had planned.

Changing your IP address is right up the street of VPN platforms, and for limited uses, they come in handy to get more for free than you ordinarily might. However, if you do end up using something extensively, there’s not just the moral obligation to pay for it but also to bypass some of the challenges that come with VPN use. In this case, changing your IP address is easy enough, but you might not be the only one using it. If another user has utilized that quota by sheer coincidence, you’ll have to keep trying new addresses to get something to work.

Wrapping Up

If you don’t have a VPN already, there’s never been a better time to get one. They work across all your devices and provide an invaluable additional layer of security and privacy to online communications. There are dozens of ways they can be of benefit in your online life, and while we’ve covered some of the lesser-known uses here, they’re a hugely worthwhile investment for everyday tasks.

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