While VPNs were once novel technological solutions, they are now a necessary tool. At a basic level, a VPN protects your online privacy so you are not targeted or discriminated against because of your location.

If you're still not sure what a VPN is, you can try visualising it. Imagine that the internet is a real highway and we are speeding around it on our motorbikes. We visit our favourite locations (websites), shop in shops, check our stock portfolio, read the news, play games and so on.

Sitting on a motorbike, you are completely visible. Anyone who wishes to do so can follow you along these digital highways, see who you are and peek into your private life. All anyone needs to do to see your online activity, who you are, where you want to go and so on, is to check. Worse still, they can follow you home. You are traceable.

Instead of riding the wide Internet highway, you can use a private tunnel: a virtual private network. a VPN acts as your own personal tunnel, enclosing you, masking you anonymously and preventing anyone from seeing where you're going or what you're doing. To drop the metaphor.

A VPN encrypts your connection and hides your IP address.

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