How to use VPN and Proxy

For all those working in IT industry or any who has a decent knowledge of Computers or information security, might have come across these two terms .i.e. VPN(Virtual Private Network) and Proxy.

Many of us might believe that these two are one and the same thing as they serve the same purpose. From operational prospective they might look alike but they have some very fundamental functional differences.

Let us talk about Proxy first:

Proxy server primarily takes care of the communication that you are doing from a web browser.

In simple language a proxy server just works on your behalf.

Example: User with IP address 1.1.1.1 is using Firefox (Web Browser) which redirects all the traffic
generating form this browser to proxy server with IP address 2.2.2.2.

So when the user tries to access internet, all his traffic generating from this browser will not have source IP address as 1.1.1.1 rather it will have source IP address as 2.2.2.2 which is the proxy IP address.

Pros: The end users identity will remain anonymous for all those system or web servers that fall behind the proxy.

You can access the web contents blocked in your country.

Con: In proxy user traffic is not encrypted. Your identity will be anonymous but your data is still exposed to attacker or hackers and you can become a victim of Man in the middle attack.

Now if you intended to just browse internet and not to perform any activity that involves sharing you credentials online, proxy is a good option.

I prefer Firefox over Chrome to use proxy and there is a good reason for that.
To set up proxy in Firefox you do not need to make changes in your system’s network configuration. As in most of the offices and colleges you don’t have enough privilege to make any network changes in your system.

Setting up proxy in Firefox:

Hoxx proxy is one of the good options to use for proxy in Firefox.

Go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hoxx-vpn-proxy/?src=ss

Install this add-on in your browser. An icon will appear at the top right corner of your browser. Click on it and it will ask you for login credential, Select new account and create an account on Hoxx.

Once your account is created logon to Hoxx and select the country whose proxy you want to use.

I prefer using United States.

Now we move on to VPN:

If you want complete anonymity on the internet and also you want your internet traffic to be encrypted, then VPN is the best option.

As the name suggests VPN is virtual private network wherein you build or connect to a network which is private and no one else other then you have access to that network.

There are different kinds of VPN networks; they differ mainly on the level of security they provide and the type of connections that are required to set up a VPN.

To name a few most widely used VPN, we have IPsec, SSL, L2TP and DMVPN etc.

To explain the functionality and set up of these VPN types will require another article that I will be writing soon.

For now I’ll show you how to setup a simple VPN connection from you system.

First you need to find a server which offers free online VPN services, I have listed some of them below:

http://www.freevpnnetwork.com/

http://www.freevpnonline.com/

I prefer Freevpnnetwork as it has got more options.

Once you visit these sites you’ll find the details for VPN servers as below:

Now click Start – Control Panel to open the control panel;

Click Network and Internet;

Click Network and Sharing Center;

Click Set up a new connection or network, then Connect to a workplace;

Select option No, create a new connection, then Use my Internet connection (VPN);

In the Connect to a workplace window, fill VPN Server hostname with IP found from website;

I have used London VPN (You can type any name in destination name). Also if you don’t want to connect now you can select the option Don’t connect now.

In Next window, use freevpnnetwork.com as User name field, and use password found from website in the Password field; Click create.

Do not tick remember password because the password keeps on changing. So whenever you want to connect to the VPN just visit the site and copy the recent password.

Once the connection is created you will get the option to connect now. You can also goto the Internet icon on the taskbar and select the VPN to connect.