VPN Explained: What It Does and What It Doesn't
Ten explainers, written the same way the comparison is — what is verifiable, what is marketing, and where the limits are.
Most VPN writing exists to sell a subscription, so the same three sentences get repeated until they sound like physics. A VPN encrypts the connection between your device and the server you chose, and it makes the rest of the internet see that server's address instead of your own. Everything past that sentence is context: what your internet provider can still observe, what the VPN provider itself logs, and which threats were never on the table.
These pages answer one question each, in the order a reader actually asks them. Where a claim can be checked, we say what to check it against — the published scores (the published comparison), the providers' own audit reports, or the plain architecture of the protocol. Where we are guessing, we write that we are guessing, and the full method sits at how we test.
Every explainer, in one place
The questions readers ask before they buy, written from the same published scores as the comparison.
Frequently asked questions
Are these VPN guides independent?
The guides use the same eleven providers and the same five published components as the comparison, and the weights are printed on the method page. The site earns a commission if you subscribe through its links; no provider can pay to appear in an explainer, and the affiliate links are labelled everywhere they appear.
Do you test the claims in these articles?
Where testing is possible we say what was measured. The speed component is an architectural estimate rather than our own throughput benchmark, and the articles say so wherever speed comes up — see how we test for the full method and its limits.
See all eleven providers side by side
Filter by what you need, compare every figure we publish, and open any row to read why a provider scored the way it did.