How To Disable VPN On Windows 10?

VPN is a crucial tool for internet protection. While it is recommended to keep the VPN on at all times, sometimes it may be necessary to turn it off. So, how does one disable VPN on Windows 10?

Windows 10 makes it very easy to disable VPN and there are multiple ways of doing it. You can disable it from Network Connections settings, remove it from the settings app, or even use the command prompt.

There are multiple ways to disable or remove VPN on your PC. Moving forward, this article will discuss what VPN is, what its uses are, mention some useful VPN software and discuss why and how to turn off VPN.

What Is A VPN?

VPN is short for Virtual Private Network. It is a security tool designed to protect your data from onlookers and other hackers on the internet.

Whenever you connect to the internet, your device is vulnerable to attack from all sorts of people. Hackers might try to steal your personal information, stalkers might access your location and track you down and even your ISPs may steal your data to sell to large corporations for profit.

VPN provides protection against all of these by encrypting the data you receive and send from your device. Not only that, but it also hosts your activities on their server making it seem like all your activities are happening on their IP address which could potentially be thousands of miles away from where you are.

VPNs create a private network within a public network and shields you from all the dangers of connecting to the public internet. This is why it is recommended to keep VPN on at all times so you don’t have to actively turn it on when you go online.

Why Should You Use VPN?

There are a lot of uses for VPN. Some of the important ones are mentioned below:

Hiding Your Internet Activity

Your ISP, the browser you use, and even the websites and apps you use can all collect your data and monitor your actions on the internet. They take this information and sell it to the highest bidder for profits. However, VPNs prevent this by hosting your activities on their servers making your actions untraceable.

Masking Your Location

You can hide your location using a VPN. Most VPN services have servers spread all across the world and it is possible to connect to any one of them. When you are connected to one of these servers, the location of the server will show up as your current location. For example, you could pretend to be in China while still sitting in the good old USA.

Accessing Geo-blocked Content

Using VPNs will allow you to bypass geo-blocks and let you access content that isn’t available in your area. A lot of time, websites and apps restrict content from being viewed all over the world due to political and licensing problems. But VPN bypasses this issue by using servers from countries where these restrictions don’t exist.

Some Good VPN Softwares

Here is a list of some of the best VPN services currently available in the market:

ExpressVPN

With over 30,000 IP addresses and 3000-plus servers in 160 locations across 94 countries, ExpressVPN is one of the largest and popular VPN services in the world. It can support up to 5 devices at a time from a single account. This VPN service is well renowned in the VPN industry for its privacy and security.

ExpressVPN ensures there are no logs of the user’s data whatsoever. It, however, is not the fastest of VPN services out there even though it ranks pretty high.

Nord VPN

Nord VPN boasts over 5000 IP addresses and 5200-plus servers worldwide with 62 server locations in 62 countries. While server and IP counts are not as impressive as ExpressVPN,

Nord offers the ability to connect to 6 devices at a time and is cheaper compared to ExpressVPN. Nord VPN is a well-known name in the industry and has speeds comparable to the bests in the industry. It is a good VPN for those on a budget.

Surfshark VPN

Surfshark has 3200-plus servers in 65 countries and is smaller compared to a lot of its competition but what it lacks in size, it makes up with speed. It is the fastest VPN service available in the market at the time of writing this article.

Not only that, but they also offer unlimited devices to be connected from a single account. Thus an entire office could be run with one subscription. This is a very good VPN for families or someone who uses a lot of devices in general.

When Should You Turn Off VPN?

While it is recommended to keep VPN on at all times, there are a few situations when it would be wise to turn off or disable your VPN. Some of the reasons could be:

When you need to access content that is only available in your physical location. Turning on VPN will change your location rendering it obsolete.
When you want to troubleshoot networking issues.
When you are setting up a new internet connection, it is best to turn off the VPN for the first time. You can turn it back on once the network has been established.