Should You Use A VPN For Kodi?
Kodi is a software for playing any popular media like movies, videos, podcasts, etc. The online platform for streaming videos has become very popular, and many suggest accessing Kodi through a VPN. So the question is, do you really need a VPN for using Kodi?
You do not need a VPN for Kodi since there are no security or copyright infringement issues related to the software. However, a VPN connection could be advantageous if you are using any add-ons with Kodi.
From streaming videos to playing rented movies, Kodi has become a very convenient software to use. It is even compatible online, downloaded on your computer or television. For using Kodi online, we will see the necessity and advantages of using a VPN.
What Are the Advantages of Using VPN?
VPN, or virtual private network, offers privacy and anonymity to internet users. We use public internet connections most of the time, and thus, are more vulnerable to security risks.
A VPN creates a private network from a public internet connection. Its main task is to mask the internet protocol (IP) address so that a client’s activities online are virtually untraceable.
Thus, a VPN service can create a secure and encrypted connection from the public network that may provide better privacy than a secured Wi-Fi hotspot.
The most common advantages of using a VPN are the accessibility to online resources restricted in the public network, establishing a private connection safe from hackers, and browning without storing any ISP logs.
Giving Access To Restricted Resources
Connecting to a virtual private network essentially gives you a masked IP address, resembling one from a different part of the world. This allows the VPN user to access any online resources which may be otherwise inaccessible from their original IP address, the mac address, or through their public network.
Setting Up A Secure And Private
Once the internet traffic is sent over a Wi-Fi network, VPNs use encryption to scramble the data. This makes the data unreadable, especially when using a public Wi-Fi network where there can be risks of anyone eavesdropping on your internet activities.
Besides, VPNs like OpenVPN use a real-time server where the VPN services do not remember a returning client, and thus, every client has the same privacy with no saved logs.
Internet Activities Are Untraceable
When surfing the internet, the internet service provider (ISP) saves logs of all your internet activities. Whether you delete your browsing history does not affect the storing of the logs.
ISP logs can take anywhere between twenty-four hours to ninety days to be deleted, depending on the ISP policies. The data becomes vulnerable, and privacy is not ensured. However, using a VPN can hide your online activities.
For VPNs that allow logs to be kept, it is never associated with your original IP address. So, even though your internet activities are recorded, there is no way to know which logs associated with which VPN server’s IP address contain your data.
For OpenVPNthath does not keep logs, you can be assured that your online activities are private and unrecorded.
What Is Kodi?
Kodi is a widely popular media player software application formerly called XBMC. It is free and open-source software, which can be used online to stream videos. The software has a 10-foot user interface for compatible use with televisions and remote controls.
Besides, it is available for almost all operating systems as well as hardware platforms. You can play and view most of the streaming media on Kodi, including videos, music, podcasts, etc. Kodi also supports multiple add-on features for streaming any videos from the internet or playing common digital media files available in the local and network storage media.
Is Kodi Safe?
Kodi is a feature-packed software. The media player can be used for playing music, watching movies and TV shows, browsing photos, watching live tv, etc. The greatest feature of Kodi is the variety of customization options that lets you set it up as per your wish.
However, many people would like to avoid Kodi because of copyright infringement issues. So, let’s look at whether Kodi is really safe to use.
Kodi Add-ons
One of the most popular features of Kodi is the hundreds of add-ons available for the software. You can use any of the official Kodi add-ons as well as third-party add-ons.
The safety issue comes with the third-party add-ons as they are not monitored by Kodi. While some of them are completely harmless, like Kodi Youtube or Kodi Game Console, some can be illegal. Various third-party Kodi add-ons allow users to stream movies or videos illegally.
Kodi Media Player
It is important to note that Kodi does not provide media itself. It can be used to play media files and to store all your content in a virtual library for ease of access anytime and anywhere.
However, the users have to provide their own media content or point the software manually towards any online media they want to play. Thus, Kodi is a legal media player software that can easily be used to stream illegal media.
So while the software itself has no legal issues, its users can easily play videos with copyright infringement issues.
Is VPN Necessary For Using Kodi?
Using a VPN for accessing Kodi is absolutely unnecessary. Because the software itself is completely legal and unrestricted, a VPN is not a requirement for using Kodi.
As long as you are using the official add-ons with Kodi, or just streaming media you obtained legally through purchasing, open media or a library, Kodi is completely safe to use. There is no need to get a VPN which may slow the streaming speed.
However, if you are using a third-party add-on that you cannot trust, a VPN can offer you some extra online security. Besides, VPN can help you access any online media content geo-blocked in your IP address.
So the bottom line is, Kodi is just a media player. It is totally safe to use without a VPN unless you are accessing media from an online source you cannot trust.
