Best VPN services in conjunction with Antivirus on their servers appear to have much better results in a protection against known and unknown threats. As there is an additional layer of defense between the user and his computer, VPN makes it much more difficult for known threats to locate specific target machines. As some VPN services have firewalls at their servers, many threats are blocked there and since IP addresses are assigned, malware cannot specifically target known IP addresses. Further, if a good VPN service also provides Antivirus as well as Firewall, the risk drops appreciably, particularly if the Antivirus utilized at the server is different than that at the users' machine as each Antivirus relies on different generic techniques for dealing with new threats. In this case, the risk of known viruses can drop to as low as 2.5% and unknown threats to between 10-20%, far better than the current 15% and 50% by using a standalone Antivirus program.

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Antivirus and protected data

An area in which Antivirus has limited value is the protection of data that leaves the machine to make numerous hops through unknown routers on the way to its final destination. The data packets composing the data are completely vulnerable to theft and manipulation and Antivirus has no role to play here. Although Antivirus products often claim that their software protects data on the Internet once the data passes onto the open internet, it can be seen by third parties, stolen, manipulated,

collected, stored, or made to vanish. Antivirus has absolutely no protective value online and it is estimated by the Federal Trade Commission that over 65% of users' ID details are stolen online notwithstanding Antivirus' claims that their programs are effective online.

Public networks are also excellent for meeting with people if you need to collaborate for work purposes. A great many people are now employed from their homes. This means that there is no central office for them to meet with their colleagues or with people who they are working on a project. Working on a public Internet connection is oftentimes the best option for these workers. You can have the convenience of a public network with all of the safety of a tightly controlled private network with a VPN service

Best free VPN is more effective at protecting your online data

It appears that a properly encrypted VPN provides complete protection against online data threats. If the VPN service provides real 128 bit or 256-bit encryption, the data is effectively off-limits to third parties trying to scan, sniff or steal data packets. For data that is not on the machine but traveling across routers, this appears to be the only effective protection.