How to connect to a VPN on Android?

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This article helps us understand How to connect to a VPN on Android with a detailed explanation.

 So, let us begin!! 😊

Quick Overview To VPNs

VPN is an acronym for Virtual Private Network. It is a secure way of establishing channelized and safe network communication over a public internet/network. It encrypts your internet traffic and disguises identity over the public internet. All the encryption happens at run time. With this, it makes it difficult for a malicious practitioner to track our activities and steal our data.

While there are many free VPNs out there, you cannot be sure if they are deleting the logs or not. As such, it’s best to go with a paid VPN service when privacy is important to you. Most companies like ExpressVPN, TurboVPN, and SurfShark offer a VPN trial for you to test their services out.

Let us now quickly understand the working of a VPN.

On a broader level, enabling a VPN hides the IP address of our workstation and re-routes the traffic through a remote server. So, as soon as we surf through being connected to a VPN, the VPN becomes our source for all our information. By this, no third-party entity or even the Internet Service provider will be able to track our browsing data as well as the data we send or receive over the public internet.

Thus, it protects our information over the public cloud.

Step to connect to a VPN from Android OS

In the below section, we will be having a look at the way to connect to a VPN from Android OS.

We can make use of various open-source tools such as ExpressVPN, StrongVPN or TunnelBar, etc for establishing VPN connections for multiple users.

For the context of this demonstration, we will be making use of Android’s in-built VPN support connect. It offers built-in support for PPTP and L2TP VPN connections and does not require any third-party app installation.

Both PPTP and L2TP have some vulnerabilities such as being insecure because of using shared keys. Thus, for actual use, we recommend folks to use any standalone VPN application or OpenVPN in that case.

To add a VPN server to the VPN connection list,

• Open the Settings app and click on Other Network and connections/ Wireless connections.

Wireless Network Connections

• Click on VPN.

VPN

• Once you are in the VPN section, click on Add a VPN network.
• Under the Add section, you will need to enter the following information-
  • Name: Enter a legible name for the VPN as an identity.
  • Server’s address: You will need to enter the FQDN or the IP of the remote VPN server that you will be forming a connection to. Example: xyz.demo.com or an IP address (xx.yy.zz.aa)
  • Choose the type of VPN: PPTP or L2TP.
  • Enable PPP encryption for your communication channel.
  • Username: Enter a legible username. This will be used every time you wish to connect to the VPN.
  • Password: Enter a secure value that will be used to authenticate yourself while trying to connect to the VPN server.

Add a VPN network

Once done, you will be able to view your VPN details under the VPN configuration as seen below-

VPN connection

Conclusion

While we’ve outlined the manual way to connect to a VPN, there are many Android apps that make it super simple to connect. Simply install the app and give it permissions to edit the VPN settings. That’s it. You’ll then be able to

By this, we have approached the end of this topic. Feel free to comment below in case you come across any questions.

For more such posts related to the latest technology hacks, stay tuned with us.

Till then, Happy Learning!! 😊