Do you like to play games online on your phone, Gaming unit, or desktop? No matter where you are playing your games, if the games are connected to the internet, you better use a VPN for your online privacy and security. Further, installing a VPN can improve your online gaming experience.

A VPN or virtual private network will hide your real IP address and will reroute your traffic through the encrypted server of the VPN tunnel. So, while you play games online, you remain anonymous.

With time, security has become a major problem for online gaming enthusiasts. Hackers are coming up with new and improved methods to scam players. There has been a rapid increase in DoS, DDoS, and other gaming attacks.

However, VPN is not only used for anonymity and security. It can offer many other benefits. Let’s take a look at them.

• Offers Protection Against Swatting

There have been instances wherein in multiplayer games, the players become angry with their opponent that they start stalking their every move. If a player with not-so-good intentions gets his/her hand on your IP address, they can Easily hack into your social media and other accounts over the internet. What’s worse is they can also track down your location.

In some instances, such players have resorted to techniques, such as swatting. Even though it’s rare, it’s a form of harassment. It is a situation when someone sends over emergency services to your home by reporting an emergency situation, such as a bomb threat or fake hostage.

• Enjoy Safety While Playing Via Public Wi-Fi

No matter whether you are playing on your tablet, phone, or tablet, there are times when you connect through public Wi-Fi. Public Wi-Fi is found in the airport or coffee shops. Sure, you can play your favorite game by connecting to these free hotspots. However, most of the time than not, they post many threats, such as-

Wi-Fi Snooping and Sniffing: Special devices and software easily available to cybercriminals that allow them to track Wi-Fi traffic. Hence, the hackers can easily check what you are doing. This can give them access to your social media or banking account details.

Malware: Public Wi-Fi as it implies is public. So, there can be vulnerabilities that will let any hacker install malware on your device without you knowing it.

Man-in-the-Middle Attacks: It is one of the most dangerous threats you can encounter while using public Wi-Fi. In this attack, the attacker will intercept data that travels between the system and the internet. Hackers can use stolen data for spying on you and get access to your details or sabotage your communication. It can also corrupt your device.

But if you install a VPN, you can benefit from its security features, such as encryption technology. Thus, using a VPN will encrypt your data even when you are using free hotspots.

• Prevents DDoS Attacks

When someone sends in many requests from one compromised computer to one system to compel it to go offline, it is known as a DDoS attack.

Previously, DDoS attacks were mainly associated with websites and rarely with games. With time, these attacks have become so deadly that it is now possible for anyone to launch a DDoS attack through an online game.

If you use a VPN, it will mask your IP address, and if anyone tries to DDoS you, will not be able to locate your connection to send requests and compromise your system.

• Access Geo-Restricted Games

Many online games have more than one server in various regions using geo-blocking technology to ensure you are connecting to the right server.

Often, some games are released before in the major regions, such as the UK and USA, rather than other parts of the world. Thus, if you are outside the regions where the games have been published, you have to wait for them to be released in your country.

But with a VPN, you can access a game even before its release. Well, a VPN will have a server in different regions of the world. So, you can connect to a server in the location where the game has already been released and get an IP address from the same region. This way, you can play the game even before it releases in your country. It enables you to play games from any region you want.

• No Bandwidth Throttling

Often your Internet Service Provider will slow down or throttle bandwidth for some reason or the other. A few will throttle it at a certain day or time to ease their network congestion.

There are some internet service providers that automatically throttle when they detect an increase in traffic on the network, especially while streaming, gaming, or file sharing. At times, they throttle when they notice a certain amount of data being transferred.

The amount of data each game uses varies from one game title to the other. In case you play at least a few hours a day and download all game updates, you might reach the data cap quite easily. But if you use a VPN, you can easily avoid data throttling by encrypting the data. Hence, it becomes difficult for your internet service provider to understand if you are surfing the internet or gaming.

• Play Banned Games

There are some countries that ban video games based on their content or game type. For instance, Germany bans games referring to or promoting Nazism, while Brazil can ban games with too much violence.

Several countries ban a few games or impose censorship. So, you might not be able to play them if you are a resident of these countries. However, if you use a VPN to connect to the server in a country where the game isn’t banned, you can easily play them.

Bottom Line

Hiding your IP address and encrypting online traffic is the primary purpose of a VPN, but as you can see it provides many other benefits. So, if you are an avid gamer, you should immediately get a VPN.

One of the best VPNs to use while playing online games is FastVPN. It will provide you with the security and privacy you need to play online. You can install it on your desktop, laptop, or mobile device. No matter if you are downloading or playing games, you can expect a stable and fast connection with FastVPN.

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