Use cases
- Corporate VPN — secure access to internal services (databases, admin panels) from any network
- Bypassing restrictions — accessing blocked resources or region-locked content
- Public Wi-Fi security — protection against traffic interception
Protocols
- WireGuard — modern, fast, minimal codebase (~4000 lines), open-source
- OpenVPN — battle-tested, flexible, but more complex
- IPSec/IKEv2 — built into most operating systems
VPN vs Proxy
A proxy redirects HTTP traffic for a single application. A VPN encrypts all OS traffic at the network interface level.