Privacy and security are demanded nowadays more than ever because we spend many hours online for communication, entertainment, and work. That’s why the number of VPN users is constantly growing. Use ClearVPN to stay anonymous, protected, and safe while online browsing. If you work with sensitive information, you might need more security. Try such advanced security features as double VPN and multi-hop to have your data double-encrypted and additional safety.
Different hop VPNs compared
Hop is a number of networks that we use to send the data. It’s the source/destination or an intermediary between the source and destination. It can go through various devices (router, switch, network bridge). Let’s compare single hop vs multi hop.
A single hop means a direct connection. It’s the process when a single network device transfers the data from the source endpoint to its destination. Single hop VPN is a traditional widespread VPN service.
When should you use a single hop VPN?
- Watching a Netflix
- Streaming videos
- Gaming
- Torrenting and P2P downloads
So, it’s recommended to prefer a single-hop VPN when you need speed and performance. It’s important for you to trust the data center where your VPN server is located. For example, all the servers that ClearVPN has are encrypted and secure. It means users’ confidential information and online activities are safe.
A multi-hop system contains one or more additional stations between the single hop endpoints. Users are free to decide which servers they want to connect to from the list of VPN cascades. Different encrypted VPN servers ensure protection to the user's IP. Multi hop is truly safe and it improves your privacy and security online. Traffic is additionally encrypted for each hop. It’s impossible to correlate different traffics.
The number of hops makes the difference between these two networks.
What is double VPN and multi hop?
What is multi hop about?
It’s routing your traffic through several VPN servers. The best way to make your actions online anonymous and really private is to hop your internet connection around the globe. In addition, a double VPN is called a multi-hop VPN although it can consist of any number of servers.
Increase your privacy
Using multi hop means more security with each subsequent encryption layer. Multi hop technology uses strong 256-bit OpenVPN encryption and ensures more anonymity. Besides, the user gets a new IP address at every single hop.
End-to-end encryption
The user’s privacy and security online depend on heavy data re-encryption. This way you are safe and no one can analyze your data/online activities.
Prevent surveillance
It is good to use multi hop to achieve the desired anonymity. VPN servers protect your confidential data and browsing history, all your data will be encrypted heavily. Data centers won’t be able to collect information about you because of:
- secure AES-256 encryption
- mixed traffic and shared IP address
- correlation of the incoming/outgoing traffic is impossible to establish.
Threat model (the amount of privacy needed on a certain occasion) is the main point to use a multi hop network.
Benefits from multi hop VPN
- Your choice (the user can choose some combinations of various entry/exit servers).
- Privacy and security (user’s data is double-encrypted at both hops and it’s safer because many VPNs are used. The second server knows nothing about you as it gets already encrypted data.
- Censorship (it enables access to any resources and bypasses any blocks because of double hopping).
- Enhanced speed (International traffic is routed faster thanks to well-developed infrastructure. They exchange data between themselves faster than if it’s directly routed from one country to another. To solve speed issues, combine entry and exit nodes and get faster connection speeds than your ISP.
Double VPN and its features
What is double VPN? It’s known as Double hop VPN, Multi-hop VPN, VPN Cascades, VPN Chains. It’s an advanced feature offering extra-class protection (two VPN servers are used) along with two layers of data encryption for additional security.
Pros
- Top security (the highest one due to numerous technical features).
- Double encryption (the data has utmost protection due to multi-layer encryption).
- Total privacy (no ISP surveillance. So, it can’t track your activities).
- Different security protocols mixed (TCP and UDP).
- Extra IP address (you get an additional IP address from the second VPN server)
- Restricted data (servers have partial information about data destination, IP).
Cons
- Slow down the internet speed (Additional routing, security protocols, and additional encryption).
- Resource-intensive (it consumes more power for processing and drains the battery much faster).
- Poor choice of servers (restricted number of VPN-pair servers available).
Use double VPN to
1. Avoid global surveillance
Different agencies spy on us. Double VPN will make it much harder due to its encryption.
2. Work as politicians, journalists, dissidents
Those who deal with sensitive information need extra protection and reach any resources worldwide. It is especially helpful in countries with internet freedom restrictions.
3. Stay safe on public Wi-Fi
A normal one-hop VPN will protect you. As public Wi-Fi hotspots aren’t safe, some users might need extra protection
4. Be as safe and secure as possible
Security-focused tech-savvy and too worried about online safety prefer the best protection.
Who would benefit from these security tools?
Double VPN offers more protection necessary to those who work with sensitive data (dissidents, journalists, government activists), and have some confidential information, and want to avoid surveillance.
Does an average user really need a double VPN?
Not really. The fact is that a double VPN is a fascinating thing, but most internet users don’t need it. It is because single-hop VPN is the right tool to solve numerous online privacy and security issues.
How often can you use a double VPN?
It fits only if your online activities or data are something crucial
Basically, double VPN is a great feature specially designed to meet the utmost needs of the most security-concerned internet users. Now you know all the characteristics to benefit from it.
What kind of VPN is safer for you?
On the one hand, double VPN is safer due to double encryption, IP address double-hidden, etc. On the other hand, a double VPN can be only as safe as your regular VPN service is. There is no need to use two servers if your VPN service provider has a no-logs policy, a kill switch, and leak protection just like ClearVPN does. Remember! Safety depends a lot on how reliable your VPN provider is. To be safer, learn the cybersecurity tips.
Conclusions
Single hop VPN grants enough security as it masks a user’s identity with geolocation information and browsing history. Heavy data encryption and routing it through private secure tunnels make it extremely hard to identify you and collect your personal data.
Hopefully, you won’t get confused about multi hop VPN anymore. Double VPN is a step further to ensure users’ ultimate online security because another VPN server connection is added. But it isn’t a highly demanded feature.
