VPN vs Proxy: BIG Difference!

how's it going guys I'm Theo Joe and

today's video is actually based on a

question that one of you asked me it was

by a I dank Kai wanted to know what's

the difference between a VPN and a proxy

and I thought it was a really good

question because on the surface of them

they seem to be very similar they seem

to do the same thing which is hide your

IP address from websites and services

and change your IP address but that's

really where the similarities end they

are very different in terms of how they

work the protocols they support and in

terms of security and privacy and all

that sort of stuff so we're gonna go

over those differences and it is really

important to know this for those of you

who want a very basic explanation of

VPNs and proxies they basically both act

like a middleman so you establish a

connection with the proxy or VPN server

and then that kind of forwards your

request to the website so to the website

it looks like you're connecting from the

server and they don't see anything about

your real connection or location so

that's really the benefit of it but like

I said the way that this connection is

established is gonna be very different

between proxies and VPNs so the first

major difference is that with a VPN it's

configured at the system level so that

all traffic goes through the VPN

encrypted connection so it can you be

used with any traffic or any type of app

so you can use a VPN while you're

playing a game or streaming music or

doing file sharing anything like that

and although most VPN software's do

allow you to exclude certain apps for

the most part you're gonna be using a

VPN for all of your traffic at once with

a proxy server on the other hand that's

usually configured at the individual app

level so you would have to go into and

individual settings for some software

and put in the proxy connection settings

and then it would only connect through

that software well whereas everything

else will be unaffected

now the next major difference has to do

with security and spoiler VPNs in

general are going to be more secure than

a proxy so let me explain why with VPNs

they all pretty much work this

same way they're gonna all encrypt the

data put it in the tunnel and send it to

the VPN server and yes there are gonna

be different algorithms that you can use

to encrypt it in different key strengths

but they are going to all encrypt the

data now if you really wanted to you

could set up your own VPN server and

specially configure it to not use

encryption but you'd really have to go

out of your way to do that and really

anytime you would buy a VPN service and

use their software it's most likely not

gonna even have an option to disable

encryption so you're gonna get

encryption with a VPN that's the whole

point of it when it comes to proxies

though they aren't all the same there's

different protocols that a proxy could

use depending on the type of application

you're using a width and these different

protocols offer different levels of

security the first of these is going to

be an HTTP proxy this is basically just

going to be used for web content

obviously HTTP is the web protocol and

you're really not going to be able to

use this with any other type of data and

this might be either configured within

the browser itself so the web browser or

you might visit some website where

basically you type in the website you

want to go to and then it kind of

displays that as an interface so you're

not configuring the proxy it's just all

done on that site and the thing to know

about HTTP proxies is they're very

simple they offer no extra encryption at

all when connecting to the site even if

you're using it with your own browser

configured or again using one of those

proxy websites and this means that

anything you do on the web is going to

be just wide open as if you're just

using it with no proxy connection the

only thing it's doing is hiding your IP

address from the website another very

important thing to know is that some

HTTP proxies may or may not even allow

HTTP connections to web sites so you may

know that if you go to a web site and

you connect with HTTPS it says that in

the browser URL it means it's a secure

connection and an HTTP proxy may also

support HTTPS

which means it will be encrypted but it

may also just filter out all secure

connections in which case it'll either

just deny the

connection to the website at all if that

website forces secure connections or if

that website supports both it'll force

you into the non secure version of that

website so the advantage of these is

they might be a little bit faster

because there is no overhead but again

there's no encryption and a lot of free

proxies that do this type of protocol

will actually inject ads because it's

not encrypted so they can literally

modify your connection and inject ads

and that's how they monetize and that's

why they're free so always be a little

bit suspicious of free proxies the next

type of protocol is an HTTP proxy which

does actually encrypt everything with

the HTTP protocol so it's very similar

to the last one except it is encrypted

and if you connect to an HTTPS website

it's kind of like double encrypted

because again you're connecting to that

website with HTTPS and then the server

itself uses encryption as well the thing

to know is that if you connect through

to a website with HTTPS you're always

secure with that website because that is

a direct connection with you and the

website no matter what tunnel it goes

through they can't see anything and also

the other thing with HTTPS which I don't

like it's such a tongue twister to keep

saying this is that it does only support

web traffic typically so you're not

going to be able to use it with anything

else which is a little bit different

than the third protocol which I'm going

to talk about which is socks which is a

proxy that does support any type of

traffic so with a socks proxy and I

believe the most recent version is socks

five if an application supports it you

can use it so this could be music

streaming or voice chat or games or

anything like that but in terms of

security the socks protocol does not

offer any encryption by itself you would

have to have encryption built into the

app that would be connected with

whatever service it's using so I don't a

Skype or something

if white connects normally to the Skype

servers with a secure connection and you

use it with proxy it probably would

still be secure but it's not secure

because you're using a socks proxy if

that makes sense so if you're going to

configure a proxy with software and it

does

mention encryption anywhere you have to

assume that it's not going to be

providing its own encryption and is not

going to be secure

now many socks proxy servers do have ssh

support so it might allow an app to

connect with a secure connection but

that's only if the app supports it in

the first place just cuz again just

because you're connecting and through

the socks proxy doesn't mean it's secure

and also even if you are connecting with

SSH or something like that a lot of apps

will leak DNS so DNS that's basically

your computer sending out a request to

figure out what the IP address of a

domain is and it might send that request

outside of the proxy so even if you're

connecting with secure connection then

the operating system is still giving

away to your eyes P what you're using it

for and obviously another important

thing to remember is that even though

the socks proxy does support any type of

traffic the application that you want to

use it with has to support it in the

first place and for the most part most

popular software's really don't I mean

it's not really a huge request by most

people so you would have to use a VPN if

it doesn't support socks now all that

being said Windows itself does have a

settings page for configuring a proxy

which I assume would be used with the

whole system but again it doesn't

mention anything about encryption so you

really have to assume and I would assume

it doesn't offer any security in that

way so basically VPNs do have a lot more

advantages than a proxy the advantage of

a proxy is that it's gonna tip eclis

have less overhead because there's like

no security with it

so it might be faster if you really need

fast connection but again why would you

use a proxy in the first place if you

didn't want privacy and then it doesn't

really even offer privacy in the first

place and then again going back to VPNs

a big advantage with them is you can use

it with the whole system it does the

application doesn't have to support

proxies it doesn't even know that it's

using a VPN it's just all sent through

there like it's your regular connection

except it is encrypted really the only

situation I would consider where you

would want to use a proxy is like if

you're at school and you obviously can't

change the software settings on those

computers then maybe you could go to

like one of those web-based proxies and

you don't care about

see cuz you don't care about being

snooped on then you can use something

like that but again because it is gonna

be really not encrypted most likely I

wouldn't ever type any personal info

through a free proxy or especially not

login because again if it's not

encrypted or it's weak encryption or

something like that it's not gonna be

secure

so hopefully that covers everything and

answered a lot of questions you may have

had or may not even thought to ask and

if you guys enjoyed this video let me

know what you think down the comments is

there anything I didn't mention that you

want me to clarify I'll try to look at

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again thanks so much for watching guys

I'll see you next time have a good one