proxy vs vpn - Which is better ? (Explained with a real life example) [2021]

ever since i made videos on vpn and

proxies one common question which which

i've been getting from you guys is what

is the difference between vpn and proxy

when to use proxy when to use vpn and

which is better

so in this video i will try to settle

this debate i'll try to explain these

two technologies to you in a very simple

terms and then you would i hope you

would be able to make that judgment

yourself hello friends welcome to itk

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it interesting for everyone and without

further ado let's understand

what is the difference between a vpn and

a proxy thank you friends if you're new

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you so friends uh let's take a real life

example uh to understand this difference

and then we'll go about understanding

the unique capabilities of a proxy and a

vpn so suppose there is this country a

and there is the secret services within

this country and an agent from that

secret service wants to get some

information from country b

and uh you know a specific department

one zero eight but obviously country a

cannot directly access country b because

uh this is uh banned this is uh

restrictive information uh for example

so what agent x does is it creates a

proxy within his own country and that

proxy is nothing but a national of

country b

and then this particular proxy uses his

uh you know his credential to login to

that particular department where he was

a part of that department and tries to

get that particular information

and

in this particular situation

although all the information is

requested by this particular agent or

secret service it seems as if you know

this information is being requested by a

national of country b

so this is where the identity of this

particular agent

is getting hidden and the message is

being passed but the important thing is

that message in itself is open

so the message could be that they want

to get some information from this

particular department uh

suppose that they want to understand uh

get some information about the personal

uh

addresses of

personal addresses of all the employees

of this department something like that

okay so that kind of information is

being uh you know trying to be fast and

using this particular proxy uh person

who's uh actually sitting in the middle

will you know try to get this so this is

a kind of a proxy example now in the

case of vpn if you take the similar

example suppose there is a country a and

agent x

and they want to access some information

from department and that particular

country what they can do is there could

be a third country sitting in the middle

which is country z and there could be

one person from that particular country

sitting with this particular agency and

one person sitting within that

particular country

so when the agent passes on the request

which they want this particular agent

transform this into a a number or a

cryptographic uh you know code which

only this particular person sitting here

can recognize so when this information

is sent over to this particular person

in country z from z1 to z2 it is hidden

the meaning of the message is hidden so

while the identity is also hidden

the message in itself is also hidden so

here what we are hiding we are not only

hiding the user identity we are also

hiding the privacy of what data is being

uh is being asked for so that no one can

uh you know do some spoofing or look

into this particular information and

then this particular age you know this

particular guy would then connect with

this particular country and try to get

uh this information now uh this might

sound like a detective movie or

something but it's just for explanation

purpose guys don't take it too seriously

but uh yes this is what a proxy versus a

vpn does so proxy hides your identity

where in here you not only hide your

identity you are also hiding the data

which is which is in transit

so now we will talk about the specific

architecture and further features of a

proxy and a vpn so suppose we are logged

in to our office machine and trying to

access the internet then in that case

your office machine

will go through a proxy server which

will be within your premises and then

that particular proxy server will go and

try to connect to the

internet okay so this is within the

office network a good example to

understand how proxy works

now on the flip side suppose like in

kovitz situation everyone is now working

from home and from home you want to

connect to your office network so what

will happen is that your machine will

have a vpn client installed okay this

particular vpn client which i said

country zed and uh you know z1 agent

which i explained in the real life

example so that is the z1 agent vpn

client installed on your laptop and then

it will pass on the message through a

vpn tunnel encrypted message which no

one can understand only z1 and z2 z2 is

nothing but your vpn server can

understand so it will connect to this

vpn server and then this particular vpn

server will eventually connect to the

backend web application server and then

the communication will happen so this is

in context with an office but uh again

uh in a normal situation also you can

use proxies to access

you know websites which are outside into

a restrictive geography through a proxy

and also we through vpn server you can

access certain information which are

restricted so now let's go through some

basic differences between proxy and a

vpn so first and the foremost as we

discussed

uh proxy protects user identity wherein

a vpn protects user identity and privacy

that is encrypting the message itself

encrypting the data in transit the

second difference is again very obvious

a proxy server hides your ip and

protects you through ip masking where in

a vpn hides your ip as well as encrypt

the data in transit so what does that

imply that implies

that

vpn can do both the things what proxy

can do vpn can do but it can also do

further encryption of your data

a proxy is used for

mostly for web traffic http or https

protocols uh wherein vpn can be used for

all kind of traffic http tcp udp

uh because it works at os os level

wherein you know a proxy works at an

application layer

it is less secured obviously proxies are

prone to risk it could be very easily

broken and could be very easily played

around with so that's why proxies are

not very reliable and secure

wherein if you compare vpns and now with

some paid good vpns if you take a good

vpn then definitely uh you know you will

get a good security

i i talked about this before so it works

proxy work at an application level

wherein uh you know a vpn works at os

level

less reliable more reliable

easier to maintain complex to maintain

now obviously proxies are much much

easier to set up and uh you know

maintain wherein for vpn you need to set

up the vpn server you need to set up the

vpn client on your machine and then

these are also memory intensive so vpn

consumes a lot of memory lot of cpu on

your client as well because you are

installing it on the client

uh it is cheaper than vpn uh obviously

and uh vpns are you know are always

costlier than proxy so whenever you want

to buy if you want to invest money uh

vpns would always be costlier than

proxies

and both

one similarity which is there is both

can face performance issues but because

of different reasons so proxy can face a

performance issue if you're supposed if

you're using a shared proxy so there's a

shared proxy and you're trying to use

all the send all the requests to that

shared proxy server then you it could

face performance issues wherein you can

also face performance issue on vpn and

that depends on the proximity or the

distance of your vpn client from your

vpn server if it is too much then

obviously going to the vpn server and

then vpn server routing it to actual web

server might take a lot of time

so in totality if you have to choose

either of one

then if you can spend some money and you

want more security uh and

you know you want more features as far

as the encryption is concerned then

obviously vpn should be your go-to

choice proxy could be done for very

lightweight surfing you know maybe you

want to access some websites which are

blocked or something for that kind of

work you can use proxy but if you are

suppose if you are trying to log into

your office environment you want more

security so in all those cases

vpns are very very good so when it comes

to choosing a specific product a vpn

product or a proxy

service then obviously there are a lot

of documentation available online i'll

put some links in the description which

will talk about some good products

around proxy and vpns but i would

suggest you can spend some money and get

a good vpn server or vpn service and

also specifically which commits to uh no

logs retention so that there is no data

retained for whatever activity you are

doing uh via that vpn server so that

would be very very good option you can

try so friends i hope this was a useful

video and added some value to your

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time please keep learning keep sharing

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bye for now