How to set up a VPN — step by step instructions | Articles | Phones, Computer equipment

VPN is a tech­nol­o­gy that allows you to cre­ate a secure con­nec­tion with the sub­sti­tu­tion of the user’s loca­tion. This is the abil­i­ty to con­nect to sites that are not avail­able in one region but are avail­able in anoth­er. We have put togeth­er a guide on how to set up a VPN (VPN) on Android, iPhone, tablet, com­put­er and brows­er.

How to set up a built-in VPN on a phone or tablet with­out an app
How to set up built-in VPN (VPN) on iPhone
How to set up a VPN (VPN) on Android — step by step instruc­tions
How to set up a VPN app (VPN) on a smart­phone
VPN99
Surf­shark
How to set up auto­mat­ic VPN on iPhone
How to set up VPN on a com­put­er (PC)
How to set up VPN on Win­dows (Win­dows)
How to set up a free VPN (VPN) on Mac
VPN in the brows­er
How to set up VPN (VPN) in Yan­dex Brows­er
friGate
Browsec VPN
How to set up VPN (VPN) in Opera on a com­put­er
VPN in Chrome

Con­nect­ing a VPN is easy on any device. Just fol­low the instruc­tions. Pho­to: web-promo.ua

How to set up a built-in VPN on a phone or tablet without an app

Impor­tant: it is impos­si­ble to set up such a con­nec­tion if the per­son does not know the VPN set­tings data (IP Address, pass­word). To do this, he needs to use the ser­vices of a VPN provider. The ser­vice can be paid or free. An exam­ple of a free site is https://www.vpngate.net/en/.

Detailed step-by-step set­up on Android and iOS can be found below. The pass­words, shared key, account that we spec­i­fy in the mate­r­i­al are rel­e­vant only for the servers col­lect­ed on the site https://www.vpngate.net/en/. If you used the ser­vices of anoth­er site, you need to check with him for all addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion.

This is what the table we want looks like. The sec­ond col­umn con­tains the IP address. And in the sixth col­umn there should be a tick. Oth­er­wise, this address will not work with L2TP, which is what we need. Pho­to: vpngate.net/en

How to set up built-in VPN (VPN) on iPhone

On your iPhone or iPad, you can set up a con­nec­tion address sub­sti­tu­tion even with­out using spe­cial appli­ca­tions. Need:

• enter Set­tings;
• click on “Gen­er­al” (may be called “Basic”);
• select “VPN”;
• Click on “Add VPN Con­fig­u­ra­tion”.

In the new win­dow, you need to click on the “Type” L2TP and enter:

• descrip­tion — you can enter any name;
• serv­er — it must be tak­en from the sec­ond col­umn of the table “DDNS host­name IP Address (ISP host­name)”. You can enter either let­ters (for exam­ple: public-vpn-171.opengw.net) or num­bers (for exam­ple: 219.100.37.137). It is bet­ter to enter let­ters, because the numer­ic IP address may change;
• account — you need to enter “vpn”;
• pass­word — vpn;
• shared key — vpn.

Impor­tant: oppo­site the select­ed IP address, you need to check the box “L2TP / IPsec Win­dows, Mac, iPhone, Android No client required”. This indi­cates that cus­tom L2TP/IPsec is sup­port­ed.

After that, you need to click on “Fin­ish” and in the pre­vi­ous win­dow move the but­ton, con­nect­ing the VPN.

Turn­ing off VPN is sim­ple, you need:

• enter Set­tings;
• click on “Gen­er­al” (may be called “Basic”);
• select “VPN”;
• move the but­ton to change the sta­tus to “Not Con­nect­ed”.

In just a few steps, you can con­nect VPN on iPad and iPhone. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

All input data can be tak­en from the VPN provider. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

How to set up a VPN (VPN) on Android — step by step instructions

In gen­er­al, the con­nec­tion mech­a­nism is sim­i­lar to that described for iPhones.

Need:

• go to “Set­tings”;
• click on “VPN”.

In our exam­ple, we con­nect vpn on a Xiao­mi phone. The set­up on oth­er phones with this oper­at­ing sys­tem may be slight­ly dif­fer­ent. For exam­ple, the VPN might be “hid­den” in yet anoth­er fold­er. If you can’t find it, use the search. In “Set­tings” there is usu­al­ly a line with a mag­ni­fy­ing glass at the top. It is enough to enter “vpn” into it.

Next, you need to click on “+”, “add a new net­work”, “new vpn net­work” (dif­fer­ent spellings are pos­si­ble), enter:

• name — any;
• type — L2TP;
• serv­er address — it must be tak­en from the sec­ond col­umn of the table “DDNS host­name IP Address (ISP host­name)”. It is bet­ter to enter the alpha­bet­ic ver­sion (for exam­ple, public-vpn-171.opengw.net), because the numer­ic IP address may change;
• IPSec shared key — you need to enter “vpn”;
• user­name — vpn;
• pass­word is vpn.

You need to click on the check­mark in the upper right cor­ner to save changes. After that, you can return to the pre­vi­ous page and move the but­ton, con­nect­ing the VPN. If you need to dis­con­nect from VPN, you need to click on this but­ton again.

Set­ting up a VPN on Android is easy. It is enough to use the instruc­tions. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

How to set up a VPN app (VPN) on a smartphone

There is an eas­i­er way to con­nect VPN. There are already ready-made appli­ca­tions for this. They are paid and free. All of them work on the same prin­ci­ple — they hide the real IP address of a per­son and his loca­tion.

The inter­face of appli­ca­tions is usu­al­ly dif­fer­ent, but the basics are always the same:

• there is a but­ton on the screen, by press­ing which we turn on the VPN;
• serv­er selec­tion — you can choose which coun­try’s IP address is bet­ter to use. By default, the pro­gram auto­mat­i­cal­ly con­nects to the fastest avail­able. But this fea­ture is not always free. For exam­ple, with VPN99, the choice of coun­tries is only avail­able after pur­chas­ing a paid plan. And Tur­bo VPN offers mul­ti­ple servers to choose from, even in the free ver­sion.

Tur­bo VPN design exam­ple for Android. You can con­nect to dif­fer­ent coun­tries even in free mode. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

Sam­ple apps that work on Android and iOS.

VPN99

Advan­tages:

• works on all devices (smart­phones, tablets, com­put­ers — there is an exten­sion for browsers);
• pri­va­cy — the com­pa­ny claims that it does not store user logs. This means that it will not know which sites the user has vis­it­ed;
• uses the mod­ern Wire­guard pro­to­col. It is faster and more secure than Open­VPN, which until recent­ly was used by all VPN ser­vices.

The free ver­sion includes:

• 120 min­utes con­nec­tion per day;
• lack of adver­tis­ing.

The paid ver­sion includes:

• round-the-clock con­nec­tion;
• the abil­i­ty to choose a serv­er — 17 options.

You can pay for 1 month (459 rubles) or the whole year at once (2,290 rubles). There is a ver­sion for Android and iOS.

The inter­face is sim­ple, typ­i­cal for such appli­ca­tions. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

Surfshark

The appli­ca­tion is paid — 7090 rubles per year (at the time of this writ­ing). But there is a free tri­al plan — 7 days. The card must be linked imme­di­ate­ly, but mon­ey will be deb­it­ed after the end of the tri­al peri­od. There is a ver­sion for Android and iOS.

Advan­tages:

• a large selec­tion of servers;
• fast con­nec­tion;
• there is an appli­ca­tion for phones, tablets, PCs — every­where you can log in under your one account;
• There is tech­ni­cal sup­port avail­able to con­tact.

Surf­shark app with a nice and clear inter­face. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

How to set up automatic VPN on iPhone

A con­ve­nient solu­tion was pro­vid­ed by devel­op­ers for iPhone users. You can select an app and the VPN will auto­mat­i­cal­ly turn on when you sign in to it. To do this, you need to install 2 appli­ca­tions:

– “Teams” (free of charge);

— AdGuard VPN. There is a free ver­sion (the lim­it on the amount of used Inter­net traf­fic is 13 GB). Paid ver­sion with­out restric­tions 999 rubles per month or 4090 rubles per year.

Please note: Automa­tion only works with this VPN app. You can try to con­nect anoth­er, but the script may fail. For exam­ple, automa­tion instead of turn­ing on in the back­ground will phys­i­cal­ly open the VPN appli­ca­tion, clos­ing the main appli­ca­tion and there­by trig­ger­ing the sec­ond sce­nario — dis­con­nect­ing the VPN.

How to enable automatic VPN

Need:

• enter the installed “Teams”, go to the “Automa­tion” menu;
• select “Cre­ate an automa­tion for your­self”;
• select “Appli­ca­tion” in the new list;
• at the next step, check the box next to the inscrip­tion “Open”, click “Select”;
• enter the name of the appli­ca­tion;
• select “Fin­ish”, then “Next”;
• on the new screen, select “Add action” and enter the name of the VPN appli­ca­tion used;
• make sure that the sce­nario “Enable VPN con­nec­tion” is select­ed;
• click “Set up con­nec­tion”, “Next”
• on the next page, move the “Ask before launch” slid­er to an inac­tive posi­tion (so that it does not light up in col­or);
• con­firm that you don’t need to ask you extra when you start the appli­ca­tion.

How to Set Up VPN Auto Shutdown

Need:

• repeat the first three items from the pre­vi­ous list;
• check the box next to the inscrip­tion “Closed”, click “Select”;
• enter the name of the desired appli­ca­tion;
• select “Fin­ish”, then “Next”;
• on the new screen, select “Add action” and enter the name of the VPN appli­ca­tion used;
• make sure that the sce­nario “Turn off VPN con­nec­tion” is select­ed;
• select “Set up con­nec­tion”, “Next”;
• on the next page, remove the “Ask before launch” slid­er to an inac­tive posi­tion;
• con­firm that you don’t need to ask you extra when you start the appli­ca­tion.

Now 2 sce­nar­ios are con­fig­ured:

• one auto­mat­i­cal­ly turns on VPN as soon as the user enters the appli­ca­tion;
• the oth­er turns it off when the appli­ca­tion in use is closed.

The scheme will work when con­nect­ed to the Inter­net (Wi-Fi or mobile Inter­net).

How to set up VPN on a computer (PC)

You can also con­nect the Inter­net on a lap­top or desk­top com­put­er in dif­fer­ent ways. For exam­ple, you can use spe­cial brows­er exten­sions, con­nect VPN in the set­tings of the lap­top itself.

Impor­tant: if you plan to set up vpn on the PC itself, you will need the same data as when set­ting up a con­nec­tion on smart­phones. In this case, you can use the ser­vices of paid or free providers. To con­nect from a PC, you can use the free site that we men­tioned ear­li­er — https://www.vpngate.net/en/. The step by step set­up is described below.

Impor­tant: all pass­words, shared key, account that we spec­i­fy in the mate­r­i­al are rel­e­vant only for servers col­lect­ed on the site https://www.vpngate.net/en/. This infor­ma­tion is cur­rent at the time of writ­ing. This site also con­tains instruc­tions for con­nect­ing. If the con­nec­tion con­di­tions change, the infor­ma­tion in this mate­r­i­al will no longer be rel­e­vant. If you used the ser­vices of anoth­er site, all addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion must be spec­i­fied on it.

How to set up VPN on Windows (Windows)

In Win­dows 7, you need to imme­di­ate­ly enter the “Net­work Con­trol Cen­ter”. All fur­ther steps are iden­ti­cal.

Step-by-step VPN set­up on Win­dows 10. Part 1. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Fotosklad.Expert

Step by step vpn set­up on Win­dows. Part 2. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photosklad.Expert

After that every­thing will work.

How to set up a free VPN (VPN) on Mac

For step-by-step set­up you need:

• select “Sys­tem Pref­er­ences” from the Apple menu, then “Net­work”;
• select “Add” in the left menu; in the “Inter­face” field, select “VPN”;
• be sure to select the type of con­nec­tion. To do this, in the pop-up menu “VPN Type” you need to select the appro­pri­ate one (by default, choose L2TP);
• you need to name the net­work and click “Cre­ate”;
• you need to fill in the remain­ing fields. Serv­er address — IP address from the site (for exam­ple, public-vpn-171.opengw.net), account name — “vpn”;
• open “Authen­ti­ca­tion set­tings”, in the fields “Pass­word”, “Shared key” enter “vpn”;
• click “OK”, “Apply”;
• in the “Advanced” tab, you need to check the box next to the item “Send all traf­fic through VPN”;
• it remains to click on “Con­nect” and wait until a new con­nec­tion icon appears at the top of the mon­i­tor.

VPN in the browser

To con­nect a VPN in a brows­er, you need to use ready-made plu­g­ins. They are all almost iden­ti­cal in func­tion­al­i­ty, but dif­fer main­ly in design. Now let’s talk about some of the most pop­u­lar ones. Impor­tant: brows­er exten­sions (as well as smart­phone appli­ca­tions) have the abil­i­ty to select the coun­try in which the user is alleged­ly locat­ed. A per­son con­nects to a VPN. After that, he can stay on the auto­mat­i­cal­ly select­ed serv­er or choose anoth­er one from the avail­able ones. Why switch between coun­tries?

• The vis­it­ed site can be blocked not only in Rus­sia, but also in anoth­er coun­try. For exam­ple, in the one that the appli­ca­tion has auto­mat­i­cal­ly select­ed.
• Servers dif­fer in qual­i­ty, con­nec­tion speed. You can try dif­fer­ent ones to see which one is the most com­fort­able for you.

How to set up VPN (VPN) in Yandex Browser

friGate

Easy to use, no con­fig­u­ra­tion required. Just press one but­ton to get it work­ing.

You can down­load from the site — https://fri-gate.org/ru/

You need to go to it from Yandex.Browser, select “friGate 2 for Google Chrome”.

VPN will imme­di­ate­ly load and its icon will appear in the upper right cor­ner. To enable VPN, you need:

• click on the icon;
• click on the pow­er but­ton — locat­ed under the inscrip­tion “site from the friGate list”.

That’s all. If you want to change the coun­try, this can be done by click­ing on the check­box under the inscrip­tion “proxy turned on man­u­al­ly”.

Using friGate is as sim­ple as pos­si­ble. It is enough to press one but­ton and the pro­gram will auto­mat­i­cal­ly con­nect to the desired serv­er. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

Browsec VPN

To install the exten­sion, you need:

• open Yandex.Browser;
• in the line “Enter a request or address” at the top of the screen, paste the link https://browsec.com/en/. The page in Eng­lish will open;
• click on the big green but­ton in the upper right cor­ner “Install Browsec for FREE”. The next tab will open the exten­sion’s page in the Chrome Web Store;
• click on the blue “Install” but­ton;
• Wait for a mes­sage that the exten­sion was suc­cess­ful­ly installed.

Why does the Chrome Web Store open in Yandex.Browser? Both browsers are made on the same engine. In oth­er words, they have the same foun­da­tion. There­fore, appli­ca­tions from the Chrome Web Store are also suit­able for this brows­er.

How to con­nect?

Just click on the exten­sion icon in the upper right cor­ner and click on “Start VPN”. The exten­sion auto­mat­i­cal­ly con­nects to the fastest one avail­able. By click­ing on “Change”, you can select a dif­fer­ent serv­er. Some of them are free, some are paid.

The paid plan is $2.99 ​​per month. It includes access to all servers that are in the data­base and a high-speed con­nec­tion (on free servers, sites will load more slow­ly).

Launch VPN with the click of a but­ton. You can change loca­tion if nec­es­sary. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

How to set up VPN (VPN) in Opera on a computer

Opera has a built-in VPN, but cit­i­zens out­side the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion can use it. Opera has dis­abled in-brows­er VPN sup­port for users from Rus­sia fol­low­ing restric­tions on 06/17/2021.

But you can use exten­sions. For exam­ple, DotVPN is bet­ter than VPN. Man­age­ment is prac­ti­cal­ly no dif­fer­ent from the rest. The only thing you need to reg­is­ter is the appli­ca­tion asks you to enter your email address and come up with a pass­word. After that, it auto­mat­i­cal­ly turns on.

There is a paid ver­sion (the price is from $1.6 per month, depend­ing on how long you buy a sub­scrip­tion. The short­er it is, the more expen­sive one month). Dif­fer­ences of the paid ver­sion: high­er con­nec­tion speed and more servers to choose from for con­nec­tion.

A con­ve­nient and sim­ple appli­ca­tion with a famil­iar inter­face that starts with a sin­gle click on a but­ton. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert

VPN in Chrome

One of the best apps (free, sta­ble con­nec­tion, choice of servers) is Touch VPN. The inter­face is as sim­ple and clear as pos­si­ble. Just click on the exten­sion icon in the upper right cor­ner and click “Con­nect”. If you need to change the loca­tion, just click on the name of the select­ed coun­try and select any oth­er from the list pro­vid­ed.

Touch VPN works on Chrome, Chromi­um, Canary. Illus­tra­tion: Eliza­ve­ta Chupiko­va, Photostore.Expert