VPN vs. HTTPS: What’s the difference? – Surfshark
If you’ve ever heard about HTTPS or VPNs, you’ll know that they both have to do with encryption. That sounds great, right? Instead of letting your information travel openly via the wilderness of the Internet, you armor it with encryption, and everything’s secure.
Of course, there’s always more to the story. HTTPS and VPNs are not very similar things. They do both, however, fall under the security umbrella. In this article, I’m going to explain what the difference is between HTTPS and VPNs. We’ll also talk about why it’s good to have both in your arsenal.
What is HTTPS?
HTTPS (which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is what secures your information when you visit websites. To see anything, for example, on this page, you need to send various requests and download the content that’s hosted on a server. That used to be done with the help of HTTP – you used to see these letters at the beginning of a website address everywhere.
However, it had a major issue: anyone could see what you and the site were talking about – even when you entered private information, such as your password. To fix that, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) was introduced – but please note that it is outdated, and we now use TLS (Transport Layer Security).
That’s how we got the new, encrypted version of HTTP that is called HTTPS. You can see if a site you visit uses it by checking the address box on your browser. See a padlock? Good! This site uses HTTPS and, therefore, secures your information.
Is HTTPS enough for online security?
The short answer is no; unfortunately, it isn’t. First of all, you will still find sites that do not use it – although that is getting rarer. Plus, it cannot protect all the information you send when you go online – it only secures your browser traffic.
Your apps communicate with the Internet more than you’d think – and you need to protect everything, not just what happens on your browser. HTTPS can also be susceptible to specific attacks (like Root Certificate Attacks) that a VPN can protect you from.
What is a VPN?
A VPN (short for Virtual Private Network) is a technology that helps you become private and secure online. If you want to learn about it in-depth, we have a detailed article about VPNs right here. Like I’ve mentioned before, VPNs are commonly associated with encryption, and that’s entirely true.
When you use a VPN, it becomes a “tunnel” that you use to access the Internet, bypassing your Internet Service Provider (ISP). During this process, it encrypts all the data you send and uses various security measures to ensure that you are very hard to trace, private, and secure. A VPN will also hide your IP address and can make it seem like you’re in a different place, all while you’re at home on your couch.
VPN vs. HTTPS: similarities and differences
Both HTTPS and VPNs encrypt your information – but a VPN encrypts more of it. HTTPS only encrypts what is sent via a browser to a server and back and only if it’s enabled on the sites you visit. A VPN will encrypt everything (there’s much more communication going on than you’d think! ) as long as you keep it on.
VPNs generally use more advanced encryption methods. While any encryption is better than none, a VPN can provide you with top-of-the-class security. One of the ways it achieves that is by using secure VPN protocols that handle quite a lot – and encryption is only 1 part of it.
HTTPS can be vulnerable to some types of attacks. For example, HTTPS may not hold its own against a Root Certificate Attack, while you should be fine with a VPN. Combine both, and it’s the perfect team!
VPNs do so much more than encrypt your data. They change your IP, let you choose a new geographical location (which is great for accessing blocked content or getting more out of your Netflix subscription), and much more. We have a guide on how you can use a VPN and what you can do with it.
VPN
HTTPS
Encrypts all traffic
Encrypts browser traffic
Uses more sophisticated encryption
Uses encryption
Holds up against Root Certificate Attacks
Can be vulnerable to Root Certificate Attacks
Changes your IP, lets you choose a new location, and more!
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HTTPS + a VPN = peace of mind online
It’s great that online security is being highlighted so much more. We’re becoming aware of just how dire the lack of it is, and things like avoiding HTTP websites.
VPNs are pretty much trending currently – and helping a lot of people take back control of their online privacy and feel safe. We recommend that you combine both since HTTPS work well with VPNs. It’s a great security team to have on your side whenever you venture online (and let’s face it, most of us go online more often than outside these days).
Still looking for a VPN that suits your needs? Give Surfshark a go – you can change your mind within a 30-day window, plus, you’ll get a super budget-friendly price.
HTTPS vs VPN – Do you need VPN if you use HTTPS? – SSL …
HTTPS vs VPN – Do you need VPN if you use HTTPS?
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VPN and HTTPS are two important technologies for online protection. Many users ask which one is better, but comparing them is like comparing apples to oranges. Both are great tools to use, but for different reasons. Best of all, they complement each other, so you can use both for a better browsing experience on the Internet.
What is a VPN and how does it work?
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, a service that protects your identity and data when you browse the web. VPN acts as a tunnel between your devices such as PC, tablets, and mobile phones, and an unsecured network like the Internet. To establish an encrypted connection between you and the Web, all you have to do is download a VPN client from a trusted provider and install it on your machine.
With a commercial VPN, you can connect to a wide range of servers from every corner of the world, and not even your ISP (Internet Service Provider) can track the traffic and data traveling between your device and the server. On top of that, your real IP address is masked with another one corresponding to the server’s location of your choice. For instance, you browse from the USA, but with a VPN you appear as if you’re from a different country.
The pros and cons of a VPN
A VPN offers plenty of benefits, but it doesn’t mean you should always use it. Below we’ve listed a few VPN pros and cons to help you understand better when you may need one.
Pros:
VPNs hide your online identity
Nowadays, everyone and their dog can monitor your online activity. From your ISP and government surveillance agencies to advertisers and amateur hackers, everyone can see your browsing history and invade your online privacy. Here’s where a VPN steps in and protects your confidentiality. By hiding your IP address and encrypting the online traffic, a VPN makes you vanish from the trackers’ radar. Neither your ISP nor Google or other ads services will be able to observe your online movements.
VPNs bypass geo-restrictions
How many times you’ve wanted to watch a movie or listen to a song, only to find out that they are blocked in your country? It’s not your fault you can access your favorite TV show, but content creators aren’t responsible for these restrictions. All they do is follow the copyright rules and licensing regulations. Websites enable geo-blocking by seeing your IP address, which is allocated to your country or region. Since a VPN hides the IP address, you can connect to a location where it’s available and enjoy it as if you were from that area.
VPNs bypass firewalls and secure your online connection
VPNs are handy when you’re traveling abroad or work remotely. In some countries like China, where government-enforced firewalls block popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, a VPN is the only way to access them. Likewise, if you need to use a free WiFi connection for work or shopping, a VPN will encrypt your credit card details and login credentials from cyber-attackers.
Cons:
VPNs can reduce your online speed
Your Internet connection speed may be unstable when you use a VPN. A common reason is a distance from your physical location to the remote server you want to connect. For instance, if you’re in the UK and connect to a server in New Zealand, which is thousands of miles away, the speed will slow down, and your videos may buffer.
Free VPNs can endanger your privacy
Free is always tempting but seldom reliable. A dodgy VPN service can do you more harm than good. If it doesn’t follow the latest VPN protocols and encryption, your credentials may be vulnerable to cyber-thieves. Even worse, a free VPN might even inject malware into your system.
Some platforms don’t inherently support VPNs
You shouldn’t have a problem installing a VPN service on popular platforms such as Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. However, on some devices and operating systems such as Chromebook and Linux, you’ll have to manually configure a VPN connection.
Now that you know what a VPN is, let’s refresh our memories about what HTTPs is and does.
What is HTTPS and how does it work?
HTTPS (HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure) is the secure version of HTTP, a protocol used to transfer data over the web. HTTPS is also known as HTTP over TLS (Transport Layer Security), or HTTP over SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). TLS/SSL is a cryptographic protocol designed to encrypt sensitive data in transit between two computer applications over a network.
HTTP is the underlying protocol of the World Wide Web. It defines how browsers and servers should act in response to various commands. While HTTP is essential to how the Internet functions, it has one huge weakness: all data transferred via HTTP remains in plain text and becomes susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks. That’s why all websites today should use the secure HTTPS protocol where TLS encryption is impossible to crack by hackers.
Protecting users’ sensitive data is of paramount importance to leading browsers such as Chrome and Firefox. If you don’t use HTTPS, browsers will flag your site as not secure, and visitors will see a security message instead of your content.
To enable HTTPS, you must install an SSL certificate on your website’s server. SSL certificates are small digital files that verify and confirm your website or company’s identity.
As a visitor, you should share your private details such as login credentials and credit card numbers only on HTTPS sites. How do you know a site is encrypted? The padlock icon next to the URL is the best indicator. You can click it and read more about the certificate type and issuer.
We’ve already written about the benefits of HTTPS and SSL certificates. Check them out.
By now, you should understand better VPNs and HTTPS. Let’s wrap up the differences and similarities, so you know exactly where and when to use them.
HTTPS vs VPN – differences and similarities
Both VPN and HTTPS encrypt communications, but while VPN does it for your entire device, HTTPS only protects the connection between your browser and the website’s server.
A VPN hides your identity and browsing activity from ISP, surveilling agencies, and hackers, while HTTPS encodes sensitive information you submit on websites.
Unlike a VPN, you don’t have direct control over HTTPS, since the SSL certificate is managed by the website owner.
Neither HTTPS nor VPNs will protect your device from malware or scams. You should apply common sense and caution when using suspicious websites or services.
In conclusion, VPNs are third-party software that protects Internet privacy, while HTTPS is a protocol that secures communications over the Web. You don’t need a VPN to use HTTPS and vice versa, but you can use both technologies at the same time to accomplish different goals. You can access an HTTPS website from a remote VPN server to securely buy a service that is restricted in your country. And that’s the beauty of modern technology.
Do I need a VPN if I have https? A reader question, answered
I recently got another letter from a reader that can serve as a great foundation for an article. Our reader asks:Is not the encryption provided by my browser on the data I exchange with an: site sufficient to protect the data? My understanding has been that it is. If so, a VPN is not needed for this purpose. Furthermore if so, it’s perfectly safe for me to exchange private data (say, account info with my bank or stock broker) over any public, open network. Of course, VPN’s provide several other valuable functions, but as I understand it they do NOT provide any additional security to the actual data exchanged. VPN providers would likely not want to highlight this. There’s a lot to unpack in our reader’s letter. Let’s dig into each question/statement one-by-one. Perfectly safe Separate from the technical questions, our reader makes an assertion I think deserves an immediate and somewhat forceful correction. Our reader states: It’s perfectly safe for me to exchange private data (say, account info with my bank or stock broker) over any public, open network [using]. Let’s get this out of the way: It is never, ever, in any way, ever “perfectly safe” to exchange data over the internet, whether via a public, open network (shudder) or even from your home or office. If reading ZDNet regularly tells you anything, it’s that there are security breaches and security flaws throughout our networks that occur with constant, never-ending, and pretty much overwhelming regularity. I’m not going to go into either all the breaches or even all the ways message traffic can be intercepted while in motion. Suffice to say, our data is never “perfectly safe, ” and so we must always take action to protect ourselves, our data, and by extension, our financial and physical because you’re not paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
Because of this reality, we often practice a belt-and-suspenders approach to all of our security practices. That means, even though we may have one level of security, it’s never enough. That method of security may be cracked or buggy, or there may be some other reason it’s leaky. It’s always best to have multiple approaches to keeping safe. Must read:How to install and set up a VPN on iOS, Mac, Windows, and AndroidThe fastest VPNs: NordVPN, Hotspot Shield, and ExpressVPN comparedThe best VPN services: Safe and fast don’t come freeWhat is a VPN and how does it work? Your guide to internet privacy and securityThe best free VPNs: Why they don’t exist Is enough? Let’s start with what does. It secures (through encryption) an connection between a website and your browser. That means that the contents of what you’re transmitting are unlikely to be read or changed between your browser and the website. But you are not in control of this connection. It’s up to the website operator (and any associated services it calls on) to be sure to properly set up and operate the secure connection. Not all websites use, so anything you do on an unencrypted connection is visible. What’s actually of far greater concern with unencrypted traffic is that an attacker (usually called a Man in the Middle attack) can modify what is sent, injecting tracking bits — or worse, malware — into the stream. The most visible of these are Great Cannon-style attacks that inject JavaScript and HTML payloads into unprotected web traffic. These payloads then conduct denial of service attacks (hence: cannon) against targets of interest to the hackers. No one wants their web browser unwittingly turned into a denial of service weapon. Another thing to consider about encryption is it only encrypts your web traffic. Any other internet activity is not touched by the protocol and therefore requires its own encryption. Examples of other activity include web-based video games that might send your account, password, and even credit card information in the clear; an e-mail program; or even a locally run accounting program. So, yes, does help. But it’s only one security accessory in a belts-and-suspenders-security ensemble. Wireless router encryption There’s another encryption element that sometimes comes into the chain. That’s the Wi-Fi encryption you get when you use a Wi-Fi router with a password. Of course, here’s another point of risk: You have no way of telling if the Wi-Fi router has been spoofed, and you’re really sending all your data through a pineapple or some other data spoofing device.
VPN encryption This statement by our reader is a little tough to unpack: “VPN’s provide several other valuable functions, but as I understand it they do NOT provide any additional security to the actual data exchanged. ” I think what our reader is saying that VPNs provide other services, but they don’t provide any other data security services. But VPNs do. They also encrypt data. VPNs absolutely do provide data security services. Packets are encrypted from the local browser to the VPN service provider. All packets. Now, it’s important to understand where this encryption helps and where it doesn’t. If you’re on your web browser in a coffee shop and you’re talking to your bank’s web interface, your traffic is encrypted in your browser, goes from your device to a local router, to the local ISP, across a whole bunch of hops, and then to your bank, where it’s decrypted. Https will encrypt that entire pipe, but only if everything is set up correctly. Now, if you’re using a VPN (with or not), your data is encrypted on your computer. If you’re using, the -encrypted data is encrypted again by the VPN. That data then travels over the usual hops to a VPN server, is decrypted once (the VPN’s layer is removed), and sent on to your bank. The benefit of VPN encryption is from your device to the VPN provider on the internet. This protects nearly all coffee shops, airports, and hotel lurkers who might try to snag your data in motion. Thinking about security When it comes to thinking about mobile security, it’s important to keep in mind the endpoints and what’s being encrypted. Let’s look at the last three we discussed:: Encrypts web traffic between the web browser and the Encrypts all network traffic between the mobile device and the Wi-Fi router in your local coffee shop, hotel, airport, Encrypts all network traffic between your mobile device and the VPN service provider on the you see how these different elements encrypt and decrypt at different points? Also, keep in mind that any one (or more) of these security services may be compromised. Plus, of course, there are other levels of encryption, like encrypted SSL and TLS tunnels between websites and payment providers. By using multiple layers of encryption, each unable to see into the other, you’re reducing the chance that any one compromised network will compromise you. Other VPN services As we’ve discussed in our various VPN reviews and guides, different commercial VPN services provide different added value. Some mix in anti-virus. Some mix in some identity protection services. But all VPNs provide another very important security service: IP address obfuscation. If you use a VPN, you get an IP address from the VPN provider. This is the IP address recorded by various services on the web. This allows you to protect your identity in terms of where you’re located, what ISP you’re using, or even what country you’re in. For some of us, this is a less critical service. For others, especially those dealing with stalking or other personal protection worries, VPN location protection services are essential. Bottom line So, in answering my reader’s question, do they need a VPN? It’s up to them. But is the be-all and end-all of internet security? Oh, hell no. What tools do you use to protect your security? Let me know in the comments below. You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at, on Instagram at, and on YouTube at
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Frequently Asked Questions about vpn vs https security
Is HTTPS secure on VPN?
VPNs absolutely do provide data security services. Packets are encrypted from the local browser to the VPN service provider. … Now, if you’re using a VPN (with https or not), your data is encrypted on your computer. If you’re using https, the https-encrypted data is encrypted again by the VPN.Mar 8, 2021
What is more secure than a VPN?
Tor is more effective than a VPN in the following cases: You want to stay safe while accessing geo-restricted content. Using Tor is a good way to protect your privacy when you’re trying to access content that’s prohibited in your country.