Internet Freedom and Network Restrictions

Use it lawfully. That is not a disclaimer, it is the point.

A VPN is a privacy and security tool. It encrypts the traffic leaving your device so the networks in between cannot read it, and it routes that traffic through a server somewhere else. That is genuinely useful on a hotel network, a shared office connection, an airport hotspot, or a mobile network you do not control.

The law on VPN use differs from country to country, and knowing the rules where you are is your responsibility. We will not tell you how to break them. Our guidance for the market we operate in is on the UAE VPN guide, and it says the same thing: a VPN is for legitimate purposes such as privacy, security and business use, and it must comply with the local regulator.

How networks restrict what you can reach

Restriction is rarely a single wall. A network can refuse to resolve a domain name, drop packets heading to a particular address, slow a connection until it becomes unusable, or inspect the shape of your traffic and interfere with anything it does not recognise. Each looks different to you: a site that will not load, a video that never starts, an app that connects and then silently dies.

The same techniques are used by very different operators for very different reasons. A workplace blocks social media, a hotel throttles streaming, a mobile carrier deprioritises certain traffic, a school filters by category. The mechanism is often identical to the one used at national scale, which is why a tool built for one tends to help with the others.

What a VPN actually changes

Encryption means the networks between you and the VPN server can no longer read the contents of your traffic or the names of the sites you request. Routing means those sites see the VPN server rather than your own address. Where a restriction works by reading what you asked for, encryption removes what it was reading. GLOBEX carries this over 8 protocols, because a network that interferes with one kind of connection often ignores another, and the app moves between them automatically until one works on the network you are on.

That last part is the honest reason the app is built the way it is. A single-protocol VPN either works on a network or it does not. Trying several in order, and staying on the one that establishes, is less elegant and more effective.

What a VPN does not do

It does not make you anonymous. The VPN server sees your connection, the sites you log into still know who you are, and your browser can be identified in ways that have nothing to do with your network. It does not put you beyond the law, in your country or ours. And it cannot guarantee that any particular service will be reachable from any particular network — anyone promising that is selling you something.

We would rather say that plainly than let you discover it later. If you want to know how we test what we claim, and where the numbers elsewhere on this site come from, that is written up under how we test.

Common questions