If you need to encrypt traffic from your computer or mobile device, you have many options. You could buy a commercial VPN solution, or you could sign up for a VPN service and pay a monthly fee. Or for less money, you could create your own VPN and gain the use of a Linux VPS (Virtual Private Server) anywhere in the world. This roll-your-own option is made possible through the use of the open source OpenVPN project, Linux, and a few open source client-side applications.
The VPS-based setup described here is designed to encrypt all the traffic from your laptop, desktop, or mobile phone to your VPN server, which then unencrypts that traffic and passes it on to its destination. This can be very useful if you're using the Internet from a coffee shop, a hotel, or a conference and you do not trust the network.
Putting this VPN together is generally the work of only a few minutes, and it requires minimal Linux command-line skills. The only tools you'll need are an SSH client and a VPS.
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