It’s a common thing among academic institutions to put some level of restriction over the websites that can be accessed using their Wi-Fi network. Whether you’re in high school, college or any other level of education, these institutions only want to prevent you from losing your focus when you’re supposed to be learning something or doing some classwork.
The problem with this kind of blockage is that some of the websites and services that usually get blocked, like social media sites, can sometimes be used as tools for your studies. Watching a tutorial video on YouTube or messaging a friend to discuss a relevant topic using Facebook can be the difference between a good and a bad grade, so having those sites blocked at school can be condemning if you don’t have any other way to access them.
However, you might find it surprising that bypassing the restrictions of a Wi-Fi network is not an impossible task. In fact, it is quite easy if you use the right tools, and for us, that is using a VPN to connect to the internet. You don’t know what that is? Let’s talk about them a bit.
Virtual Private Networks
Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, are basically a large network of servers that encrypt and reroute your internet traffic with two goals. The first is to hide its contents from snoopers and protect your privacy. The second is to make it look like you’re only accessing a server of the VPN when the truth is that you’re actually accessing a website using the VPN server only as a bridge for your connection.
This also works backwards, fooling websites into thinking it is the VPN servers that are accessing them, when it is actually you who’s doing it. The benefit of this is that it allows you to fool your school’s network and lets you connect to all those blocked websites and services you wouldn’t normally be able to. If a server from the network is located in a different country, it even allows you to access content that’s restricted for people in the location of the server.
To use a VPN, you have to hire a VPN service from the web. The problem with that is that the increased demand for privacy tools in the recent years after the NSA scandal gave birth to a lot of VPN companies and not all of them are precisely good. For this reason, we took the liberty of listing the ones we consider to be the best VPNs to unblock Wi-Fi at school and save you the trouble of having to choose from hundreds of competitors.
TorGuard
TorGuard is a VPN provider that specializes in P2P connections. These are the ones that allow you to share and download torrents. Their network is composed of more than 3000 servers conveniently distributed in over 55 countries. Some of these servers have been optimized for P2P connections and all of them lack a bandwidth limit.
They count with 256-bit AES encryption, the strongest and fastest VPN protocols, DNS leak protection and a strict zero-logs policy, making it one of the most secure VPNs you can adopt. They claim to have 99.99% server uptime, which is no easy feat, and along with their VPN service, they also offer proxy service with support for all major browsers and anonymous emailing service. They are without a doubt one of the best VPN services you could hire.
PIA
One of the things that characterize most college students and young people in general is their almost permanent state of bankruptcy. If that’s your case, then perhaps you’d want to try Private Internet Access, or PIA, as it is called by most people.
Their subscription plans are among the cheapest available. The surprising thing is that this doesn’t affect the quality of their service in any way. In fact, they’re one of the highest-rated VPNs you can find. Their network is composed of more than 3000 servers in 25 countries. That’s a lot of servers but perhaps not as many countries as you’d wish for. Still, 25 countries should be more than enough if you plan to use the VPN in a conventional way.
They have all the protocols you’d expect from a respectable VPN and the strongest encryption available. They do have a weak point, and it is their user interface. It can be confusing and dull for some, but they get the job done and for a very affordable price, so you can count on them to unblock Wi-Fi at school.
IPVanish
This one is very popular among geeks and security adepts. They have positive reviews on every site that’s tested them, which is not surprising given all the features they pack in their service. They have a network of more than 850 servers in 60 countries across all continents, which are pretty solid numbers. Location-based restrictions will surely not be a problem with IPVanish.
They feature very fast connection speeds without bandwidth limits and allow torrenting. This and their partnership with the streaming service Kodi makes them a good option if all you want is to watch your favorite shows in your spare time at college. They also have very secure servers and a strict no-logs policy that ensures no information about your navigation is ever stored.
Their subscription isn’t very expensive so it wouldn’t kill you to give them a try. If you’re dissatisfied, you can always make use of their money-back guarantee, but this is unlikely to happen.
GhostVPN
GhostVPN is the youngest company on this list, but this hasn’t prevented them from earning a solid spot in the business. That is mostly because they’ve managed to raise a very strong network in very little time. They have over 1000 servers distributed across more than 50 countries, which makes it a solid choice for bypassing geo-restrictions as well.
All their servers have 256-bit AES encryption, which is pretty much the strongest available. This, on top of their fast, secure VPN protocols and their lack of bandwidth limit make it one of the best equipped VPNs on the market. They’re still missing support for mobile platforms, but they’re more than capable of unblocking your school’s Wi-Fi on the platforms they do support.
ExpressVPN
This is the best option you can pick if your plan is to avoid studying altogether. ExpressVPN’s servers have been optimized for fast speeds, meaning they’re good if you want to stream HD videos and shows from Netflix. They allow P2P connections so you’ll even be able to download heavy torrents over their network, which happens to have over 1500 servers in more than 90 countries.
ExpressVPN is not all about speed though, they also feature all the strongest VPN protocols and a very strong encryption. Both features put together to ensure that your privacy is protected from eavesdroppers at all times, which is convenient if your school’s network is public. The main downside of this VPN is that its subscriptions are a little pricier than average, and speeds can be a bit slow, but the quality is surely worth it and they’ll definitely help you unblock Wi-Fi at school.
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|---|---|---|
| Multi-platform Compatible | ||
| 256-AES Encryption | ||
| PRICE | $5 for 1 month with code "best10VPN" | $6.95 a month |
| Website Rating | 9.9 | 8.8 |
| 24/7 Live Chat | ||
| Residential / Dedicated IP for permanent streaming access | ||
| Has Mobile App + PC / Mac Support | ||
| Stealth VPN / Advanced Obfuscation techniques | ||
| Visit VPN Provider | Visit TorGuard | Visit PIA |
More on VPNs
Whether you decide to use one of the VPNs we’ve recommended or not, we strongly advise you to adopt VPNs in your everyday navigation, instead of just using them to bypass your schools’ firewall. There are real threats on the internet that are constantly snooping your data and tracking your clicks.
Governments want to monitor your online activity to supposedly catch criminal activity, companies do it to sell your personal data to advertisers and hackers do it to get your personal credentials to harm you. VPNs are very easy to use and are pretty much the only protection that regular people count with online, so using them more won’t do you any harm.
