5 VPN Alternatives for Securing Remote Network Access

Abeerah Hashim  - Security Expert
Last updated: November 10, 2023
Read time: 11 minutes
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VPNs are an essential tool in the current digital environment. Modern and valuable still, they are not always the right tool for every business to completely secure network access. This article tells you about the tools that will let you improve a VPN's security.

THE TAKEAWAYS

VPNs are excellent tools that are a necessity in the current digital ecosystem. However, they’re not perfect. Sometimes you need a different tool that will give you extra advantages in anonymization, security, and privacy.

Having a top-notch VPN is such a fantastic thing! So powerful, versatile, safe, and many more things come to mind. So why could you make you want to find any alternatives? The answer is control. Even the best VPN is not designed to be compatible with your local area network and its policy structure. This is a context in which the VPN gets in the way because if your network’s policies can’t be consistent across every connection, your security becomes vulnerable.

VPNs have been around for a couple of decades already. However, the time and continued development have rendered their traditional limitations obsolete. However, the variety we have in VPN services across the market is such that some won’t even deliver on the VPN’s most essential task of masking your connection.

So VPNs have shortcomings. They’re very complicated and can make a user overconfident about security. This last problem can make the old IT risks explode and even create some new ones. Organizations whose activities need secure web connections, consistent access policies, and anonymity of users in apps and websites are much more vulnerable to these VPN-genic security issues.

In short: some organizations need to do better than a VPN. They need to combine a better mechanism for security and anonymity that gives the organization increased transparency and control over IT matters. Does it sound contradictory? Only on the surface. Some alternatives allow achieving both goals simultaneously. Let us see them.

OrganizationFree VersionPrivate NetworkAnonymityIsolation
SiloNoYesYesYes
VPNYesYesNoNo
OpenWRTYesYesNoPartial
TorYesNoYesNo
WhonixYesNoYesYes
TailsYesNoYesYes