Home Blog Page 288

Use Of The C++ Language In The Gaming Industry

C++ Language In The Gaming Industry

Evolution in the technological aspect is taking place in every aspect, and our hobbies have not been left out. One of them is gaming, where we refer to the video gaming scene. Ever since its inception in the 1960s and subsequent commercialization in the 1970s, it is one of the vast growing sectors in this technological environment.

Its growth has subsequently led to the appreciated marketability of game developers, who handle the software facet of gaming. It is one field you can get into as a programmer to create amazing games if you have the enthusiasm.

When creating the software for video games, the language of choice for most developers is c++. It is a versatile language that is also noted for its simplicity when using it the same as the acquisition of skills to use it.

Overview Of The C++ Language

The c++ language is one of the most popular high-end coders noted for its flexibility as earlier hinted. It is also a good starting point for beginner programmers as it leads you into software development in full throttle owing to its moderate complexity. If you have the passion, you can grasp the language quite quickly and get started in software development right away.

It comes with several features that can aid you in programming more so in game development. The following are some of the software aspects that c++ comes in handy in managing.

Processing Speed

When gaming, fast execution is a requirement for an excellent stint for the gamer. C++ is a high-end coding language that churns out codes at a quite rapid rate. When it comes to processing instructions implemented by controls and communication software, it is the right choice. Its speed makes it more efficient in gaming when looking at its power and finds its use in the game engine.

Graphics

Gaming relies much on the visual aspects, where you can see the action. Presently, the visuals are trying to have a realistic look to make the gaming session satisfying and more appealing. Here is where the c++ language comes to play a significant role. As a programmer, this is one of the high-end languages to bank on when writing code for your game graphics.

Though at times the graphics may be low level, you can bring another language on board such as java, which is appreciated in this aspect. The good thing is that c++ is compatible with other high-end languages you can pull through successfully.

Memory Handling

Games require a lot of memory for their execution and implementation. The c++ language, therefore, is the right choice in gaming due to is impressive memory management quality. It has the trash manager that disposes of the trash that is churned out in large quantities when coding. This helps in memory management, where you still have enough memory for the implementation of the gaming code.

The memory handling capabilities of this coder makes it a suitable option when you are working with large projects. The libraries and associated c++ containers, such as the c++ map, also play a role in memory management and store structured data.

Maintenance Software

The c++ coder is noted for its proximity towards the native software for the devices and also the gaming program. As such, it is a perfect fit when you decide to come up with maintenance software to handle various aspects of the gaming program.

It has debugging properties where it gets rid of errors that may be present in the program. The debugging feature guarantees a seamless gaming experience with minimal chances of program stalls. It is also suitable for updating or upgrading software due to its compatibility with the gaming hardware.

Controls

Control is another crucial consideration in gaming, which makes for the essential parts aside from the graphics. C++ plays a role in creating game controller inputs that give you unrivaled control over the program in both hardware and software. Its hardware compatibility feature plays a vital role over here where the code is easily integrated for control execution.

Among the input codes that c++ can create include gamepad use, game controller button detection, vibration mode, and may more. In the case of using different hardware, the integration remains the same.

Conclusion

The gaming industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors, and with technology having its back, its potential is limitless. To handle the various aspects of gaming, the c++ language is a worthy choice owing due to its versatility, as evident in the areas where you can use it.

Key areas include graphics, memory handling, and controls. These are essential aspects of gaming where you need to have the proper executions ad c++ coding gets that right. A good thing with the coder is that it is sturdy and also compatible with other coders that you may bring on board to boost the results.

How to Use Social Media Algorithms to Your Advantage

Social Media Algorithms

Social media platforms have become a formidable heavyweight in the realms of digital marketing and providing brands the opportunity to reach and engage with their target audience more easily than ever before and without a huge amount of financial backing. Although investing in paid advertising campaigns certainly will enhance the discoverability of your brand and content, it is not an absolute requirement anymore, with many smaller brands using the free opportunities social media platforms afford. As long as the content they create is unique and engaging, it can drive organic traffic to the brand.

One aspect of the social media marketing that can be difficult to understand and overcome, are the algorithms they put in place. Algorithms that are developed to sort through the masses of content and posts published online and present them to the user (target audience) in a way they deem relevant, instead of in chronological order. For example, if a user interacts with certain brands and friends more regularly than others, the algorithms will present their content ahead of profiles that they rarely engage with. Whilst this is great for staying connected to the people and brands individuals most love, it becomes increasingly difficult for brands to reach new clients.

As these challenges become more apparent, companies look to computer science professionals to guide them through the algorithm process and take advantage of the programming in place. Most individuals with further education in this area will be able to give advice on how best to navigate the social media waters. To achieve this skill set, courses can be taken in a traditional university setting or completed remotely by doing an online computer science degree in Canada. Either way, their expertise will be able to point you in the right direction.

Interact with the Audience You are Trying to Connect With

It sounds obvious, but spending time interacting with your target audience can improve engagement and content reach massively on social media platforms. Instagram has clearly stated that its current algorithm functions by prioritizing posts and accounts you engage with the most. If you initiate a conversation with your target audience they are more likely to respond, this interaction will then boost your content in their feed and hopefully lead to a larger following and greater number of sales.

Keep Your Content Consistent

The algorithms need to understand what you’re all about to be able to prioritize your content in the best way possible, so hone in your message and conversations and stick with it consistently. If your company is based around beauty and cosmetics, focus captions and hashtags on this topic but try not to be too repetitive. Algorithms thrive off predictability but there is a fine line between strong brand identity and becoming and unimaginative – it’s crucial to find a balance.

Keep algorithms in mind when creating your social media content, if you play the game correctly you’ll be rewarded with an increased number of followers and greater engagement in your brand.

8b Website Builder Review: Small Business Website in Minutes

Create a website

Today with many modern platforms, the online marketplace is evolved into something different. It doesn’t matter which type of service you are providing or what type of product are you selling, there is always a way around the internet to attract your audience like via social media.

But what about having an official website for your business?

It doesn’t matter how small your business venture is — a website is an essential part of your business in today’s world. The website will provide an identity to your business and increase its credibility. It doesn’t matter you use social media to promote your business — only a website can ensure the genuineness of your service and product to your customer.

Remember, on the digital age website is your number one marketing asset of your business and most consumers won’t consider a business without a website.

Now where to start:

As you own a small business, so might be you can’t afford a professional website. But don’t worry, there are several online services available for you to assist in this matter — with the help of such service you can develop a website with ease.

One such platform is 8b Website Maker — where you can create a fully functional website with few mouse clicks and you don’t have to a tech-savvy.

8b Website Maker is a free and simple online website builder that lets anyone create fast, mobile-optimized and Google-friendly websites in minutes. It saves a lot of time and lets you avoid struggling with code.

How to use 8b Website Builder:

Just go through 4 simple steps and get a fully-featured website for your business.

Step 1: Sign Up

Like every service, in 8b Website Builder you have to create an account to start creating your website. You can sign up with Google or Facebook. Also, there is also an option to proceed with your email address too.

Step 2: Choose a website design

In the next step, choose an appropriate template for the website that suits your business. Remember to choose a simple and clean theme for your website. Because a distraction-free website design is good for businesses. All the templates are responsive, so it works well with both PC and mobile platforms. After that enter your business name and start adding essential details of your business on mobile website builder.

8b

Step 3: Customization

The most important part for every website — customization and 8b Website Maker makes it easy for its users. The template that you choose earlier already provides all essential needed features for a website and with some mouse taps, change the visual appearance of the template and add more details about your website. 

8b Website Builder

Tap on “+” sign to add a new section to the template using drag and drop. You can find all the necessary sections for almost every case of user’s interaction with the site: Headers, Features, Contacts, Menus, Footers, Pricing Tables, Testimonials, Team section, Articles, Images and Videos, and a lot more. Also, you can tweak every section as you want as it has several representations.

Step 4: Making website online

After all customization, now its time to make your website live. 8b Website Builder offers unlimited hosting and domain for your website. Click the hamburger button and go to Settings to rename the existing domain or connect it to your own.

8b

In Settings, you can also find options to change the site’s name, favicon, domain; set Google Index, Site Analytics; choose PWA and remove unused CSS. After saving all changes, hit “Publish” button to make your site.

8b

Advantages of 8b Website Maker:

  • Clean interface and easy to use.
  • Anyone can create a website with no programming knowledge.
  • Lots of customization available for users.
  • Develops a fully optimized and SEO friendly website.
  • Support of Google AMP and PWA.
  • Unlimited hosting and custom domain.
Conclusion:

If you are owning a small business and thinking to showcase your business online then 8b Website Builder will be the perfect option to create a fascinating website of your choice.

How to Recover Deleted Files from an Android on Mac?

Recover Deleted Files

When dealing with data loss on devices, it may be not only frustrating but challenging situation, especially nowadays when people store so much private and business information on their gadgets. Various tutorials describe the best solutions to recover deleted files from Android devices on Mac but to watch and read them is a time-consuming activity. Instead of hiring a company who offers data recovery services to retrieve one or another deleted file, a person can refer to the next guide and find out how to restore anything using both a freestanding and gratuitous platform.

How Does Disk Drill Work?

If you need to recover deleted messages from Android, there is no need in IT background but a transition to the application that deals with it in a few steps. Disk Drill is an independent application perfectly matching the desperate users’ needs. There is still a chance to retrieve lost information, and it can be done via the next procedure.

Disk Drill Work

1. Install Disk Drill. It is free of charge tool that avails all the necessary features to protect and recover data. But, if you want to upgrade to the PRO version, it will cost only $4 per month.

2. Scan your Android on deleted files. As of now, you cannot scan one particular folder but with the help of three types of scanning, you can get the results without wasting much time. There is a quick, deep, and full scan. Usually, Android users do not require an advanced procedure because the only files that are commonly lost are photos. Thus, it is better to initiate quick scanning that takes up to 10 minutes.

3. Review ready photos. When the process is ongoing, a person can preview ready files and choose what to restore. This Samsung data recovery software allows also to mark each file when scanning to not lose the count of what to retrieve.

4. Recover what you need. It is necessary only to click on the Recover button, and files and even their previous name and format can be restored whether to the previous location or if needed you can select a new one.

If choosing a full-drive scanning option, it will take approximately 3 hours but such statistics are taken mostly from the devices with full storage. To get to know what scan to use, you may read the instructions at https://www.cleverfiles.com/android-data-recovery.html.

Why Choose Data Recovery Software?

Potential users prefer this method, for example, to recover deleted photos from Android because it will save time and effort. There is nothing complex and at the same time all the data remains confidential and no third-party can hack it compared to doubtful tools found in PlayMarket. If turning to Disk Drill, there are even more advantages, and some of them are:

  • It works with all formats possible. More than 400 file types, and different operating systems where it can be applied to.
  • Disk Drill can recover very big files without damaging them. The same story applies to partition recovery. It copes with both.
  • External devices? Not a problem it fits SD cards, digital cameras, memory cards.
  • Disc Health is an option that helps to notify a user of freeing up the storage in advance or scan the system on duplicate files. All such preventive measures may deprive a user of data loss.
  • Recover deleted messages from Android with data back up. You wonder, how? When Disc Drill is installed in advance, it controls and keeps track of the messages. Thus, if you managed to delete them, it will recover them within a second because it uses location memory.
  • Pause and Resume scanning. If you need to distract for one hour or more, do not stop the scanning to initiate one more time but later, just pause it and resume when it is the most comfortable for you. It is an essential feature when you launched the full-drive scan procedure that takes up to 3 hours. So, do not waste your time.
  • Customer support. The soft developers of this tool keep in touch with users 24/7. Need advice on what option to initiate or how to backup data? Contact them, and get the answer.
  • User-friendly interface. No ads, no animation, and calm colors that contribute to the comfortable usage of Disk Drill. And, most importantly it is for free. You do not have to pay to remove the ads.

This list is just half of the benefits you can find when turning to its application. To get to know more, visit https://www.cleverfiles.com/recover-messages-android.html.

How to choose the best video file format to convert your videos into

best video file format to convert

Why we all convert our video files? Maybe we want to make an unsupported media to play on other platforms or to compress its size. 

But sometimes it’s really frustrating to choose the right video format to convert our videos since a huge amount of video formats are available with different features.

So how to choose the right one while converting videos?

First, you have to make sure that you are using an advanced video conversion tool on your PC. Because only a top-notch convertor can offer you need all the available options you need before proceeding to video conversion. 

There are many software available in the market to choose — free or paid or open-source. Choose the one suits that you think the best. Check the convertor you choose has access to all popular formats. Because sometimes, free and open-source video convertors limited to some features.

If you are still stuck to choose the best one, try Movavi Video Converter. This software comes with support to180 different media formats and over 200 presets for all popular devices, including the latest models of iPhone, iPad, Samsung Galaxy, Sony PlayStation, and more.

Now to which format you should consider converting your video into. Most people have personal preferences but the majority don’t know the features of each popular video file format. 

Choose the best video file format according to your need:

Video file format best for social networks

If you are converting video files to upload them into the social network, then you should choose MP4, FLV, MOV or AVI as your sharing format. More clearly, for Facebook choose MOV or MP4 (with H.264 Codec & AAC audio). For Instagram and Twitter choose MP4 (with H.264 Codec & AAC Low Complexity audio). In YouTube almost all major video formats support.

Video file format best for websites

For websites, it is best to choose the converting file to be WEBM or HTML5. Because large video files may slow down an optimized website and WEBM and HTML5 formats have small sizes, making them very easy to stream.

Video file format best for smartphones

An open-source app like VLC is an ideal video player for smartphones as it supports all video file formats. So it doesn’t matter to which format you convert your videos. If you like to manage the video file size too, then it will be better if you convert videos to MP4.

Video file format best for computer or TV

Mostly, we use HD formats to play video files on PC and TV. So choose formats with the highest quality for better quality videos. For that MOV, AVI, and MKV are the best suitable video file formats.

Video file format best for burning onto a CD/DVD

To burn a video file format to a playable DVD choose file format as DV-AVI, MPEG, or DivX.

So next time choose the right video file format while converting your videos — it matters the performance and quality of the video file.

Ways to Optimize Your New Website for SEO

SEO Company

Optimizing your website for SEO enables you to attract traffic and provides you with numerous opportunities to convert visitors into customers. An optimized website returns better metrics – it has a better bounce rate and visitors spend more time on its pages. This means search engines are likely to rank it highly. The best time to begin thinking about optimizing your website for SEO is when you are setting it up. If you are in the process of building a new website or have launched it already, here are several things you could do to optimize it for SEO:

1. Pick the right domain name and hosting

Search engines use domain names to identify web pages before ranking them. Where possible, use a domain name that is easy to remember, relevant to what you are doing and features the main keyword that you wish to rank. For instance, Google searches pages that cover the topic that users query in their search requests. For instance, if a user searches ‘optimize website with SEO’, the search engine could look for sites that explain how to optimize websites for SEO. At the same time, the search engine will focus on prioritizing content published by trustworthy sites. Content from authoritative websites tends to get a better ranking than sites that are less authoritative.

Like the domain, choosing a good hosting partner also very important while you start SEO biz. Choosing a perfectly SEO-ready hosting service can have a huge impact on your site — check out this detailed study before choosing your hosting provider.

2. Research your keywords

One of the most important aspects of SEO is keyword research. Numerous websites out there that are similar to yours are working to rank highly on search engines too. With such competition, you need a strategy to stand out. Keyword research can help you identify the phrases and keywords you target customers use to search for information online. Such research also enables you to know how contested those keywords are on the search engines.

To identify the keywords you need to feature on your website, you need to clarify the main subjects and terms that you want your SEO efforts to focus on. There are several SEO tools you can use to get keyword data and suggestions. Though most of them charge a subscription fee, the keyword planner by Google can be a good place to start at zero cost. Bear in mind that SEO is highly competitive and when your website is still new, it cannot compete with popular sites. As such, be specific in your keyword research and opt for long-tail keywords as opposed to short-tail keywords. For instance, using a keyword like ‘central London motor competition’ is better than using ‘motor competition’.

Once you’re done researching your keywords, decide the niche phrases you want to target. You could opt for those with low volume and little competition, high volume – high competition or a combination of the two.

3. Make your meta descriptions unique

Though meta descriptions do not influence your search engine rankings directly, they play a critical role in improving click-through rates based on search results. When visitors view your webpage on the search results, they are able to read your meta description.

The words that match the keywords that visitors searched appear in bold on the meta description, capturing the attention of the visitor. Since they are still deciding which site to visit at this point, visitors are likely to click on the site that resonates with their search – an aspect that pushes traffic to your site. To optimize your website, develop a relevant meta description for each of your website pages. Make it a practice to include keywords in the description in a natural way to attract your target audience to your website.

4. Use SEO friendly templates

Website builders today provide templates that have inbuilt SEO friendly templates like slides static website generator. The templates are well coded in an easy-to-crawl way, optimized for mobile devices and easy to modify. Though not much focus is required on back-end coding for these templates, it is not enough to fully optimize your site for search engines.

In addition to templates, develop intuitive navigation on your site by including different meta descriptions and titles that are optimized with your keyword phrases. It is important that you ensure each page on your website features hundreds of optimized words.

One sure way to optimize your site for SEO is to create a blog. Developing well written and researched content increases the authority of your website and provides you with a huge opportunity to use keyword phrases on your website. Consider using high quality, long-form blogs as these perform better than short-form content. When creating the content, your focus should be on providing your readers with quality content, as opposed to quantity.

In addition, use your blog content to build links back to your website. One way to achieve this is by promoting the best articles you have developed with the aim of earning citations for top-notch sites and writers. Another strategy you could employ to generate backlinks is offering to guest post on other sites in your niche, then link back to the best content you have created on your website. To succeed in backlinking, ensure that your links both valuable and relevant to your audience. More info about link-building services here: https://linkflow.ai/link-building-services/.

6. Optimize your images, page URLs and title tags

Each image on your website offers you extra opportunities to optimize your website for SEO. Consider customizing the name you give each image with a keyword – this makes it easy for search engines to pick it up. At the same time, the URL of each page on your site should be customized so that it communicates what your visitors can expect on the page and is easy to remember. Also, try as much as possible to include primary keywords on your URLs.

Also, optimize your title tags for easy identification by search engines. When crawling the web, search engines seek to know what a page is about – this makes title tags interesting spots to use primary keywords. When writing your title tags, consider keeping them short because a search engine such as Google only displays up to 60 characters on its results page. Avoid stuffing the title with keywords – having just one primary keyword is enough.

How To Choose A Hard Drive Enclosure

Hard Drive Enclosure

You have your best personal computer, but your storage requirements seem to increase with the quantity of work you are handling, or you need shared external storage. You need not change your old computer yet you have bought so many subscriptions of installed software on your device.

You can choose to expand your computer memory by buying an external hard drive.

However, choosing the right enclosure for your hard drive can be quite tricky if you do not have exposure to various computer parts.

First of all, let us look at a few descriptions of abbreviations we are going to use frequently in this discourse.

SSD – Solid State Device is the latest storage device where microchips are used to store data HDD –Hard Disk Drive is storage where information is transferred using writing and rewriting arms. These arms usually spin back and forth across the hard drives memory surface. It is fundamentally the hardware component in or alongside your computer that stores data.

SATA – Stands for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment; an interface used to connect ATA drives to a computer motherboard.

USB -means Universal Serial Bus

IDE – Is Integrated Drive Electronics

So what factors should you consider when shopping for the best external hard drive enclosure for your machine’s memory expansion?

Let us look at a few vital aspects you must consider when purchasing your components.

The Type Of Connection

Currently, many people prefer to use the USB connection since it is very convenient and easy to use.

Depending on your device configuration, you can choose any other connection type. It is worth noting that the USB 3.0 connectors have backward compatibility to USB 2.0 ports so you should not worry when purchasing either of these due to their matching technical properties.

More importantly, your data transfer rates depend on the type of connection you will have. For example, SATA 3.0 can transfer data at up to 6Gbps. And USB 3.0 can serve up to 5Gbps while USB 3.1 can reach 10Gbps.

Therefore, it is up to you as the final user to decide which connector will be suitable for your day-to-day activities.

The Disk Interface

You have to match your enclosure interface to your disk interface.

Unmatching these two will lead to requirements for modification so that you can easily use your enclosure without incurring more expenses to install adapters for interfaces. If your drive is SATA, IDE or M.2, you have to choose your hard drive casing accordingly.

Nonetheless, in modern SSD, it is quite challenging to find an IDE interface and its matching enclosing cover. Furthermore, IDE limits the read/write speed of SSD. It is even better if you purchased a new SSD. (If you will prefer using SSD)

The Material Used To Manufacture The Casing

The casing material greatly determines the lifespan of your memory disk.

Choosing the right material is critical to securing your data.

Remember the casing not only secures your hard drive, but it also gives it beauty and an attractive appearance. So when selecting a housing for your hard drive, it is necessary to put in mind these two vital aspects.
Your hard disk enclosure casings can either be metallic, plastic or polycarbonate.

Metallic enclosures are the commonest among the three. This type of hard disk enclosure offers high protection to your hard drive and at the same time serving as a heat sink for your storage. It is important to note that the metallic security offered, differs depending on the type of metal used. In most cases, alloys are being used to provide both excellent protection and heat transfer properties.

Plastic casings are ideal for aesthetic purposes. You will use this kind of enclosure when you are okay with compromised physical security.

Polycarbonate, commonly known as PC casing is a robust and versatile material that offers an equally protective and beautiful outlook for your HDD. PC casings can be transparent in some cases, so you can conveniently visualize the internal hard drive.

Depending on your working conditions and environment, the casing material you choose should be capable of protecting your HDD from both physical and electrostatic shocks.

Capacity Limitations

External hard drives have limited capabilities compared to internal memory disks. In most external hard drives, the inbuilt controllers restrict the size of the connected memory to about 4T to 8T. Consequently, when shopping for an appropriate casing for your hard drive, you have to put this in mind.

Price Vs. Quality

Sometimes we look at prices as guides to quality such that higher prices signify higher quality. It sometimes works but not always.

Looking at past HDD enclosure reviews would be appropriate other than speculating by price comparison and personal judgment.

Mobility

The weight and dimensions of your casing will determine the ease of portability of your hard drive. While buying your HDD housing, it is imperative to consider how easy to handle and carry around it is. The size and shape of your hard drive cover will guide you on how easy it is to arrange and organize your HDDs; especially if you have several external hard drives.

Cooling

Some hard drives require lots of cooling air. In this case, choosing an enclosure with a premounted fan would be ideal. Other storage drives will only require heat sinks. Therefore, ensure that you consider your heat transfer requirements vis-à-vis the noise dissipation by your devices. If you have several disks suspended on racks with remotely installed draft fans to minimize noise, a suitable hard disk enclosure that will allow maximum airflow and heat transfer is ideal.

Final Word

Regardless of the application, any external storage enclosure should have excellent and appealing physical and aesthetic properties. Poorly manufactured covers not only pose a danger to the user but also reduces the expected lifespan of your memory disks. Considering your needs and budget, find an appropriate compromise so that you get value for your money. Take into account the shock resistance properties, price, ruggedness, portability, shareability, and ease of organization when using a particular HDD enclosure.

Before making your order, you may want to crosscheck specific product descriptions and reviews before deciding on which casing can be ideal for your application.

A comprehensive guide on double VPNs and whether you really need one

Virtual Private Networks or vpn

Internet privacy has almost become a trend, and those working in the tech sector live by the security and privacy that is offered by using a VPN. If you’ve ever browsed through different VPN options when selecting one for yourself, you must have come across the term “Double VPN”. Whenever you do find a VPN that offers this feature, you’ll also notice that it’s a point of focus when the provider is discussing the features of the VPN.

The name is the first indication of what a Double VPN is. Basically, your data is routed through two different VPN servers as it flows between your device and the internet. All the information going to and from your device will be encrypted twice at different points in the chain of information flow, and you also change the data source IP address twice along the way. Chances are that both these tasks will happen at different geographical locations, and maybe even in two different countries altogether.

Offering enhanced VPN security, the entire process results in increased security measures and provides a double barrier to any surveillance. For normal VPNs, the process flow starts when your device encrypts your data and transmits it along the chain to the first VPN server where the data is decrypted and your device’s IP address is switched to the IP address of the first VPN server, and the data is encrypted again and transmitted to the intended destination.

Double VPNs go a step further and the first VPN sends the data (along with the first VPN’s IP address) to the second VPN where the data is once again decrypted, the IP address of the first VPN server is switched out for the IP address of the second VPN server, after which the data is then transmitted to the ultimate destination. The second VPN server only knows the IP address of the first VPN server and has no idea of your device’s original IP address, resulting in an added layer of security and a second barrier to any unauthorized surveillance.

Also, as the data traveling through both VPN servers is encrypted, anonymity is better maintained and THAT is the true goal of a Double VPN. Most people opt for a double VPN for this heightened level of anonymity and considering that they are effective in maintaining your privacy, it is completely understandable.

Advantages

The biggest advantage of a double VPN in the restriction it places on your visibility to others. Tracing virtually becomes impossible as nobody can really see where your location truly is or where your data truly ends up. For example, your ISP would think the final destination is the second VPN server and would not have any visibility beyond that.

Even if someone were to monitor your activity, they would not be getting an accurate picture. For example, let’s say you were to access a VPN server in the United Kingdom (which would be your second VPN server in this case) while sitting in Canada, through another VPN server located in India (which would be the first VPN server in the chain). If you are being watched in Canada, the surveyor would simply see you were accessing data in India. Whereas anyone tracking your activity in the United Kingdom would think you were accessing data from India.

These two relay points in the chain, along with the switching of IP addresses at both points, don’t really allow anyone to properly track your activity and location. Add to that the encryption protocols the VPN may have in place, the level of security and privacy goes up significantly.

Disadvantages

If you were to solely look at the heightened security and privacy that double VPNs offer, then it’s a no-brainer and you should opt for a VPN that has this feature. However, a look at the bigger picture shows that double VPNs have their drawbacks as well. The one that stands out the most is the effect double VPNs have on internet speed.

Even regular VPNs are known to compromise internet speed, and this would include t=even the best VPNs in the market today. With double VPNs, the activity usually involved in regular VPNs doubles and, therefore, the impact on internet speed is much stronger than regular VPNs. The first factor which affects the speed of your internet is the extra distance that your data needs to travel from the first VPN server to the second VPN server.

Another factor that affects internet speed is the congestion you would find especially when more users are logged on to the VPN. This congestion would potentially double if there’s another link in the chain of flow. There’s also the encryption and decryption process, which happens twice in double VPNs, meaning a lot more bandwidth is being used in the process, which would lead to reduced speed.

Also, every issue or bottleneck that you face when using a regular VPN potentially doubles when using a double VPN. So it should be no surprise that internet speed takes a hit. This makes double VPNs less than ideal when it comes to usage for the purposes of streaming, torrent downloading, and gaming, as all these activities require a significant amount of speed and bandwidth available to be able to function properly.

However, the above does not necessarily mean that the entire experience is compromised. You are simply limited to the activities you can indulge in when using a double VPN. Your internet will still function properly and will have state of the art encryption and security in place leading to a safer overall experience. Experts recommend that the ideal connection speed of your ISP should be 30 Mbps if you’re going to use a double VPN. Anything below that and you’re bound to face speed issues.

Examples of VPNs with double VPN feature

The three best VPN providers that offer a double VPN feature are NordVPN, SurfShark, and ibVPN. First and foremost, all thereof these providers are based in privacy-friendly countries, meaning there are no data retention laws, no government surveillance, and the right to privacy is upheld in reality (as it should be), unlike some other countries which only scream privacy when it suits them.

Secondly, all three VPN providers have a strict and verified no-logging policy, meaning your activity logs are never saved, which means nobody can ever access them! This no-logging policy, along with the level of encryption and security double VPNs offer, make them the ideal tool for maintaining anonymity and preserving data protection.

Lastly, all three of these VPN providers build the cost of the double VPN into the default price of the service, meaning you don’t have to pay anything extra. It should be noted that none of these VPNs operates on the double VPN model by default and the feature has to be activated in order for it to work. By default, all three operate as regular VPN would, plus the specific functionalities and features that each of them offers.

Expert opinions on double VPNs

Experts are mixed as to the usefulness of a double VPN. Some consider double VPNs as the standard that every provider should follow, while others think that any advantage that a double VPN could potentially provide is only theoretical. Due to limited awareness, reactions are mixed among general users as well.

From the perspective of security and encryption, experts argue that there isn’t much a double VPN could build on top, especially considering that basic 128-bit encryption (which any respectable regular VPN would have in place) would take billions of years to crack. Therefore, having double encryption doesn’t really make much of a difference as the basic encryption practically ensures that your security remains uncompromised.

However, from the perspective of maintaining privacy and anonymity, experts agree that double VPNs can be useful. When your data goes through two different servers and is attached to three different IP addresses (original device, first VPN server, and second VPN server), anyone would have a difficult time tracking you down. While a double VPN may not contribute any more to your security, it most definitely ensures that your privacy is not compromised at any point in the chain.

Conclusion

As you can see, double VPNs are absolutely beneficial when it comes to maintaining your privacy and online anonymity. However, as far as security is concerned, there is little to no difference made.

Furthermore, there is the fact that double VPNs take a significant toll on your internet speed, rendering it useless for any heavy bandwidth activity such as streaming, gaming and downloading. Considering all of this, it may not be the best option for those who use the internet as a source of entertainment only.

For those whose work is sensitive and involves a significant amount of internet usage, a double VPN may very well be beneficial as it would maintain privacy. Alternatively, if your work does not involve internet usage and is not sensitive, then a double VPN may work for you if ensuring your privacy and anonymity is the most important aspect of your internet experience and you’re happy to compromise on the speed of your internet