Hey guys, how's it going? My name is Tom Spark. Welcome back to another video. Today, we're going to be talking about what is the difference between a VPN and a proxy and which one should you be using. This is a question I see with a lot of new users. They find out they need a VPN but they don't really know what a proxy is, but somehow they kind of stumble across it. So in this video, I'm going to be recommending my top-rated proxy provider as well as the differences between that and a VPN, and the individual use cases for both options.
Alright guys, so let's go ahead and just dive right into it. So my preferred proxy provider is TorGuard VPN. It's by far and large the best proxy provider when it comes to VPN stuff. The reason is because the basic plan includes a SOCKS5 proxy access for only around five dollars a month. As you can see here with my promo code Thomas Spark 2023, you can get it up to 70 dollars for three years. So it includes SOCKS5 proxy and more. Additionally, I just made a video about their other proxies. They have stuff like V2Ray and some of these other proxies which are very good for unblocking restrictions in censored countries. That's primarily what this stuff is for and I'll be putting that in the description down below. If you're interested in this kind of proxy, these proxies are more for unblocking like I said, firewalls in censored countries like Iran and China. But for a lot of people, the basic proxy or the SOCKS5 proxy is going to be kind of what you're looking at.
What really is the difference between a VPN and a proxy? Well, one of the core differences is that a VPN is more like an application. A VPN encrypts all your outgoing traffic on your computer. It pretty much routes everything going on your computer in terms of the internet through the tunnel. There's a variety of different protocols you can play around with, although most people commonly use WireGuard nowadays. So that is kind of the VPN. It encrypts everything. You can even put it on your router for VPN router Wi-Fi, so that is interesting too. But the VPN, it's just kind of like, I kind of think it like wearing a hiking boot. It's going to be the sturdiest. You know, if you want to go to war, if you want something that is the best protection, that's what a VPN is. Now, there are some cons with that though, just like there are cons with a hiking boot or something like that. It's going to be a little bit heavier. It's going to be a little bit more clunky. And by that I mean, VPNs do affect your speeds a little bit, maybe 10 to 20 if it's a good VPN like TorGuard.
Now, TorGuard has a little guide here that I've used myself. So basically, what a proxy is, is it's pretty much just kind of like a way to authenticate a connection with an external IP. So basically, what you will do in an application, you could just put proxy.thourguard.org Port 1080 or 1085, enter your TorGuard credentials, choose SOCKS5 proxy, check these things as well, just for security, and then you click apply and okay. And every time you turn on this application, your IP address is going to be anonymized and encrypted. So you'll have a new IP address. So in this case, if you're downloading some Linux ISOs, your IP address will be completely hidden. So for all intents and purposes, it's good enough. And that's why I like to think of a SOCKS5 proxy kind of like a running shoe when compared to a VPN, which is more like a boot. With SOCKS5 proxies, you shouldn't really experience any speed loss at all because it's just encrypting your IP.
But not only that, guys, proxies also have some other applications. You can see here I have TorGuard's extension downloaded onto Brave. And basically what I'll do is log in the same way, connect. It's almost like a VPN inside the browser, but it's just using a SOCKS5 proxy to encrypt my traffic on the browser and hide my IP address. So this gives me a pretty good layer of anonymity. A lot of VPNs, even like stuff like Movad and some of the other ones, they don't really have extensions you could fully install and find on app stores. Movad has, after many years, they put like a beta for one and they kind of made their own browser. But TorGuard has had this extension for a long time and it works perfectly with the SOCKS5 proxy. You're going to have the anonymous IP while browsing. So it'll give you some layer of anonymity and it's not going to affect your speeds too much. So it's another really cool use case for a proxy.
Now, one of my favorite reasons for using proxies is actually the ability to put it in applications for many use cases. So if you're familiar with my channel, I made a video about the automated media server. The cool thing about this is that I don't have to worry about turning my VPN on because anytime something is pulled and put into a BitTorrent to download, it's going to be using this proxy just like this. It's very useful for that. Not only that, but if you have an automated seeds media server in something like Docker or in the cloud or anything like that, you could still use the same proxy method without having to worry about advanced VPN configurations, which can get pretty confusing.
Alright guys, so I hope that helped you out with this video understanding the difference between VPN and proxy. Like I said, I recommend TorGuard since it's the cheapest and the best in my opinion. Also guys, if you see these blinking things over here, you might want to check out Incogni. I'll have a link down below as well as a discount that will be really good for removing your information from data brokers. Also, check out VPNTheros.com, check out the Discord if you want to chat with my community, and I'll see you.
