A less common alternative is to provide a SOCKS proxy interface. This includes virtual network adapters on computer OSes and specialized 'VPN' interfaces on mobile operating systems. However, they do typically utilize the operating system's VPN interfaces to capture the user's data to send to the proxy. On the client side, configurations intended to use VPN services as proxies are not conventional VPN configurations.

The only secure VPN is where the participants have oversight at both ends of the entire data path or when the content is encrypted before it enters the tunnel. However, users must consider that when the transmitted content is not encrypted before entering the proxy, that content is visible at the receiving endpoint (usually the VPN service provider's site) regardless of whether the VPN tunnel itself is encrypted for the inter-node transport. Providers often market VPN services as privacy-enhancing, citing security features, such as encryption, from the underlying VPN technology. Commercial VPN services are often used by those wishing to disguise or obfuscate their physical location or IP address, typically as a means to evade Internet censorship or geo-blocking. Instead, many providers simply provide an Internet proxy that uses VPN technologies such as OpenVPN or WireGuard. But depending on the provider and the application, they do not always create a true private network. For the more general concept, see virtual private network.ДЄ virtual private network service, or VPN service, provides a proxy server to users to bypass Internet censorship such as geoblocking or users who want to protect their communications against data profiling or MitM attacks on hostile networks.ДЄ wide variety of entities provide 'VPNs' for several purposes.

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