This is one of the trends of recent years: vpn
. Their adoption has exploded with confinement and telecommuting, and their growth does not seem to be stopping anytime soon.
A new study shows the evolution of the uses of virtual private networks in 2021. And if France is not among the best students, its adoption of VPNs almost doubled last year.
VPN usage increases by 184%
VPNs are on the rise. In 2020, their adoption was taking off due to the health crisis and a consequent rise in cybercrime. A study by Atlas VPN estimated that there were 277 million downloads during this time. This trend continued in 2021 until it saw an increase of 184% compared to 2020. According to a new analysis by the group, a total of 785 million VPNs were downloaded worldwide during the year. last.
This record growth allows the company to estimate that they are now consumer products and one of the most popular security tools in the world. The study indeed recalls the advantages of a VPN, including confidentiality and security in everyday communications. Another benefit is location-based unlocking for some apps or streaming services like Netflix, where the catalog differs by country. In France, for example, it is subject to the chronology of the media and prevents certain films from being seen as soon as they are released.
Strong growth in VPN adoption in France
Another use, and not the least, a VPN allows you to unblock access restrictions to VoIP services in force in certain countries, such as for instant messaging applications or websites. And it is precisely in these regions where strong content restrictions exist that VPN adoption has been the fastest and has exploded the most.
Among the biggest users, we find Qatar, which increases from 53 to 69% of use, the United Arab Emirates with 59% and Singapore with 49.14% and which is experiencing an increase of more than 200%. This increase can largely be explained by the blocking of some popular porn sites, believes Atlas VPN.
As the United States finds itself at the 33and place in this ranking, France is only ranked 56and position on the 85 countries listed. VPN use in France has nevertheless almost doubled and has gone from an adoption rate of 5.25% in 2020 to 9.22% last year, or just over 6 million people. The company points out that here and in other European countries, uses are more related to security and geoblocking than to any censorship of websites, except those for illegal downloading. The VPN still has a bright future ahead of it, and in the face of growing interest from the general public, some players are now integrating it into their services, such as Mozilla VPN , or Google with its Google One online storage offer. It remains to be seen how usage will evolve in 2022.
Source: AtlasVPN
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