In many ways, working as a freelance web developer is the best of both worlds in that you get to do engaging and interesting work while retaining the freedom to choose your own projects. At the same time, it also comes with added responsibility because, as a freelance developer, you are solely responsible for navigating the complexities of the digital landscape to progress your projects while also keeping them secure.
In the face of these challenges, one of the most effective solutions to emerge is the Virtual Private Network, or VPN. While this technology has primarily risen to prominence due to its utility in personal use, the truth is that they are much more versatile than that and can actually have a major impact on how you do your work as a freelancing web developer. In this piece, we’ll discuss exactly why this is, outlining how a simple free VPN can empower you to do better development work.
Web development work often involves handling sensitive projects for your clients. Whether you’re working with proprietary software or accessing servers or critical databases, it is essential to ensure that your development environments are secure so as to avoid potentially damaging breaches. Virtual private networks can help immensely in this regard.
A virtual private network will apply robust encryption protocols to all of your device’s traffic, ensuring that it will be indecipherable to third parties. In this way, it will add an additional layer of protection to help secure communications with external servers. As such, you can mitigate threats like man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks while working on projects involving server-side rendering (SSR), which requires the transfer of data between server and client in development.
As a freelance web developer, you will likely be operating remotely, relying on digital platforms for collaboration with clients. This naturally exposes you and your projects to increased cybersecurity risks, especially if you find yourself working on shared networks, but the security a VPN provides can be the solution to this.
Since a VPN sends all of your data through an encrypted tunnel, it will allow you to establish a secure home office, regardless of the authentication status of the network you’re using. This means that you can engage in safe digital collaboration and access client’s development servers, cloud platforms, and internal networks without putting sensitive project data at risk of exploitation by interceptors.
Thanks to the development of online tools, APIs, software libraries, and cloud services, freelance web development can be done from anywhere. However, it’s not uncommon to run into some obstacles when attempting to do this, as online development resources can be restricted to users in certain regions. Encountering such issues can impede your ability to make progress on important projects, which is why the locational flexibility of VPNs can be so valuable to you as a freelance developer.
Activating a VPN on your device will divert your internet through a remote server in another part of the world. This masks your device’s IP address and your real location, effectively enabling you to appear online as though you were in another region altogether. That means you can simply switch your server location on your VPN to change location with just a click, allowing you to access any region-restricted services or tools you may need to do your work.
Testing websites and applications across different regions is an increasingly important aspect of web development, as it enables you as a developer to understand how users in different locations experience what you’ve created. This is another area where the flexibility of virtual private networks can be a real benefit.
Since a VPN will allow you to route your connection through a range of servers in different locations, you can use it to simulate the UXs of users in a variety of regions. As such, you will be better able to test localized content, for instance, and to effectively detect and solve potential performance problems those users might encounter.
With the digital landscape becoming ever more complex and challenging to navigate, virtual private networks have become an invaluable tool for web development everywhere due to the flexibility and security they provide. By incorporating this technology into your operations as a freelance web developer, you can protect sensitive proprietary data, maintain productivity, and streamline your workflows to ensure that you can reliably deliver timely, high-quality work for your clients.