Virtual private networks (VPNs) can offer an additional layer of security and privacy for your online activity. Whether you’re working on a public Wi-Fi network and want to escape prying eyes, or you’re worried about privacy in general, a VPN can offer a lot of benefits.

In a nutshell, a VPN establishes a secure, encrypted connection between your device and a private server, hiding your traffic from being seen by others. Of course, the VPN itself can still see your traffic, which is why you should choose a VPN from a company you trust. (A good rule of thumb is to avoid free VPNs, because if they’re not charging you a fee, they may be monetizing in some less desirable way.) In addition, law enforcement can get its hands on your information through the VPN company. However, for the most part, a VPN offers you a way to hide your online activity from others.

Note that getting a VPN is only one of the measures you can take to make your web browsing more secure. Others include enabling two-factor authentication and using a password manager.

In addition to their security benefits, VPNs can be handy when you’re trying to access sensitive information, or if you’re traveling in Europe and want to stream Netflix or Amazon Prime titles only allowed in the US. Some even claim they can allow you to jump firewalls in heavily regulated countries such as China.

At home, you can set up your VPN through your router, which takes a few more steps, but then any devices connected to your router won’t need to be configured individually; this can also slow down all traffic that goes through. However, for this article, we’re going to concentrate on VPN apps that you can load on your laptop or phone so you can use the internet safely while away from your home base.

Most VPN apps these days support the OpenVPN protocol, making setup a simple matter of allowing the app access to configure the settings for you. But whether your device uses macOS, Chrome OS, Windows 10, iOS, or Android, if you’d like a quick overview of what’s involved before selecting a service, or if you prefer to do a manual setup, we’ve broken down the steps into straightforward instructions for you.

Setting up a VPN in Windows 10

The first step is to create a VPN profile, which you’ll fill out with details from your particular VPN service.

• Click on the Windows button, then head into “Settings” > “Network & Internet” > “VPN.” Click on “Add a VPN connection.”
• In the fields on the menu, select “Windows (built-in)” for your VPN provider. Give your VPN a name under “Connection name.” Enter the server name or address, the VPN type, and the type of sign-in info, such as a username and password.
• Click “Save.”
• To connect to your VPN, go back to “Settings” > “Network & Internet” > “VPN.” Click on your VPN name.
• If you want, you can select “Advanced Options” to edit the connection properties, clear your sign-in info, or set up a VPN proxy. You can also add a username and password in this section for extra security (optional, but recommended).
• Select “Connect” and enter a password if you’ve set one.

Setting up a VPN in Chrome OS

While using a VPN with a Chromebook used to be a problem, these days, there are several (like ExpressVPN or NordVPN) that have versions specifically for Chrome OS. To get started, you can head to the Google Play store and get the VPN app from there, or download one from the VPN’s website. No matter which you choose, after opening your VPN app, it should prompt you with instructions on how to fully set it up.

If you need to do it manually, you can. Chrome has native support for L2TP / IPsec and OpenVPN. To install a VPN that works with one of these formats:

• Click on the time in the lower-right corner of your screen, then click on “Settings.”
• Click on “Add connection” and then on “OpenVPN / L2TP.” (You may also find the name of your VPN in the “Add connection” list, which will make things easier.)
• Add all of the necessary information, which may include server hostname, service name, provider type, pre-shared key, username, and password. You can save your identity and password if you like. When finished, click on “Connect.”

Some VPNs, especially those issued from a workplace, demand a certificate, which you will need to import first. If that’s required:

• Enter chrome://settings/certificates into the address bar.
• Go to the “Authorities” tab. Find the correct certificate in the list and click “Import.”
• Then follow the instructions above for setting up the VPN.

Setting up a VPN in macOS

As with the other formats here, there are apps that automatically guide you through the setup process, but you can also do it yourself manually.

• To start, head into “System Preferences” and then choose “Network.”
• From there, the process is straightforward. Click the Plus-symbol button on the bottom left, and use the Interface drop-down menu to choose your VPN. You’ll need the details from your VPN of choice to fill out “VPN Type” and “Service Name.”
• Click on “Create.” Fill out the server address, remote ID, and local ID in the appropriate fields. Then click on “Authentication Settings.”
• Enter the username and password for your VPN, which you can set through your VPN app.
• Click “OK” and then “Connect.”

Setting up a VPN in iOS

Setting up a VPN on an iOS device is fairly simple. Again, if you download an app from the App Store, select it and it should guide you through configuration. Here’s how to do it manually, though:

• Just head into “Settings” and tap on “General.”
• Scroll down to select “VPN.” (The iPhone will indicate whether you are currently connected to one or not.)
• Tap on “Add VPN Configuration” and then on “Type” to select a security protocol. (Follow the instructions provided by your chosen app.)
• Go back to the “Add Configuration” screen, where you will add the VPN’s description, server, remote ID, and local ID.
• Enter your username and password. You can also use a proxy if you like.
• Tap “Done.” You will then be brought back to the VPN screen. Toggle the “Status” switch to on.

Setting up a VPN in Android

As with iOS, setting up a VPN on an Android device shouldn’t be too difficult. Here’s the manual process if you’re not letting an app automatically configure things for you. (Keep in mind that, because some vendors like Samsung tweak their Android versions, your process may vary slightly.)

• Head into “Settings” > “Network & Internet” > “Advanced” > “VPN.” If you don’t see “Network & Internet” in the Settings menu (which may depend on your Android overlay), then do a search within Settings for VPN. Press the “Add” button.
• If you happen to be setting this up on a new phone, or if you haven’t yet set a screen lock or password, Google will prompt you to set one for your phone first. Do so.
• Now create your VPN profile. Add the VPN name, type, and server address. Click on “Save.”
• You’ll be taken back to the VPN screen, where you should now see the name of your VPN. Tap on it, and put in your name and password for the VPN. You can also choose to save your account information, and you can optionally set the VPN to be always on. When finished, tap “Connect.”
• Enter the VPN name, type, server address, username, and password.
• Then tap “save.” You’re done!

Once you’ve got your VPN up and running, you might notice that web browsing isn’t as fast as it used to be, especially if you’ve configured traffic to go through another country. Stronger encryption, or more users connected to one VPN, can also slow down your internet speeds. Downloads might slow to snail speed, and your League of Legends screen lag might be absurd. But those aren’t big problems compared to the security that you’ve added.

And anyway, now that you know how to set up a VPN, toggling it off is easy in comparison. You just have to remember to do it.

Update June 1st, 2021, 10:20AM ET: This article was originally published on March 1st, 2019, and now features a few updates related to changes in the Windows 10 interface.

Spoilers ahead for Game of Thrones, season 8, episode 4, “The Last of the Starks.”

Season 8 of Game of Thrones has had a lot to live up to. If the show’s big finale was going to be as good as the lead-up seasons that made it a sensation, it would need epic political intrigue, meaningful deaths, and even a touch of romance. While few people look to Game of Thrones as the epitome of romantic fiction — it’s featured a lot more rape, incest, and abuse than supportive relationships — some strong pairings have emerged. Fans strongly identified with a few of them: Jon Snow and Ygritte, Gilly and Sam, and Missandei and Grey Worm. Of these couples, though, only one has survived the show’s repeated culling of minor characters.

Season 8 has featured a number of emotional hookups, but none have been as long-lasting or heartwarming as Missandei and Grey Worm’s relationship, which now seems like it was being built up solely for tragedy. They did at least have the advantage of time: they’ve been sharing scenes since season 4, and their romance dates back to a season 5 kiss. Their relationship has had three seasons of buildup, from tender moments of talking about their dark pasts to helping Daenerys fight off threats as she made her way through Essos and eventually across the Narrow Sea.

Unfortunately, time isn’t on the side of other current couples on the show, and viewers haven’t been given much of a chance to invest in them. Jon and Daenerys didn’t even meet until season 7, and they only had four episodes to get to know each other before they had sex. Their romance has always felt contrived. The writers need them to be together for extra conflict and drama even though their goals are misaligned and because they’ve become the show’s most significant characters. Their romance may feel epic to people who are already inclined to love these characters individually, but apart from one moony scene by a waterfall, the show hasn’t invested much time in getting viewers to love them together.

Jorah and Dany make more sense as a couple, given their long history together. But as Dany tells Jon in “The Last of the Starks,” “I couldn’t love him back, not the way he wanted, not the way I love you.” While it may be a smart move to clarify that his long-standing devotion to her doesn’t entitle him to her love — she isn’t feeling it, that’s just how these things go sometimes, and not everyone gets what they want — her long, contentious relationship with him carries a lot more emotional weight and impact than her few scenes with Jon do. (Also, you can bet that if Dany asked Jorah not to blab about a world-changing secret, he wouldn’t immediately turn around and tell people about it.)

Arya and Gendry had a few scenes together in past seasons, but her interest in him back then felt like a child’s crush, and their original dynamic didn’t fully build up to their abrupt sexual connection and his subsequent proposal this season. While the couple certainly had the backing of some fans who noticed and approved of the way Arya admired Gendry’s shirtless bod back in season 2, other viewers complained that they still view Arya as a child, which made her hookup with Gendry feel profoundly uncomfortable to watch.

Regardless of how fans initially felt, the pairing would have been more convincing if the writers had given them more chances to meet over the past few seasons or if Arya was capable of better, less bluntly transactional pick-up lines. Twitter users have joked that her opening move — “Were you with other girls before in King’s Landing?” — was the equivalent of an impromptu STD test. And her follow-up, “We’re probably going to die soon. I want to know what it’s like before that happens,” is a staple of fan fiction stories, but it’s not exactly a romantic statement. Her snappy remark, “I’m not the Red Woman. Take your own bloody pants off,” is more fun, but it’s certainly not sexy to discuss your exes (especially the ones who stole your blood for a magic ritual without your consent) right before getting together for the first time.

Then, Arya refuses Gendry’s proposal one episode later. His sudden infatuation and her rejection are almost comical, given how quickly everything is happening. But their misunderstanding is also sad. Gendry fundamentally doesn’t understand Arya. That’s why he thinks offering to make her his lady is romantic, as it might be to other girls Arya’s age. But the assumption betrays how weak their relationship is: it’s just sex, with maybe some mutual respect. There’s no true connection and certainly no everlasting love.

Brienne and Jaime get better treatment from the writers, and the way they flirt over drinks in “The Last of the Starks” feels like a nod to the way real-life couples often get together these days, rather than the high-fantasy romance of the Jon and Dany pairing. But then Jaime ruins everything by leaving Brienne with a weird shrug of a speech that completely ignores the emotions she’s expressing. (I was on the Tormund and Brienne ship, and I’m fairly certain Tormund would have stuck around for at least three months.)

Their new romantic relationship didn’t have any time to develop before it abruptly became an emotional drama. They’d barely gotten to the point of admitting their attraction and trusting each other before Jaime decided to hightail it back to Cersei, whether it’s to kill her as some believe or to attempt to save her one last time. This brings Brienne to tears — a reaction many viewers have protested as out of character.

All of these abrupt, short-shrifted romances in season 8 mean that Missandei and Grey Worm were really the stars of their own adorable little corner of the show, where they discussed the Northerners’ xenophobia and their greater dreams to retire to Essos and live happily ever after once the war is over.

That’s why it’s such a blow when the show kills off Missandei in “The Last of the Starks.” Their romance was never excessively in-your-face, like Jon and Daenerys’, which was the emotional equivalent of getting sucker-punched by the writers. Grey Worm and Missandei had a subtler story, a more believable build, and a natural sense of personal connection. Even for viewers who weren’t explicitly fans of the couple, they added a kinder note to a tonally dark series. Without them, all we have now is Gilly and Sam, who will presumably be staying in Winterfell to care for their newest little one.

Missandei’s death has other implications besides ending Game of Thrones’ one remaining foregrounded meaningful romance. Missandei was the only woman of color left on the show, and now she’s dead. Ellaria and Tyene Sand were left to rot in Cersei’s dungeons, or they’re maybe already dead; it’s unclear. The Essos population isn’t much represented in the main crew, and Daenerys’ army of Dothraki and Unsullied, who are mostly men of color, are largely background effects. So in terms of representation, Missandei’s death is a huge blow to Game of Thrones, which has already been criticized for not giving large enough roles to people of color who do exist and live in this fantasy setting.

Gilly and Sam are still the figurative old, cuddly married couple on the show, but they’ve barely gotten any development or screen time together. Missandei and Grey Worm, on the other hand, seemed like the show’s one relationship that meant something besides drama hooks and grim confrontations. Their romance was a large part of those characters’ identities, and both actors have expressed in interviews that all they wanted was for the two to sail off to a happy ending, enjoying a life on Naath. Jacob Anderson, who plays Grey Worm told The New York Times, “I want them to be happy and chill out by the beach, because they’ve been through a lot.” And Nathalie Emmanuel, who plays Missandei, told Entertainment Weekly, “If she lived, I think they would have gone back to her home. They would have lived happily ever after.” The tragedy of Game of Thrones’ latest death is that it snuffed out two characters’ chances at peaceful endings, but it also snuffed out the last gasp of romance on the show. There isn’t time to build another relationship on this level, and everything just looks grimmer from here.

Spoilers ahead for Game of Thrones, season 8, episode 4, “The Last of the Starks.”

In the lull after the giant ice-zombie battle of the Game of Thrones episode “The Long Night,” Jon Snow makes a significant decision. In “The Last of the Starks,” he decides to entrust the secret of his identity as a lost Targaryen heir to his sisters, Sansa and Arya Stark. He innocently believes that if they swear they won’t tell a soul, his secret will be safe with them. But right after Jon swears Sansa to secrecy, she turns around and divulges the information to Tyrion.

The moment seems like evidence that Sansa can’t keep a secret or doesn’t care about her word of honor if she sees a way to forward her agenda against Daenerys Targaryen. But the writers believe her choice to expose the information is a well-calculated move. As showrunner D.B. Weiss points out in a behind-the-episode clip, Sansa “knows what will happen if she gives Tyrion this information. She’s a student of Littlefinger, and she knows how information travels, and she can think many steps into the game, the way Littlefinger did.” Weiss says Sansa knows Tyrion will turn around and tell Varys, and from there, she can predict even more events that will follow.

Just before the events of season 1, Littlefinger pulled a lot of strings behind the scenes, saying he could use a broken kingdom to climb to power because “chaos is a ladder.” He convinced Lysa Arryn to murder her husband, then pinned the blame on the Lannisters, instigating a war between them and House Stark. Sansa later uncovers these facts and confronts Littlefinger. At this point in the story, it’s implied that she can also foresee these kinds of spiraling events, and she’s deliberately setting long-term plots into motion by telling Tyrion there’s “someone better” for the Iron Throne. “These are all things that have been occurring to Sansa between the time we see her get that information and the time she passes the message on,” Weiss says.

That time isn’t reflected on-screen — narratively, it seems like Sansa waits about five seconds before spilling her sworn secret — but Weiss says she’s already calculating the fallout of breaking the promise. After Tyrion and Varys discuss who deserves the Iron Throne and who is better suited to take it, it’s clear that Varys is open to considering Jon Snow as an option, while Tyrion is still devoted to Dany. This quickly changes when Varys learns that Daenerys is willing to charge into King’s Landing, even if it endangers the lives of innocent people. “I’m here to free the world from tyrants. That is my destiny, and I will serve it — no matter the cost,” Daenerys tells him defiantly. She only reconsiders after realizing she’ll look good if she gives Cersei a chance to surrender.

Her planned battle strategy meeting turns into an ugly realization for both Tyrion and Varys, as they look at the ruler they’re backing struggling with her desire for vengeance and power. As Varys notes dryly to Tyrion: “I’ve served tyrants all my life: they all talk about destiny.” That’s the kind of backhanded critique a clever servant lays on a master in secret, and it spells out how much support Dany is losing — just as she feared she would. It’s why she told Jon Snow to keep his secret quiet and definitely not tell his sisters that he’s a Targaryen. “It will take on a life of its own, and you won’t be able to control it or what it does to people,” she tells him. That’s exactly what happens next. When people are aware that there’s another option besides Cersei, and it’s not a feral queen from a land they don’t trust but instead, likable, naïve, failure-prone Jon Snow, it’s clear why they’d immediately consider it.

The implied result is that Varys will start to quietly plot Dany’s demise if she doesn’t lose the war against Cersei first. This is the sort of scheming and maneuvering that initially gave Game of Thrones its richness, and it’s been missing from this season (aside from a little side-eye between Sansa and Dany). It’s good to see the show making some attempt to use its cleverest chess masters again and giving Sansa her chance to pull at their strings — even if it does just look like she’s breaking a promise.