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The wave of data breaches, consumer privacy issues, and increased internet usage due to the pandemic are some of the main factors that sparked interest in VPNs.

Edvardas Garbenis, a cybersecurity researcher at Atlas VPN comments on the situation:

“It’s already clear that 2021 will be marked as a year when VPN popularity exploded globally. Be it media coverage or actual download numbers - interest in VPNs is increasing to never-seen-before heights. The data shows that this growth is not likely to stop anytime soon.

Will there come a time when having a VPN application on all of your devices becomes the norm? If the pattern continues - it’s not a stretch to expect it within the next couple of years.”

The research team at Atlas VPN extracted and analyzed data from the Ahrefs platform. The data depicts how many monthly pages were published on the internet that contained the keyword “VPN” in the story.

The data reveals that the popularity of VPN-related media coverage was increasing steadily since 2017. However, in the last two years, the popularity exploded.

Throughout 2021 so far, the total number of unique pages published stands at 5.71 million. Yet, in 2020, the total reached 4.35 million. Even though 2021 still has another month to go, it has already hit a record number of VPN-related stories ever.

Going back in time even further, we see that the increase in VPN-related stories had a huge growth from 2019 to 2020.

Why are VPNs exploding in popularity?

So what are the reasons behind the surge in VPN coverage? It’s like anywhere else - supply and demand. The reality is that media outlets are responding to the interests of their readers.

Privacy and security issues on the internet have skyrocketed in the past couple of years. Naturally, concerned internauts are looking for ways to protect themselves online.