You’ve probably seen the acronym “VPN” here and there, but it seems like it’s rarely explained so most people remain mystified. If you try to look it up, you’re likely to find information that makes it even more confusing rather than clearing things up. So I’m going to keep this simple.
VPN stands for virtual private network, and the technology behind it can be very complicated (as you saw if you clicked on that link above) but the concept is actually pretty simple. A VPN allows you to connect securely to an otherwise closed network.