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frank · 09-15-2018, 09:08 AM

I was reading that it might be a good idea to use a vpn service to protect your online or streaming identity. what do you think? necessary or not? thanks

Sunset · 09-15-2018, 09:54 AM

All your bank and stock info and another other that is https is encrypted. However your ISP will know you visited the online bank and for how long, but they don't know what you did or see any of what you see.

Where VPN is important is if you download music/movies illegally. People who do this are exposed to being charged huge sums of money for their actions which can be traced back for years. VPN makes this tracing (going forward) impossible.

If you travel, VPN could be useful to prevent any man in the middle attacks as they won't know what sites you are trying to view, so they cannot pass on a fake login to you for logging in.

I have a free VPN and find I don't use it.

MRG · 09-15-2018, 10:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset

All your bank and stock info and another other that is https is encrypted. However your ISP will know you visited the online bank and for how long, but they don't know what you did or see any of what you see.

Where VPN is important is if you download music/movies illegally. People who do this are exposed to being charged huge sums of money for their actions which can be traced back for years. VPN makes this tracing (going forward) impossible.

If you travel, VPN could be useful to prevent any man in the middle attacks as they won't know what sites you are trying to view, so they cannot pass on a fake login to you for logging in.

I have a free VPN and find I don't use it.

+1

Saw an ad the other day. My response was "why"?

**sengsational** · 09-15-2018, 11:08 AM

You might be more secure without a VPN at all if you use one of the free VPN's... Apparently several have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar, selling your private information.

And no, I don't use a VPN. But, as Sunset said, I'd use a VPN and TOR if I wanted to download content that had a bulldog owner.

timo2 · 09-15-2018, 11:21 AM

I use a paid VPN for my mobile wifi use, for the potential man in the middle attack. If you are worried about your home wifi getting hacked, then VPN is good for that also. (I'm not worried about that, but if a person has prominence in their community, it might be a concern).

The issues with using a VPN at home is 1) the speed is cut down. for instance with VPN by download speed is about 50 to 75 Mbps, depending upon the remote server. Without VPN, it is around 100Mbps. My plan is for 100 Mbps. 2) Some websites block access from VPN servers, which means servers that have multiple users. 3) Also when some sites use the 'I'm not a robot' check, if you are using one of the VPN servers, they subject you too an overwhelming number of photos of cars, buses, etc. It is a big pain.

The other thing some people use VPN for is to to watch sporting events that they would normally be blacked out from watching. It would take a little planning, as you know the game providers are wise to that, but some people do it.

easysurfer · 09-15-2018, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frank

I was reading that it might be a good idea to use a vpn service to protect your online or streaming identity. what do you think? necessary or not? thanks

If you need to protect your online or streaming identity all the time, then I think a VPN is a good idea. If you only need to protect once in a while, then maybe can get by with browser with "VPN" turn on option such as Opera.

I suppose the question is how much identity do you wish/need to protect vs if worth the added cost.

For my phone, I use a free VPN app when traveling as I trust that more than an unsecured wi-fi like at some hotels or airports. For home computer, most of the time I just use a regular non-protected browser. (Though I do encrypt my important data using Veracrypt). There are times I wish more protection (don't want my browsing to get filled with trackers/cookies and not keep history). During those times I use Epic Browser as that has security and privacy in mind as the default.

Also, as I understand, if you get a VPN service, make sure the service doesn't keep logs and best to have one run outside the US as the laws are more friendly for privacy.

timo2 · 09-15-2018, 11:48 AM

I was just reading that, in the age of speed throttling by ISPs, that a VPN can help get around that. However, IMO, the throttling would have to be slower than the already reduced VPN speed to make any sense.

candrew · 09-15-2018, 11:54 AM

For frequent travelers like us, a VPN service has value.

- Video content from Amazon Prime cannot be streamed from outside the U.S. A VPN provides us a U.S. ISP. The same holds true for Hulu. You can stream Netflix outside the U.S., however, content is limited.

- We find ourselves needing to use public WiFi from time to time when traveling. A VPN service will cloak your activity from others.

imoldernu · 09-15-2018, 12:34 PM

this stuff is getting to be too much for me...

Car-Guy · 09-15-2018, 05:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunset

Where VPN is important is if you download music/movies illegally. People who do this are exposed to being charged huge sums of money for their actions which can be traced back for years. VPN makes this tracing (going forward) impossible.

That's really not correct. VPN does not make tracking (tracing) impossible. It does add another degree of complexity but it's certainly not impossible. The VPN service provider can (typically under a court order, just like an ISP) identify who's VPN tunnel was used to connect to "any other site" through their service. It's just a matter of comparing things like time stamps, authentication and IP address logs. Of course if you use HTTPS through the VPN tunnel, your data is still encrypted even after it leaves the VPN service providers site, all the way to the terminating SSL server. That's a bit of over simplification but VPN's are not like using anonymous proxies.

Public VPN's do provide some added security value but not anonymity.

easysurfer · 09-15-2018, 08:27 PM

I go with the motto of no such thing as anonymity but just degrees of privacy.

**braumeister** · 09-16-2018, 05:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by candrew

- We find ourselves needing to use public WiFi from time to time when traveling. A VPN service will cloak your activity from others.

This is the reason I use a VPN when traveling. Hotels, restaurants, etc.

You have no idea what that guy in the next room is doing. He may be running a sniffer on his laptop to pick up the traffic between your device and your ISP. Going through a VPN will encrypt that traffic, giving you some privacy and protection from "man in the middle" scams.

A pretty good piece on VPNs by a reputable author:
Post-FCC Privacy Rules, Should You VPN?

ShokWaveRider · 09-16-2018, 05:48 AM

I use NordVPN

jim584672 · 09-16-2018, 06:07 AM

The Tor browser provides a VPN like benefit, and it is free.

"The Tor software protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location, and it lets you access sites which are blocked."