I’ve been reading a lot about VPN apps lately and am wondering how many of you use one and the benefits of it.
I don’t know a lot about how they work, and I’m far from an expert so if someone wouldn’t mind-could you give a brief “for dummies” version
I don’t often connect to public wifi, but when I do, sometimes it’s Walmart or Dunkins, so that would probably give you more info
There’s a very short and good video by Tom Scott about the marketing (or at least how it used to be a few years back , his video changed a lot of how VPN marketing was done) of VPNs and whether you need that stuff or not.
If you’re connecting to public WiFi networks, then it’s definitely worth looking into VPNs. One of the advantages of a VPN is that all of your network traffic is encrypted, so the operators of the WiFi network won’t be able to snoop on what you’re doing (and it should prevent them from injecting content too). Although pretty much all Web traffic now uses https, so is encrypted anyway, I wouldn’t put it past big companies like Walmart to snoop to at least look at where you’re going so they can profile you, even if they can’t see precisely what you’re looking at.
Another big advantage (as far as I’m concerned) is that a VPN makes it easy to use alternative DNS servers to those provided by the WiFi network. I run a VPN server on my home system and also run a DNS server which “blackholes” vast numbers of advertising/tracking/malware domains. So by using the VPN wherever I am on my 'phone I can protect myself from all the shit those domains serve up.
The team behind the YouTube channel Techlore offers a website about VPNs which links resources to help you decide whether you need a VPN and also compares different providers in terms of privacy and security.
I have personally decided to use ProtonVPN whenever the wifi network am connected to is unencrypted, because imo it’s the only trusted provider that offers unlimited data with a free account. In some places where VPNs are not working such as my school, I use Startpage Anonymous View to access blocked websites.
Basically if your worried about other people snooping on your network traffic, sign up for a VPN. This will encrypt your traffic from your phone directly to the VPN server. Now this should be a VPN provider that you trust. Mine is a little PC i have running OpenVPN from home but that takes a bit of setting up.
What your most likely going to want is a VPN service so your traffic can’t be snooped on while on public wifi. It really boils down to how bad do you need to keep yourself safe.
It you need to ask, then no you don’t
Interesting site.
But on “Hide Geographic Location” it gives:
VPNs do not effectively solve this issue. Most modern browsers can detect the geographic location of a device based on data from GPS, available Wi-Fi networks and GSM/CDMA cell IDs and will submit this information to websites requesting it.
True that, a VPN may not be all you need to use, but it’s a key part of the solution. And most of the problems listed are for mobile, not desktop. And I doubt browser is the thing sending out that info.
W Reply, I agree. Proton is a leading standard because of Protonmail, and the Startpage Anonymous View I completely forgot existed
That was a very insightful response. Thanks for the hours of thought you put into that. Very informative.
What’s tomorrows lecture on professor? What if I asked do I need an anti-virus app on my android… Same response??