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Merged Should I have a VPN?

Do you have a streaming service that does not allow you to watch certain movies because you do not live in a certain country? If so a VPN could be part of the answer. Otherwise not much point.

Edit. Or not to be able do anything because of where you live? Maybe you live in a country where you cannot watch YouTube, so a VPN is one answer.
 
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Also, how effective are free VPN (e.g., Proton VPN) for protecting your personal information online?
It certainly seems to superficially hide my geolocation, but is it useful for anything else?

I’ve briefly fired up a TOR browser, but the only services it seems to aid is accessing or downloading illegal content or media files (music, movies, streaming content etc) for free. I already pay for a music library and streaming feeds, so what other advantages does this provide?

Also, does using a VPN draw attention from authorities? Despite not being illegal, it seems it is a tool readily used for illegal purposes (if the TOR site adverts I see are any indication), so would its use alone trigger an investigation into their users? (paranoid much?)
 
EHocking said:
Also, does using a VPN draw attention from authorities?
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No.

Hundreds of million people use them, and as noted, mostly for streaming. If any agency tried to keep up with who uses them, they'd need data centres bigger than Texas.
 
The Atheist said:
No.

Hundreds of million people use them, and as noted, mostly for streaming. If any agency tried to keep up with who uses them, they'd need data centres bigger than Texas.
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The issue is not that they can keep up with all of them at once, but that they can keep up with any individual whenever they want. If the Five Eyes turn their gaze G-Sama's way, no VPN in the world will keep him secure.

And honestly I wouldn't be surprised if the Five Eyes don't sweep their gaze over the VPN landscape on a regular basis. Not catching up on every single user, but spot checking tens of thousands, and looking at overall traffic patterns, and so forth.

And honestly it's not at all clear to me that copying, storing and sifting through the world's VPN traffic is still beyond the capabilities of the Five Eyes, in 2026. AWS stood up a set of isolated datacenters for classified US government workloads back in 2011. Nothing ever gets reported about the amount of growth in the GovCloud infrastructure since then. We do know that compute and storage costs have gone down. Everyone else has increased datacenter capacity. It wouldn't surprise me if yes, the security services of the west can actually track each and every VPN user simultaneously.

But, again, it's not about whether they can track everybody. It's that they can track anybody they want, any time they want. G-Sama's VPN use won't attract the attention of the authorities, because the authorities don't care about G-Sama. The authorities don't care about VPN users generally, because most VPN users are boring, from the POV of the authorities.
 
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I use a VPN when connected to public WiFi. It provides protection from man-in-the-middle and other forms of attacks and snooping that using a public WiFi connection opens you up to.

It also allows me to access unusual ports that are often blocked by public WiFi (such as the ones I use for managing my web server). So, while watching my wife sleep when I visited her in the hospital, I was able to work on my web sites.

Granted, I don't use public WiFi as often now as in the past because of the "unlimited" data plan on my phone and a generous amount of data allowed when I use its hotspot, but the VPN service is only a few dollars a month so I still find it worthwhile.
 
It's just a coincidence you're asking about VPNs right after Missouri enacts a law requiring pornography sites to conduct age verification for users here, right?

Not that it'll actually work, of course: nobody outside Missouri --and 95% of everybody inside Missouri-- cares about Missouri.
 
Turns out the vending company where my wife works shows with the same name as the scammer folks. ALMOST had my debt card canceled and replaced.

These days I hope to remember to talk things over with Boss Lady before acting. I told a cousin I'd talk to Robin before agreeing to house his cougar while he was in the hospital. He was upset when I told him I'd talked to Boss Lady about this.
 
I use Surfshark VPN to access geographically restricted content it’s only about $2 a month and you can use it on multiple devices.
 
Yes. If you're trying to get around region-based access restrictions to entertainment media, then a VPN is just the thing for you. It misrepresents where you're coming from, to the content provider. Some caveats, though:
  • The government of the region in question could decide to crack down on the practice. Enjoy it while it lasts.
  • In the event someone decides to pursue serious legal remedies, you're only as secure as your VPN's willingness and ability to resist the legal pressure of the jurisdiction in question.
  • While it's virtually impossible to tell at a glance whose traffic is coming from the VPN to the entertainment site, it's trivially easy to tell at a glance whose traffic is going from their computer to a VPN service. I wouldn't be surprised if the Five Eyes already maintain an updated list of every ISP end point (i.e., your computer) that ever sent packets destined for a VPN service endpoint.
If you're trying to obfuscate your online activity from less-than-state actors, with end-to-end encryption, no-logging services, spoofed endpoints, etc., then a VPN probably works alright in most cases. Don't assume the Google can't still follow along, though.

If you're trying to hide your activity from the governments of the world, though, using a VPN is the least of your concerns. You'll want to start by using someone else's computer entirely, and someone else's network. Libraries and internet cafes are generally regarded as okay options for this. Ideally you'll want to do your business at a computer that isn't covered by CCTV or the like. Of course you'll use a VPN as part of your toolkit, but if the Five Eyes are already awake to your nonsense, you'll have to assume they'll hit that cybercafe like they're trying to cause an extinction event the moment your VPN connection gets picked up by their monitors. So it'll have to be a quick transaction, in and out. Good luck.
 
Wudang said:
A lot of people's use cases for a VPN can be met by simply using a browser with a built-in VPN like Opera. A couple others do as well but I can't recall off-hand.
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Opera does, as you say, and Firefox has added the option of a VPN with a 50GB data limit.

However, neither of these will get you round certain geographical restrictions, which is more the province of paid for VPNs (I looked at using the Opera VPN to catch streams of the Tour de France this summer, but couldn't, as I needed to be able to specify that I was in particular regions)
 
I use NordVpn. Mullvad looks good but the boss is a tech bro who finances nazis.
Some sites will say your IP address looks suspicious and may increase the number of captcha and stuff.
Some public WiFi in hotels and such may block VPNs due to some or associating them with porn. I couldn’t work from those as I needed VPN to access AWS.
 
I’ve been wondering about this myself. Is a VPN really necessary for the average internet user, or does it mainly make sense for specific situations?
 
jt512 said:
I use Surfshark VPN to access geographically restricted content it’s only about $2 a month and you can use it on multiple devices.
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Every now and then I have to turn it off as a number of websites block access via VPN.
Somewhat more annoying than the international access it provides.

ETA: especially annoying for online shopping, as most search results on same are tailored to the country location of the IP.
 
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