VPN - Banking App issues and others

tinjacobs77

I recently tried Bitdefender VPN as part of a free trial and found it to be more of a hindrance than anything else.  This caused me to do a bit more research on the subject and basically I don't think VPN is for me but wondered if anyone out there would be able to confirm that.  

After installing the vpn - immediately I noticed that my banking apps stopped working - assumingly because they couldn't recognise me. Even when I switched the VPN to point to the UK - it was the same outcome.  I thought one of the big sells of VPN was to help keep confidential info even more of a secret.  I use several banking apps - and they only way I could get them to work was by switching them to ignore the VPN.  I then noticed this was the same for more and more areas - bookmaker apps etc.  

I came to the conclusion that VPN is not really useful for these needs - so couldn't really understand the big noise about them.  It seems most people use them to obtain overseas tv programs but even that seems to be getting clamped down.  

Am I missing something here or is this exactly what the VPN is for as I couldn't see any use for it.

onomatopoeia99

They are completely unnecessary for banking, every financial services provider will use TLS on their website, and as you will have seen a potential hinderance as they are less likely to trust a client that is trying to hide their location.

Main use is for copyright violations, as depriving those that create original work of income from it by bypassing regional / national licensing agreements drawn up as a consequence of copyright is seen as a legitimate form of moneysaving by some people on here.

tinjacobs77

Yes - I think that backs up what I found from my free trial. 

It's more for those bending the rules on watching TV etc, rather than what I thought it was for. 

I didn't know if it was just because of the product I used but it looks like it was my understanding of it. 

Neil_Jones

tinjacobs77 said:

Yes - I think that backs up what I found from my free trial. 

It's more for those bending the rules on watching TV etc, rather than what I thought it was for. 

I didn't know if it was just because of the product I used but it looks like it was my understanding of it. 

VPNs are useful in certain circumstances but for the majority of customers they cause more issues than they claim to fix.  VPN blurb may say they "help you reclaim your privacy. It encrypts your connection to the internet, so no one can eavesdrop on the websites you visit or data you share", but nothing is 100% private, anonymous or even guaranteed to be secure, because all you're doing is shoving your internet traffic through some corporate server somewhere.

If the first thing you do after setting up a VPN is go straight to Google, sign in and then proceed to Google things for a while, you're back in the same situation you were before just just with a VPN in the way.

JenB79

tinjacobs77 said:

After installing the vpn - immediately I noticed that my banking apps stopped working - assumingly because they couldn't recognise me. 

No, the reason why you were unable to access  banking apps via VPN was that your new IP address would have been blacklisted by the UK banks as 100s (if not 1000s) of users will have been using the same IP address - VPN servers are usually shared by lots and lots of users. 

As others have said forget about using a VPN, they don't improve your privacy despite what their sales blurb states. Their only real use is for bypassing geographical restrictions, eg you're abroad and want to access a UK only website.

scoot65

JenB79 said:

tinjacobs77 said:

After installing the vpn - immediately I noticed that my banking apps stopped working - assumingly because they couldn't recognise me. 

No, the reason why you were unable to access  banking apps via VPN was that your new IP address would have been blacklisted by the UK banks as 100s (if not 1000s) of users will have been using the same IP address - VPN servers are usually shared by lots and lots of users. 

As others have said forget about using a VPN, they don't improve your privacy despite what their sales blurb states. Their only real use is for bypassing geographical restrictions, eg you're abroad and want to access a UK only website.

So I take that using a VPN whilst overseas to access UK banking websites is not going to work.   

JenB79

scoot65 said:

JenB79 said:

tinjacobs77 said:

After installing the vpn - immediately I noticed that my banking apps stopped working - assumingly because they couldn't recognise me. 

No, the reason why you were unable to access  banking apps via VPN was that your new IP address would have been blacklisted by the UK banks as 100s (if not 1000s) of users will have been using the same IP address - VPN servers are usually shared by lots and lots of users. 

As others have said forget about using a VPN, they don't improve your privacy despite what their sales blurb states. Their only real use is for bypassing geographical restrictions, eg you're abroad and want to access a UK only website.

So I take that using a VPN whilst overseas to access UK banking websites is not going to work.   

Some websites will work, some won't - it's down to pot luck. Personally I've never had any problems accessing UK banking websites when abroad.

scoot65

JenB79 said:

scoot65 said:

JenB79 said:

tinjacobs77 said:

After installing the vpn - immediately I noticed that my banking apps stopped working - assumingly because they couldn't recognise me. 

No, the reason why you were unable to access  banking apps via VPN was that your new IP address would have been blacklisted by the UK banks as 100s (if not 1000s) of users will have been using the same IP address - VPN servers are usually shared by lots and lots of users. 

As others have said forget about using a VPN, they don't improve your privacy despite what their sales blurb states. Their only real use is for bypassing geographical restrictions, eg you're abroad and want to access a UK only website.

So I take that using a VPN whilst overseas to access UK banking websites is not going to work.   

Some websites will work, some won't - it's down to pot luck. Personally I've never had any problems accessing UK banking websites when abroad.

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated!