VPN....Are they necessary?

PunkRoquefort

I gave a rough idea what they are. 

Are they really necessary, and if so is it best to use a paid for one?

Cheers!

debitcardmayhem

I guess you meant have not gave, however no they aren’t necessary. Unless you gave a valid use case

PunkRoquefort

Sorry. I meant have!

Thank you.

DullGreyGuy

It depends what you want to do with them?

Want to be able to watch HBO Max? Then yes they are great for making you appear to be in the US

Connecting to open wifi networks in pubs/cafes? Certainly adds a lot of security

Want to watch adult content or do something not 100% legal then VPN can hide that from your ISP and/or the wifi provider

[Deleted User]

For use at home then no unless as per above you are trying to stream content out of your region or hiding illegal file sharing from your ISP.

Out of the house they can be useful if you are using public Wi-Fi but with 4G/5G nowadays there isn’t as much need for using public Wi-Fi. 

Even then you don’t need to use a paid for service, I run a wire guard VPN server at home and my mobile phone automatically uses it whenever it disconnects from my home Wi-Fi network. 

onomatopoeia99

I'm using one now to post this.  I am connected to my home where the VPN endpoint is and RDP-ed into a VM running Windows there, even though I'm not at home.

From my home I work from home several days a week, and achieve this by using a VPN to connect to the office.

Both services are free as they use OpenVPN.  They are the only sort of VPN I will use, those where I control the endpoint, but I don't want to try to breach copyright licensing.

flaneurs_lobster

I was doing jury service last week and during one of the interminable waiting periods had need to access a couple of my bank accounts via apps on my phone. The courthouse is a brutalist armoured bunker of a building, no mobile signal to either of my providers, but does, of course, have free wi-fi. 

Been notified that my Google One account comes with a free VPN (which I turned on) and I also have a free Proton VPN service. 

Was this a wise precaution or a waste of time? 

 

[Deleted User]

flaneurs_lobster said:

I was doing jury service last week and during one of the interminable waiting periods had need to access a couple of my bank accounts via apps on my phone. The courthouse is a brutalist armoured bunker of a building, no mobile signal to either of my providers, but does, of course, have free wi-fi. 

Been notified that my Google One account comes with a free VPN (which I turned on) and I also have a free Proton VPN service. 

Was this a wise precaution or a waste of time? 

 

Yes, always with public wifi, really easy for somebody to "spoof" the name of the public wifi and for you to connect to that instead of the real wifi which leads to a "man in the middle" attack.

goodValue

Yes, always with public wifi, really easy for somebody to "spoof" the name of the public wifi and for you to connect to that instead of the real wifi which leads to a "man in the middle" attack.

Please excuse my lack of knowledge.
In the situation of spoofed wifi, how does the VPN protect you?

facade

goodValue said:

Yes, always with public wifi, really easy for somebody to "spoof" the name of the public wifi and for you to connect to that instead of the real wifi which leads to a "man in the middle" attack.

Please excuse my lack of knowledge.
In the situation of spoofed wifi, how does the VPN protect you?

The basic idea is that all communication between you and the VPN is encrypted and decrypted inside your computer, so it doesn't matter who intercepts the data, they can't read it.

joew1

I use mine to access different region's Netflix. I use Surfshark as I got 3 months for 3p which is nice. if you have a fire tv stick you can just get the Surfshark app and then connect to desired region. if you search, "international Netflix search" and use the first website. you can search for whatever you want to watch and it will tell you which country has it on their Netflix. then just connect to that country and watch.

also means you can get subscriptions cheaper than in uk. Netflix was the first one I got cheaper. Turkish Netflix is like £5/6 for 4k streaming