VPN router help please

murphydog999

I have Surfshark as my VPN supplier, but I want to put/have VPN on my router. The Plusnet 2 hub says it supports VPN but apparently it doesn’t! I don’t want anything fancy, nogaming, max 5 units going through it, just for security, can anyone suggest some good basic - easy to set-up - options under £100 please.
T.I.A.

[Deleted User]

VPNs need a fair bit of CPU power to encrypt / decrypt data on the fly without delays, typical free ISP routers and budget models will not have the CPU capabilities without throttling your connection somewhat. The last consumer router I owned with VPN built in cost me £300 and struggled at around 50mbps with max CPU which is useless with a 1 Gig line.

Having said that I'd go back a step, what is the security problem you are trying to solve?

Sounds like you have been sucked into the VPN marketing. Whilst VPNs may be useful on unknown networks like public wifi, I can't see any security advantages of using one at home. Nearly all websites are HTTPS now anyway so the data is already encrypted from your browser to the website so VPNs do nothing useful in that scenario.

Here's why:

No VPN:

1. Data from your device is passed to the router to send to the internet
2. The router sends your data to the website server over the internet
3. The website receives the data (and unencrypts it if HTTPS)

VPN on the device

1. Data from your device is encrpyted by the VPN software and passed to the router to send to the VPN provider
2. VPN host server unencrypts the data and sends it over the internet to the website
3. The website receives the data (and unencrypts it if HTTPS)

Can you see how your data is still going over the internet in exactly the same way. The only difference is that is takes a diversion via the VPN provider before coming back out to the internet in exactly the same way as it did without VPN.

murphydog999

Thanks. Main reason, I work from home and keep client data online through a U.S. system I use. I would just like a router as extra cover. There's literally the TV, laptop, ipad to cover.

Tiexen

murphydog999 said:

I have Surfshark as my VPN supplier, but I want to put/have VPN on my router. The Plusnet 2 hub says it supports VPN but apparently it doesn’t! I don’t want anything fancy, nogaming, max 5 units going through it, just for security, can anyone suggest some good basic - easy to set-up - options under £100 please.
T.I.A.

This might help:-

https://surfshark.com/blog/setup-vpn-router

murphydog999

Tiexen said:

murphydog999 said:

I have Surfshark as my VPN supplier, but I want to put/have VPN on my router. The Plusnet 2 hub says it supports VPN but apparently it doesn’t! I don’t want anything fancy, nogaming, max 5 units going through it, just for security, can anyone suggest some good basic - easy to set-up - options under £100 please.
T.I.A.

This might help:-

https://surfshark.com/blog/setup-vpn-router

Thanks, I've seen that but it's always useful getting others opinions.

[Deleted User]

murphydog999 said:

Thanks. Main reason, I work from home and keep client data online through a U.S. system I use. I would just like a router as extra cover. There's literally the TV, laptop, ipad to cover.

Sorry but I don't think you understand what VPN's do. You won't be getting any "extra cover" whatsoever.

I'll try again.... I'll assume your USco uses HTTPS and the data is already encrypted.

NO VPN
Your browser encrypts the data it is sending to USco 
Your data goes across the internet 
USco receives the data and decrypts it
100% encrypted throughout

VPN
Your browser encrypts the data it is sending to USco 
Your VPN software or router encrypts it again - zero benefits
Your VPN provider decrypts the data 
Your data goes across the internet
USco receives the data and decrypts it
100% encrypted throughout except it goes via VPN provider in addition to the NO VPN scenario - zero benefit to "security" - only thing it does is obscure your IP address and uses a trash one that thousands of other VPN users share which will have a low reputation and sometimes get blocked.

PHK

[Deleted User] said:

murphydog999 said:

Thanks. Main reason, I work from home and keep client data online through a U.S. system I use. I would just like a router as extra cover. There's literally the TV, laptop, ipad to cover.

Sorry but I don't think you understand what VPN's do. You won't be getting any "extra cover" whatsoever.

I'll try again.... I'll assume your USco uses HTTPS and the data is already encrypted.

NO VPN
Your browser encrypts the data it is sending to USco 
Your data goes across the internet 
USco receives the data and decrypts it
100% encrypted throughout

VPN
Your browser encrypts the data it is sending to USco 
Your VPN software or router encrypts it again - zero benefits
Your VPN provider decrypts the data 
Your data goes across the internet
USco receives the data and decrypts it
100% encrypted throughout except it goes via VPN provider in addition to the NO VPN scenario - zero benefit to "security" - only thing it does is obscure your IP address and uses a trash one that thousands of other VPN users share which will have a low reputation and sometimes get blocked.

I think that misses one thing and is also a little bit of an out of date synopsis. You've missed that over https  the domain name (and port number) is sent in the clear which would means it could be sniffed. You might not want someone knowing that you'd accessed a particular site. A VPN would prevent this.

Some examples of being slightly out of date.

It's not just about encrypting Web traffic but how it does it.
A VPN provider can have direct connection into certain networks eg AWS
Conversely, a VPN can relay the data making it very difficult to trace it back to you. (In a similar way to how TOR works)

So I think there is some value in a VPN especially as the OP is using client data.

murphydog999

Thanks again for the explanation, but I would still like to know if anyone has the answer to the question, thx

Neil_Jones

If you want VPN on your router and the Hub 2 doesn't support it then the easiest solution is to buy another router that does.

Whether you'd get this for under £100 I couldn't say.

QrizB

Neil_Jones said:

If you want VPN on your router and the Hub 2 doesn't support it then the easiest solution is to buy another router that does.

Whether you'd get this for under £100 I couldn't say.

Lightly used (so a generation or two out-of-date but still supported) Draytek routers support VPNs.

I've used them in the past and would choose one again.

You can pick them up for under £100 on the usual auction sites.