VPN

Castled

Hi, could anyone explain what VPN is in simple terms please,  does it provide you with an email address? Is it free?   Any recommendations?       Thank you  

moneysaver1978

Think of VPN has a secure "tunnel" between your computer and the other computer (or server) - and no one else can see in. In practical terms:

• Transmitting and working with sensitive data
• Logging in to certain services at work (e.g. you need to access your computer in office)
• Reading region-specific content like BBC
• Watching subscription paid streaming (so if you are on holiday and you want to watch your favourite Netflix) - NOTE: I am never sure of the legality of this and anyway I am busy holidaying!

VPN has nothing to do with email addresses. There are several VPN offering, some are subscription-based, some with one-off payment, and some are free. Some come with anti-virus software.

Why do you think you need VPN?

RumRat

Several browsers now include a VPN for free....Opera, Brave, and I believe Firefox is getting or has got one. 
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) adds security and anonymity to users when they connect to web-based services and sites. A VPN hides the user’s actual public IP Address and “tunnels” traffic between the user’s device and the remote server.

Castled

moneysaver1978 said:

Think of VPN has a secure "tunnel" between your computer and the other computer (or server) - and no one else can see in. In practical terms:

• Transmitting and working with sensitive data
• Logging in to certain services at work (e.g. you need to access your computer in office)
• Reading region-specific content like BBC
• Watching subscription paid streaming (so if you are on holiday and you want to watch your favourite Netflix) - NOTE: I am never sure of the legality of this and anyway I am busy holidaying!

VPN has nothing to do with email addresses. There are several VPN offering, some are subscription-based, some with one-off payment, and some are free. Some come with anti-virus software.

Why do you think you need VPN?

I had been led to believe it gave you an email account that was "extra safe" 

400ixl

Castled said:

moneysaver1978 said:

Think of VPN has a secure "tunnel" between your computer and the other computer (or server) - and no one else can see in. In practical terms:

• Transmitting and working with sensitive data
• Logging in to certain services at work (e.g. you need to access your computer in office)
• Reading region-specific content like BBC
• Watching subscription paid streaming (so if you are on holiday and you want to watch your favourite Netflix) - NOTE: I am never sure of the legality of this and anyway I am busy holidaying!

VPN has nothing to do with email addresses. There are several VPN offering, some are subscription-based, some with one-off payment, and some are free. Some come with anti-virus software.

Why do you think you need VPN?

I had been led to believe it gave you an email account that was "extra safe" 

No, although some providers do also provide e-mail services which have additional layers of security.

Some of the other posts are also a little misleading. You can have private VPN's which tunnel your connection between two specific points such as business VPN's where one end of the tunnel is your computer and the other end is within their network.

Public VPN's tunnel your traffic between your computer and a point on the internet (from the VPN provider and usually chosen by country). It does not create a tunnel all the way to the server on the internet you are connecting to, from the VPN's server to the website server is not through a VPN tunnel. It essentially stops your ISP or public wifi being able to see what you are doing and also allows you to get around geo-location restrictions.

The part which does the end to end encryption of your traffic (in the case of web browser traffic (some email)) is the SSL protocol which you will see as the HTTPS part of the website address and the padlock in the browser.

Anyway, what is it that you are trying to achieve / hide?

400ixl

Protonmail is worth looking at if you want an email that does end 2 end encryption, but even then it is not totally secure, especially if only one party is using it.

Bonhomie

RumRat said:

Several browsers now include a VPN for free....Opera, Brave, and I believe Firefox is getting or has got one. 
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) adds security and anonymity to users when they connect to web-based services and sites. A VPN hides the user’s actual public IP Address and “tunnels” traffic between the user’s device and the remote server.

Neither Brave nor Firefox offer a VPN for free. Though of course you can append extensions for free VPN usage.

RumRat

Bonhomie said:

RumRat said:

Several browsers now include a VPN for free....Opera, Brave, and I believe Firefox is getting or has got one. 
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) adds security and anonymity to users when they connect to web-based services and sites. A VPN hides the user’s actual public IP Address and “tunnels” traffic between the user’s device and the remote server.

Neither Brave nor Firefox offer a VPN for free. Though of course you can append extensions for free VPN usage.

True, but there is a free trial on Brave so the OP could see what's what.. As you say plenty of free extensions available. 

deskhelp

OpenVPN is one good solution to try.. regarding email you will require email hosting like gsuite, Office365 or some web hosting service with email hosting.

A._Badger

The Epic browser has a free VPN option. If you want secure email with a VPN, Proton is probably the best bet. 

PixelPound

400ixl said:

Protonmail is worth looking at if you want an email that does end 2 end encryption, but even then it is not totally secure, especially if only one party is using it.

True, even the protonmail website states that it is important to use the encryption for everything as with enough computer power anything can be decrypted, but after decrypting the 100th email about what you watched on TV recently (can't remember the exact example used) they'd likely stop wasting their time decrypting).

Castled said:

moneysaver1978 said:

Think of VPN has a secure "tunnel" between your computer and the other computer (or server) - and no one else can see in. In practical terms:

• Transmitting and working with sensitive data
• Logging in to certain services at work (e.g. you need to access your computer in office)
• Reading region-specific content like BBC
• Watching subscription paid streaming (so if you are on holiday and you want to watch your favourite Netflix) - NOTE: I am never sure of the legality of this and anyway I am busy holidaying!

VPN has nothing to do with email addresses. There are several VPN offering, some are subscription-based, some with one-off payment, and some are free. Some come with anti-virus software.

Why do you think you need VPN?

I had been led to believe it gave you an email account that was "extra safe" 

What do you mean by "extra safe"? If you mean spam, well then an email address is only as safe as who you give it to. So using it to register on any website, sign up for or buy anything e.g. phone contract, takeaway, etc, risks the chance it could be sold on or used for marketing, spam, etc.
If you mean the content of your email, then look into end to end encryption, which you can either get separately and use in any email or get an email address that has it built in (like protonmail).

I have a duck.com browser extension where you can generate email forwarders that you can later deactivate if needs be - so you don't give out your real email address, it removes trackers from emails, and if you find one gets used for spams it's easy to disable that one without affecting your actual email address.