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VPN advice

parking_question_chap
parking_question_chap Posts: 2,694 Forumite
Eighth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
in Techie Stuff
Anybody know if free VPNs are any good? If so please can you suggest me one. Need to be able to switch it on and off really easily.
«13

Comments

  • itstherightthingtodo
    itstherightthingtodo Posts: 8 Forumite
    As far as I know:

    If you trust routing your traffic through another persons machine without any guaranteed privacy and security precautions as an ideal scenario, then free VPNs might be perfect for you.

    However, I wouldn't want to enter my passwords or expose my session cookies to anybody that way myself personally.

    It depends on what you're looking for however, but you'll be basically be turning on and off your own privacy with a free VPN.

    You might want to investigate techniques such as "MITM (Man in the middle) attacks" and "Cookie hijacking", etc, as they're still real dangers. It depends on what the VPN provider decides to do to you.

    I would keep far away from anything FREE, it's risky business enough with a commercial VPN.
    This dude makes websites.. Founder of MINDYOURWATER. com
  • Frozen_up_north
    Frozen_up_north Posts: 3,104 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    In a word no. It costs a lot of money to host servers, typically in several countries, and that hosting has to be paid for.

    I use CyberGhost, it’s about half the price of Nord, I don’t know if paying more gives higher speeds... CyberGhost drops download speed by around 10% compared to a direct download. As I have typically 50 Mb/s, a drop to 40 odd Mb/s is not an issue.
  • baza52
    baza52 Posts: 3,029 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    If its just for browsing then Opera has a built in VPN you can easily enable or disable.
    If you want to use one for streaming i doubt any free ones would be fast enough.
  • Uxb1
    Uxb1 Posts: 732 Forumite
    500 Posts Third Anniversary Name Dropper
    VPN's are suddenly going to be a lot more popular once HMG's !!!!!! age ID block comes into force on the 1st April.
    One suspect MI5 will be crying into the teacups at the though of virtually everyone now using offshore VPN's which they cannot trace... well provided you use a VPN in a non-UK friendly country
  • JJ_Egan
    JJ_Egan Posts: 20,281 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Anser really depends upon why you need a VPN at all paid or not .
  • Frozen_up_north
    Frozen_up_north Posts: 3,104 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Uxb1 wrote: »
    One suspect MI5 will be crying into the teacups at the though of virtually everyone now using offshore VPN's which they cannot trace... well provided you use a VPN in a non-UK friendly country

    And one that isn’t setup by the Government... do you really know who is behind the VPN you are using?

    I find CyberGhost useful to pretend I’m in the UK when overseas, as well as an intense dislike for my ISP recording every web site I visit. If you look at which organisations can ask your ISP for your web browsing details, text messages and numbers dialled, you will be shocked at how little privacy you have.
  • onomatopoeia99
    onomatopoeia99 Posts: 7,218 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Frozen_up_north wrote: »
    as well as an intense dislike for my ISP recording every web site I visit.
    You could use an ISP that doesn't record that information, as I do.
    Proud member of the wokerati, though I don't eat tofu.Home is where my books are.Solar PV 5.2kWp system, SE facing, >1% shading, installed March 2019.Mortgage free July 2023
  • baza52
    baza52 Posts: 3,029 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    onomatopoeia99 wrote: »
    You could use an ISP that doesn't record that information, as I do.
    which one?
  • techquest
    techquest Posts: 294 Forumite
    As baza52 suggests, download Opera, https://www.opera.com

    Go into advanced settings and enable their VPN. That way you can at least try one out for free. But as has been said if you want one for more that browsing then you will have to pay.
  • onomatopoeia99
    onomatopoeia99 Posts: 7,218 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    baza52 wrote: »
    which one?
    A&A. They are very anti government monitoring.
    Proud member of the wokerati, though I don't eat tofu.Home is where my books are.Solar PV 5.2kWp system, SE facing, >1% shading, installed March 2019.Mortgage free July 2023
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