Beware these VPNs

[jon-nyc]

I use tunnelbear every 4 years to watch the World Cup without a cable subscription

I’d pay to watch the World Cup, but nobody will let me, so I do this.

[Copper]

Norton Secure VPN on my iPhone

I don't notice it much

[George K]

@jon-nyc said in Beware these VPNs:

I’d pay to watch the World Cup, but nobody will let me, so I do this.

What do you use to watch that really good German pr0n?

[Doctor Phibes]

What do you mean watch it? He stars in it!

[Klaus]

...together with me! He does an excellent job at playing the cuckold with the tiny wiener.

[Mik]

I use PIA, which is aptly named. Really slows things down.

[jon-nyc]

@Klaus said in Beware these VPNs:

...together with me! He does an excellent job at playing the cuckold with the tiny wiener.

It takes a great makeup artist but hey, I'm supposed to be a German so I have no choice.

[taiwan_girl]

I do occasionally. There are times when certain websites (Not the coffee room!) which are blocked that I would like to access.

[George K]

@Mik said in Beware these VPNs:

I use PIA, which is aptly named. Really slows things down.

I do too, but I've not noticed any real-time slowdowns. Running SpeedTest does show a hit, of course, but it's not serious enough to be an issue in routine use.

Unless, of course, you want that German pr0n, in which case speed is of the essence, as Jon will attest.

[George K]

My experience has been that anything over 25 is more than adequate for browsing, streaming etc. Probably anything more that 12.

Here's what I get right now with an ethernet connection to my router for Comcast:

Connecting to Washington DC via PIA, I get this. About half the speed, but more than adequate:

Let's go to Canada, eh?

A while ago, I saw an article, and I think I posted about it, how many people are paying for broadband they really don't need, or even use.

Does it really matter if you spend two minutes or eight minutes to download some JonPr0n? Probably not.

[George K]

I should add that, whenever we go out of town, I use a VPN to connect via the hotel's WiFi.

[Axtremus]

For personal use, I don't really see the need.

I do not see the need to "hide" which Internet sites I connect to. Using a commercial VPN service simply means that the VPN provider has a full record of which Internet sites I connect to.

For encryption, it's pretty much HTTPS (TLS) everywhere these days. I am comfortable enough with that to not bother with getting a VPN service.

The only caution I'd advise is this: be careful with public Wi-Fi hotspots. Most of the time you really do not know who operate these Wi-Fi hotspots and what data security and data privacy policies govern these hotspots, or if such policies exist at all. When you are not at home (where you operate the Wi-Fi network) and not at work (where your employer operates the Wi-Fi network), just use your mobile phone's cellular data to get onto the Internet, tether your laptop through your mobile phone if you need to get online with your laptop.

[George K]

@Axtremus good comments. My only concern is hitting the data cap through my cell provider. Currently I'm at 8 gigs, and I never come even close to that cap. But 10 days' worth of surfing when I'm out of town might bump up against that.

[Axtremus]

Re: cellular data cap ... short of doing an OS upgrade or MS Office upgrade, the only thing that takes a lot of bandwidth is video streaming. The typical music videos or meme videos on websites and social media platforms are usually fine. But streaming a full feature film or TV series episodes will put a big dent in the cellular data cap.

When I (used to) travel (in the pre-pandemic days), I switch to hotel Wi-Fi if I really want to stream a movie or stream TV episodes to avoid hitting my cellular data cap. Software upgrade can always wait until I get home. If I ever need to log into any service that requires better security (e.g., bank and credit card stuff), I do that only over cellular data.

Then there is email. If you use POP or IMAP, you need to know that you have property configured the security settings to encrypt not just your emails but also your login credentials. If you are not sure about that, then use POP or IMAP only over cellular data or with a VPN. If you’re using a web interface to access your email, you are generally OK if the web service uses HTTPS. Email access using mobile app (e.g., Apple Mail app, Gmail app) for well known providers (e.g., iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail) are also generally OK over hotel Wi-Fi.

[Larry]

@George-K said in Beware these VPNs:

@jon-nyc said in Beware these VPNs:

I’d pay to watch the World Cup, but nobody will let me, so I do this.

that really good German pr0n?

"Ooh ya, pull that plow, baby! Pull it! Pull it!"

[George K]

@Larry said in Beware these VPNs:

@George-K said in Beware these VPNs:

@jon-nyc said in Beware these VPNs:

I’d pay to watch the World Cup, but nobody will let me, so I do this.

that really good German pr0n?

"Ooh ya, pull that plow, baby! Pull it! Pull it!"

You forgot the umlauts, heathen.

[Larry]

[Mik]

@George-K said in Beware these VPNs:

I should add that, whenever we go out of town, I use a VPN to connect via the hotel's WiFi.

That is where I use it religiously. Have it my phone and ipad.

[jon-nyc]

Ax, do you trust the WiFi in, say, Hiltons? From what I can tell they have a contract with att to provide it everywhere.

Or Starbucks?

I regularly trust these and others but I don’t go to my bank or vanguard or whatever. I would only do that over the cell network

[George K]

@jon-nyc I would never do anything even remotely private over a public network. That's what VPS, or cellular data, are for.