It seems to be all the rage these days. Why are there so many sponsors for it then several years ago.
VPNs are useful for tricking region-locked services into thinking you’re in a different country than you are, although it’s like playing whack-a-mole sometimes because those services proactively try to block VPN connections. They are also useful for protecting your privacy from your ISP or if you are on a public network. Outside of those contexts, they are actually not very useful, and most people grossly overestimate their utility when it comes to protecting your privacy. Tracking networks like Facebook and Google operate are not affected by you using a VPN because they do not care what your IP address is.
VPNs let you connect as an IP other than yourself. The two primary reasons for this:
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to get around an IP block. For example, using a VPN in Germany because your country is blocked from going to Pornhub
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to be anonymous on the internet. People seeing your IP will see the IP of the VPN in Germany, and not where your actual location is, in case it’s illegal for you to be on Pornhub
Its not so important, VPN providers just make lots of advertising.
A VPN can hide your IP and therefore general location from websites.
You can use that to watch netflix from another country or to make tracking a little harder.
If you dont need this, there is little reason to use a VPN.
They’ve been scared into using VPNs by aggressive marketing by the likes of Nord VPN for instance.
For most of what you do on the internet, there is no good reason to use a VPN. All it does is move who can see what you do on the net (to a small degree even) from your ISP to the VPN, which may be in a totally different jurisdiction, and maybe allow you to access some otherwise region restricted content.
It might not be that important, I’ve never been notified… when… maybe there’s been rampant downloadings going on. I like to do it for the peace of mind of not being *as* trackable by gov. In case I ever want to get hectic. Like, you might trust the gov of today with your data, but the gov of tomorrow?
VPN’s make it much much harder (sometimes impossible) for anyone to hack your device while connected to a Wi-Fi network. It also ensures no one can use your IP address to identify your location
Bypassing geoblocking
If you don’t want your ISP knowing what sites/files you’ve been visiting/downloading, a VPN is your solution. All the VPN does is act as a middleman between you and that content, so from your iSP’s perspective, all you’ve been doing is communicating solely with the IP address of the VPN.
Same goes for the sites you visit. All they know is that the VPN requested information from them, not where that information went afterwards. So, if that VPN is located in say, Turkey, where prices for stuff like YouTube premium are significantly lower, you can get a great deal by pretending to be there.
It originated as a way to work remotely and still be connected to the other computers in the office where you work.
Many, many companies still use VPNs for that purpose. In fact it’s safe to say that the majority of VPN use is by remote employees accessing their corporate networks.
In that respect, it’s a lot easier to secure one big in/out connection than a bunch of little ones. So it makes having remote employees have secure access to a company network possible.
The fraction of people who use it for other reasons are mostly to make it look like they are connecting from a location that is different from where they are, or they don’t want the admins of their network to see what they are doing.
For example I always use a VPN when connecting to public WiFi services (like coffee shops or at the airport etc) because I don’t always trust that those networks are secure. I don’t think the local coffee shop or even the regional airport is being sneaky…I just don’t trust that they have done a good job of securing their network against hackers and so those WiFI access points might be compromised.
Also the VPN is built into my phone and is provided by a company I trust ( at least in terms of security) Google.
Some governments want to track what people do online. A VPN is a way to prevent that eavesdropping, because a) the traffic is / can be encrypted at least twice and b) all the watcher can see is IP traffic to the VPN IP.
Some governments want to block certain services in their country and for the same reasons why they can’t understand your IP traffic, they can’t block those services when used thru a VPN.
I wouldn’t trust the VPNs anymore than my ISP. I had a VPN once. When I went to unsubscribe I had to jump through hoops including emails back and forth of them trying to make it that much more difficult to leave.
You must be a hacker
Yeah, that’s not how that works.
No, he’s right. There’s loads of misinformation about VPNs on reddit. They do not protect you nearly as much as you think. If anything an actual hacker would probably encourage VPN use because it gives people a false sense of security.