Solved Should I use a VPN?

I have just lately seen a lot of videos and web searches on getting a VPN.
I would very interested and appreciative if other forum members have any views on this subject. If the outcome is that a VPN is good to have then which VPN's are good value for money and trustworthy.

Why? If the website you are going to is https: it is already encrypted. Unless you need to hide your location for some reason.

NavyLCDR said:

Why? If the website you are going to is https: it is already encrypted. Unless you need to hide your location for some reason.

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Ok Navy I was just curious because you see so many videos that talk about getting onto a VPN so I shall just leave it alone. Again thanks for the heads up mate

Unless you are stealing (downloading) copyrighted content, or using public wifi I do not see the need for a VPN personally.

Porthos said:

Unless you are stealing (downloading) copyrighted content, or using public wifi I do not see the need for a VPN personally.

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Yes Porthos I see what you mean it is just the sheer number of references to VPN's that pepper a lot of YouTube videos that got me wondering.

ICIT2LOL said:

Yes Porthos I see what you mean it is just the sheer number of references to VPN's that pepper a lot of YouTube videos that got me wondering.

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Every security or browser company is pushing a VPN to add to their income. They all push it for "added" security. The marketing on VPN's is heavy.

They are just trying to transfer money from your pocket to theirs.

Tom Scott has a short but very informative video about how VPNs are advertised, doesn't mean they don't have thier uses, just they are not the Supermen of the internet they are made out to be.

ICIT2LOL said:

I have just lately seen a lot of videos and web searches on getting a VPN.
I would very interested and appreciative if other forum members have any views on this subject. If the outcome is that a VPN is good to have then which VPN's are good value for money and trustworthy.

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All it does is add an extra layer of crap between you and the internet, unless you are trying to hide something or get around a geoblock then it's pointless and all you are doing is degrading your internet experience.

NavyLCDR said:

They are just trying to transfer money from your pocket to theirs.

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Yes mate I am of that mind set now myself and thanks to you all for your input - really appreciated

ICIT2LOL said:

I have just lately seen a lot of videos and web searches on getting a VPN.
I would very interested and appreciative if other forum members have any views on this subject. If the outcome is that a VPN is good to have then which VPN's are good value for money and trustworthy.

Click to expand...

I think a lot of it isn't always Piracy .

Getting over or around Geoblocking is a big issue-- Some pay for services such as SKY SPORTS, NETFLIX, AMAZON PRIME etc -- so even with a valid subscription some programs aren't available in your jurisdiction.

I know for example on one street which is the border between the Rep. of Ireland and N.Ireland (UK) the UK subscribers can't get 15.00 Saturdays Live Football ( Soccer for US people) premier league but those 100 metres down the road in R.O.I get it without problem (in spite of the R.O.I subscription being less !!!!! -- although that's probably due to FOREX and EUR->GBP conversion rates.)

Its time this whole geoblocking nonsense was sorted out -- if you pay the subscription - you should be entitled to the whole of the available content on that platform. Surely people know by now that the more you restrict stuff that's available elsewhere at the same price YOU are paying to the SAME PROVIDER the more it DOES encourage piracy.

I had reason just recently on a visit to London to use my VPN. I like the 1000's of free Internet radio stations - and an excellent app on a mobile phone is RadioGarden -- done by a load of professors in a University in the Netherlands - so hardly a hotbed of piracy. Select your radio station and "blu tooth " and stream to desired speakers / other device or even listen via headphones from phone.

Without a VPN (I use Nordvpn - cheap and works well with servers all over the place) I got message "Non UK stations not available due to .." and some explanation of a ruling in a Turkish Court (Turkey is hardly a bastion of democracy and liberty to champion "rights issues" surely!! ). Same with Tunein and a load of other apps although not because of Turkish courts in these cases. Using the web site for these stations is nothing like as convenient -- With the dedicated apps you can just stream from the background and continue working.

I was in Paris last week -- no problems using the app there without the need of a VPN.

I could access BBC Radio -- Free to air and the BBC don't restrict most of their radio to overseas listeners -- some live sports commentary is restricted but the classical music station BBC R3, and the talk station BBC R4 is freely available world wide too without any problems so it seems a UK specific issue. I know in the USA some baseball and American Football matches are region blocked - or used to be -- maybe theyve given up on that nonsense too -- Just don't know.

Cheers
jimbo

Thanks jimbo I guess there might be a place for a VPN for folks for example like yourself who travel a lot but as for me I am just your average Joe Blow user and don't really need one aftr seeing the other comments.

with a VPN you might also find purchasing airline tickets or cruise tickets to be cheaper in some countries than in others

bfunke said:

with a VPN you might also find purchasing airline tickets or cruise tickets to be cheaper in some countries than in others

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Good point mate but my travel days are well and truly over.

I am not a fan of the commercial VPN. Most are owned by the same group of 5 or 6 companies and marketed under different Brand names and some groups share the same equipment and connections and mix all the traffic to cut costs. Most seem to use M247 Ltd in the UK. Many of the review websites and youtube review channels are owned and operated by VPN companies to promote sales. They also offer generous affiliate marketing via discount codes and can pay up to 40% back, this is why so many youtube people start recommending them. Many have failing channels and want to make money. One channel just reviews them in an effort to get people to sign up so he hits his "sales target" as that's what some VPN companies impose now. Some like WeVPN appear to have been acting like a honeypot, then vanished. (I will add some notes at the end about WeVPN as they never responded to any of my questions by email when I reported security issues).

Most people do not have the first clue as to why they need a VPN, they just hear adverts telling them they need one and fall for what is a scam. They think it somehow protects them "from hackers" and think it keeps their financial info secure. Others just use them to try and hide, but that often backfires - even with all that nonsense about Military Grade Encryption. A meaningless expression. Some claim it stops their ISP seeing what they do or slowing them down at peak times. That's false too, they throttle VPN traffic too.

Things to remember about a VPN if you live in the UK - your personal information, payment info and all data might be stored outside the UK in some law-less country which puts you at considerable risk. You don't know who stores the data or where it goes. By Law, all data flowing in and out of equipment in the UK is subject to inspection and storage by GCHQ. At least your ISP is controlled by Data Protection Laws. We need to see some VPN company accounts to see just how much they are making and who pays them.

Most VPNs are glorified Proxy Servers rented in Datacentres that have to log all data in and out by Law, this includes performing Deep Packet Inspection and Deep Packet Injection to steer traffic to companies paying the most for redirects. It doesn't matter if they say a server only runs with RAM. If you pay by PayPal or credit card, your profile has effectively been verified to a real person and address and information added can be sold to Data Brokers. It's more valuable. Just think about why a VPN would insist on your precise GPS Location, they all lie stating it is to connect you to the best server and no one questions that. That is not how a VPN works - you connect to their IP, they put you out on the Server YOU select or they select according to load.
The Datacentre also logs Data in and out, even if the VPN claims they do not log anything. ALL Datacentres, hosting companies and VPNs cooperate with Law Enforcement and a lot of people have been caught committing offences. It doesn't matter if you use a VPN in Switzerland or British Virgin Islands. A VPN logs your details and data and equipment ID, also IPs to make sure you don't re-sell subscriptions to hundreds of people.

If you download Apps from PlayStore, a unique user ID is added to identify you around the Internet. Apps all spy on users and collect a lot of information, including unique IDs. Google got in to an argument with PIA a few years ago over their App as it didn't do what Google agreed with, so PIA had to put the full version on their site for download and leave a cut down version on PlayStore. The only thing I could see it doing was using a filter that obstructed many Google products and their tracking. The option in the full App was called MACE. The VPN filtered all your traffic after inspecting it all ! Remember they claim not to be able to see user data.

The IP number is just one way to identify people on sites, so a VPN is not that much use for hiding behind. Many will log in to sites using their own details anyway. People do that with Tor, which is also NOT secure.

If you want to stay safe when you are out or on holiday - you are best using the VPN often built in to your home router. Run the OpenVPN App on your phone/PC and wherever you go, you will connect back home and use your own internet. That stops you being blocked on sites or getting Captchas every minute. You can also access hard drives you have or TV sites and banks without them blocking a VPN IP thinking there is some type of fraud.

I researched a lot of VPNs and Secure Email Companies (that all lie about E2E encryption, even though there is no E2E standard between ISPs so it all comes and goes in the clear, it just gets encrypted from App to server) over 10 years. With VPNs there were poor PC Apps, Apps that had no killswitch, DNS requests going outside the VPN, difficulty using PayPal on one (Nord) as they were banned because of complaints and also difficulty trying to leave a few (Surfshark and Nord) without a real fight. Some would give excellent performance for a week, then go back to normal and avoided allowing a cancellation or refund. Some had hoops to jump through. Most Apps were collecting a lot of data from phones, contacts, emails, phone numbers, IMEI, IMSI, GPS Location, WiFi and Bluetooth names nearby etc. Apps on PCs were also collecting info.

WeVPN always seemed odd to me, it was meant to be set up by 6 people that left PIA before the (company known for spyware) Kape Technology bought PIA out. WeVPN had a great site with really good FAQs and technical articles and reasonable price. Their App for Windows was always stopped, it would NEVER run automatically as it wasn't trusted by Microsoft. It had to be run in Administrator mode every time a PC was started. That's a really bad sign. Speed wasn't that great, but they were using a large web cache and if I was to use ebay, it would show post codes and some search details of previous users! On other sites I got partial data. I would often see on a search "postage to ABC 123" and the searched items.
I never got around to checking the App, but know it was up to something strange. They run a reporting service to unlock blocked IPs for TV & film sites. I found that I was going through WeVPN and my exit IP was a residential IP, possibly another customer as I doubt they would pay for extra IPs. This started happening more on different sites when I used "WhatsMyIP" it was not the VPN IP, so I seemed to be going through someone elses PC. Was it a case of using the bandwidth of idle users - sending data back through customer Apps? WeVPN sort of died off in March/April 2023, nothing was being answered and people started complaining. I connected through "UK Manchester" and found I was presenting the IP number belonging to Police in Manchester to the sites I was using. Maybe the servers had all been compromised at that point. There is no way that could be by accident either.

If you are going to use a VPN, you are handing ALL your personal data and control of your devices to unknown companies, are not protected by any Laws and you are paying them to take all this from you! Why would you do that?

bfunke said:

with a VPN you might also find purchasing airline tickets or cruise tickets to be cheaper in some countries than in others

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People who have bought tickets like this e.g. a return flight have got caught out.

If you are in country A but buy a return from country B, when you take outbound flight from A to B, the system sometimes considers that outbound flight was a return flight as you are resident in country A and the return flight from B to A gets cancelled.

If you try and complain, you are screwed as this is fundamentally against terms and conditions.

I am not saying this always happens but I have seen it happen a few times to people who worked in Europe (pre Brexit) and used to try this to reduce cost e.g. higher VAT in EU generally.

The only use for VPNs for me is to get static IPs via VPN to host servers but adding VPN will always slow down the actual speed compared to non-VPN.

I also tried Cloudfare's Warp a few days ago which is supposed to make the internet faster but compare the results of without WARP with with WARP.

I have an IPTV Account, and people tell me I should use a VPN, but I don't.

bfunke said:

with a VPN you might also find purchasing airline tickets or cruise tickets to be cheaper in some countries than in others

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Works for rail tickets too -- especially if using German railway site. Especially also if you can pay in the local currency (FOREX depending though).

Cheers
jimbo

Well I am impressed by Evasion and I am now more ware of using a VPN I can see no advantage to me for one.