VPN? Do I really need one?

YES. We all need vpn's now. Unless you don't mind EVERYONE looking at what you do. YES. The gooberment made that legal now. It's not just hackers we have to worry about anymore. It's EVERYONE. Right down to the carrier or provider we use.

We no longer have internet privacy. That's why the talk of vpn's have started.

I can no longer look at porn now. Without my privacy being looked at and sold to whomever.

Look at facebook. And whatever other sights that promote advertising. Ever wondered why you're seeing so called advertisements of things that you've been looking at. Look at a mega's websight. And you get crap on your facebook and my local news. For that very same mega.

 

You don't need one if you just get the current truck paper out of the machine.

 

One point to remember, like a lot of things, not all VPNs are created equal.

If you go with one, make sure you research and get the privacy you're paying for.

 

I recently went with Norton VPN on my daily use Mac that I regularly connect to PFJs premium wifi. I got tired of being blocked to checking my hotmail email (at any location) and my personal/business web site (from some locations). For me to workaround, I'd have to hotspot through my phone. Now, I browse anywhere I want and nothing is blocked that I want to see.

It runs seamlessly with no action required and doesn't appear to slow things down to any perceptible degree. It also offers several other benefits besides protecting and hiding your identity and browse activity. For $4/month it seems like a worthwhile investment.

 

I have no idea what that is.
So I'm thinking no. You don't need it.

 

The easiest VPN for new people to use is PIA VPN Register for Anonymous VPN Services | PIA Services

Paranoid people like me I use NORDvpm NordVPN: Best VPN Service Provider | #1 Editors' Choice

I've been using vpns for more than 10 years or before they were cool..

 

Virtual Private Network.

A form of a key is built between two computers, one of which is facing the internet at large and the other in your hands.

Without VPN your computer faces the internet and has the ability to be influenced by any manner of activity either hostile or friendly.

In order for a hostile to penetrate the VPN, they need a small key to that computer, find the VPN session and the key in your machine which mathematically is not very good odds.

There is a higher form of securement called tunneling but not very many people know how to do that. I certainly don't.

Nord at the moment is pretty good. You wont get much better for a paid service for that. OTOH, you can have it established at your home computer if it is on 24/7 and hook to it when you need to. It's disgustingly easy to retrieve homework you left at home this way at school. Just connect to it.

As far as finances, very little goes out or back to the computer anywhere. I do it old school. I show up at the bank and get a printout. There is a second account at a different bank with a charge card attached to that that has less than a dollar in it when it's not being used specifically for buying either in person or online. With explicit instructions that zero is zero. No ACH here. (500 dollar line of credit for overdraft etc) So if anyone did get that card, tried to charge something they get burned and I get a new account and card.

 

These are the encryption settings I'm using for my VPN connection if anybody can hack through that, Little Debbie has a snack for them.
A lot of VPN services in the US and Britain and some of the so-called pack countries are compromised with back doors and logging
Fisa Court that's the secret Nazi court that the u.s. government uses along with the gag order to impose its will on certain companies in the name of national security.
I use a VPN out of South America which hates the US government. I think the best VPN is out of Switzerland they have the best privacy protection laws in the world but they're vpns pretty expensive. Protonvpn
Data encryption: AES-256

Data authentication: SHA256

Handshake: RSA-4096

 

Yes, they are needed more then ever now, and sadly Truckersreport does not allow them as I'm seeing proton being blocked. With all the job black male going on in different industry's, people should have the right to report on things and protect their privacy. We are in a world today where your data is collected everywhere and then sold to consumer reporting agency's such as Nexus Lexus. (stores say they don't sell it, but can you prove that?) Then that data is submitted to underwriters at insurance companies and used against you. More and more commercial websites and their security software block VPNs because corporate America does not respect your privacy. I went in to buy something at Home Depot the other day and my face is on a screen with a box around it saying it's recording. So now I have to agree to have my face in some database just to buy something? No one seems to care that their entire lives are being exposed and possibly later on used against you in court or in some other way. Look at the breaches on sites like facebook, it's no secret that they sell your data to anyone and everyone. I'm glad I'm half way though my life. I have no intentions of bringing children up in this world.

YES, VPNs all the way. But they are worthless if no one stands up to companies that keep blocking them.

As far as how they work, the others did a good job explaining that. But also be aware that for more anonymity, you have to pick a VPN company headquartered in a NO log jurisdiction. If you go with a VPN located in the US for example, then your logs can be court subpoenaed because company's are required by some governments like the US to keep logs. This is an issue if you are a whistle blower. Proton seemed good because they are headquartered in switzerland which has no retention laws requiring them to keep logs and because they have a port forwarding service built into the VPN tunnel itself. That takes the hassle out of figuring out how to forward a port with some 3rd party service if you need that. Also, they use shared IP address which tend to add more privacy then dedicated address, but are sometimes blocked more often. Switzerland is also not a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance which is a plus as some have said, but that is not as important as their retention laws are.

 

As someone who has helped operate some websites, I can tell you that the primary reason TTR and other sites block IPs is that they subscribe to a third-party company that lists IPs used by bad actors who troll. I use a VPN and TTR blocks about half of the IPs used by the VPN. For the record, I doubt that the management of TTR gives a rat's rip if you use a VPN or not. The better listing companies, after a set period, will remove the IP from their block list.

Also, I HIGHLY recommend NEVER doing banking online, EVEN at home on your WIFI, and that connection not be encrypted. About 10 years ago, I was inside the Newport News, Virginia Main Library. I was using their WIFI when the system went down. I later learned that a man was arrested after he got caught hacking inside the library. I use Verizon 5G home internet. I NEVER go into my banking apps with my WIFI on. My gateway's IP address is 192.168.1.1. I click on it and turn off my WIFI. It is only when I need it that I have it on.

Because TTR management does not want businesses advertised, I won't say any names. The VPN I use only costs a few bucks a month, and I pay for 2 years. The VPN has an iOS app that works great.

I think generally that using cellular data is safe. I choose not to use it when doing banking online. I figure, why risk it?