Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Whats vpn?

 

Been disappointed past 2 weeks,not only will I be home about 5 days late but I haven't been running.Still need to get a pm done,and pu my insurance card.

 

Whatcha wanna know?

 

Everything? Worth having for my devices since I do all my stuff online? So not technology inclined!

 

Depends on how paranoid you are, really.

VPN encrypts your data. Runs it through a process that basically scrambles it on your end and unscrambles it at the other. Anybody trying to sniff your data in between will just get a bunch of useless bits they can't decode.

If you don't have a VPN, you probably don't want to be using the nearest free Pilot WiFi to log in to your bank, for example. But if you have a VPN, you can do it safely. First you run the VPN client on your phone/tablet/laptop, then it connects to the actual VPN itself. Everything you do after that gets scrambled before it leaves your phone/tablet/laptop, preventing casual packet sniffing from any ne'er-do-wells who might be lurking in the parking lot.

So that's its primary use and is why most people bother. Two secondary uses are also common:

--Ordinarily, when you visit a website from your phone, it shows your IP address. You can see that in Mack E-6's signature. If you use a VPN, the VPN's address will show up in Mack's signature, not yours. So you can surf more anonymously (if that's important to you).

-- Some places have region restrictions. There are videos on YouTube that you can't watch unless you're in the US. There are other videos on YouTube you can't watch unless you're NOT in the US. Many VPNs provide ways around this by letting you (basically) pretend to be somewhere else. If there's a video on YouTube that can only be watched by people in the UK, you can tell some VPNs to make it look like you're connecting from the UK, and you can watch the video.

Do you need a VPN? Dunno. Depends on what you do, Internet-wise, from your device. If you want to do a lot of sensitive stuff like online banking and so on, then it's not a bad idea. If, on the other hand, you just like to watch Netflix and look at funny cat pictures, you can probably skip it without too much worry.

 

I have that at home when I use the amazon fire stick and watch movies,ppv,etc for free.

 

Very Good Summation

Also, a VPN can be a "service" (free or paid) or it can simply route your bits through your home computer... again, depends on what your need is.

 

I haven't had a checkbook in 15years, recently thought about getting one again and they are nearly $40 after shipping. No thanks.

I only know of one person who was defrauded through their online account and that was because they fell for a phishing scam email and provided all their login info to the scammers.

 

Same here. You can usually go to your bank and request a register check when you need one. Some banks will give you one, some will give you a couple. Some banks will charge a couple bucks depending on how many they give you, some won't charge at all. I've had need of exactly five checks in the last decade and all were aquired this way.