Data Security and the VPN
Between the news this week that Congress has voted to allow your ISP to sell your browser history to one and all and the need we all have to prevent the bad guys from intercepting our banking business...
Forum Discussion
louiskathy wrote:
Would IPVanish do the same thing? I use it to watch UK ITV (Britan's version of HULU, I guess). The way I understand it ... is that it hides my isp.
I am not familiar with IPVanish, so I couldn't say. There are both Proxies and VPNs, and it sounds like IPVanish might be a Proxie rather than a VPN. The former are like a VPN lite in that they hide your real up address but do not secure your traffic through your isp or the open wifi at Micky Dee's. Thus either a Proxy or a VPN could enable you to watch a U.K. TV show. But neither might do that as well. If the site you want to cruise restricts access to only a certain country, your Proxy or VPN would need a server in that country to do that.
A Proxy only changes your apparent origin as far as the destination site goes. A VPN, however, creates a secure tunnel for your traffic all the way from you to the VPN server from which your request pops up for final transit to the site. With regard to U.K. TV, if your VPN or Proxie lacks a U.K. Address, your traffic might appear to come from, say France and you'd still be locked out. Thus it's important to find out if your service has a U.K. Presence.
