VPN questions

And one very slight dis-advantage to a VPN using foreign computers is on occasion one of my banks or medical portal will block me as it looks like I am in a foreign country and they don't support that (their layer of security). But other than that I always use a VPN when going through a public network.

There are two types of VPN - Tunnel-only, where all traffic is directed through the tunnel, and Tunnel/open, where certain communications are managed through the VPN tunnel, but the device is open to access other resources on the LAN/Internet.

Our work VPN became Tunnel-Only not long back, so in my home office, my work laptop cannot be accessed, nor can it access any local resources (printers, local machine sharing, etc) or internet resource outside of the tunnel connection while connected to the VPN.
Previously, it was in the Tunnel/open, where the VPN connection provided access to my work's intranet, but I could also connect to other computers & printers on my LAN as well as access the 'net via my ISP.

If you are looking for a secure VPN, all communications must be routed through the VPN tunnel-only. Else, you probably have no idea what is connecting to what...

I think maybe your SIL is a story teller. A VPN is not magic and does not hack into other networks to receive free anything that would otherwise be fee based.

Typical VPN-ers are downloading torrents of 'free' music, movies and software. The exception, as mentioned, are those where their government likes to censor the net.

Its very easy to do, inexpensive (in some cases free), and adds a layer of security if you want/need that. Just read reviews and get a trustworthy one.

VPN is nothing more that two computers talking in secret code that only they know the key to. So the ISP is aware that data is flowing back and forth, but it doesn't have the secret key so it can't make heads or tales of it.

Knowing what a VPN is will help you understand what it can and cannot do.

A VPN is a Virtual Private Network. It "virtually" sets up a secure connection between your computer and another computer over the internet. The goal is to make it as secure as a private network, like when you are connected directly to another computer in your own office. That's all it does.

That remote computer (at the VPN host) then goes out to the internet, just like you would do by yourself if you were not on a VPN. So your link to the VPN server is secure, but from that point on it is no more secure than any other internet connection.

One advantage is that the VPN server can be in a different country, so it appears as though you are accessing the internet from that country. Many people outside the US use a VPN with servers in the US so they can access Netflix, or other things that might be restricted in their country.

With the switch to almost all websites now using https connections instead of non-encrypted http connections, a VPN is not really providing a huge security advantage for most people.

As you can see, many of the other things people think a VPN can do, or is doing for them, is nonsense.

valhalla360 wrote:
of course, that presumes you can trust the VPN provider.

Lol, yeah. Is SIL (which i thought was female) trying to steal data?

The data still goes thru the cell network. They may or may not know what passed thru but they know how much passed thru.

Biggest thing a VPN does is hide what is being done...of course, that presumes you can trust the VPN provider.

SLI is partly right...VPN does encrypt and bounce around different networks to make communication MUCH more secure. I use it when I'm on any open network like at airports, Starbucks, etc.

but...
A VPN does count toward your data cap. All data must flow through your ISP/mobile provider's servers before reaching the VPN server. Even though the data is encrypted it still uses bandwidth.