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Forums - General Discussion - Do you use a VPN?

 

Do you use a VPN for your Internet use

Yes 30 42.86%
 
No 33 47.14%
 
What is a VPN? 7 10.00%
 
Total:70

I've been using a VPN for years and its made me feel very safe and its been extremely usefull for gaming!
Its easy to change my region from US to EU or Japan with a click on the application and its also made it so I could access some games earlier because they released at different times worldwide.

It also protects you against DDOS attacks, hackers and it makes downloading various types of content much safer since you are harder to track. 

Personally I wouldn't want to do the things I do on the internet unless I was hidden.
Maybe its because I work for a department where we track internet use online or maybe its just because I find the internet a much less safe place then you? Or maybe you didn't even know what a VPN is, well I would advice googling it.

Either way, vote away! 

 

Informative:

"A VPN accomplishes two things: first, it re-routes all your internet traffic through a server in a location of your choosing, which changes your IP address to one used by hundreds or thousands of other people (assuming your VPN uses shared IP addresses, which most do). This adds a significant layer of anonymity and makes it much more difficult for anyone to track you. Second, a VPN encrypts all your traffic before it leaves your computer. That means your ISP cannot monitor your activity, nor can anyone else. And because all your traffic heads to the VPN server first, ISPs can’t even tell where it’s going.

Using a quality VPN is key; don’t settle for a “free” service or VPNs that log your activity, cap your bandwidth and data, or don’t provide sufficient DNS leak protection. "




Twitter @CyberMalistix

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No since you're at the mercy of those hosting a VPN ...

I'd rather trust my privacy to the ISP than the likes of a random VPN ...



Yeah I use it. But I only turn it on for Netflix lol. It's kinda expensive aswell.



Didn't use to but I recently changed ISPs to Spectrum.  I don't trust those guys at all, so now I use PIA for my VPN.

PIA has a good rep and supposedly, they don't log which is key.

 

Edit:  Prior to the dedicated VPN, I used Opera's free VPN for webbrowsing on occasion.



fatslob-:O said:
No since you're at the mercy of those hosting a VPN ...

I'd rather trust my privacy to the ISP than the likes of a random VPN ...

there are Many VPN Hosts who have the agreement they don't log information if they ever violated that and accused a user of their VPN they would insantly lose all their subscribers. A VPN is much more secure then a ISP which is completely trackable by goverments, hackers and pretty much anyone.




Twitter @CyberMalistix

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malistix1985 said:

I've been using a VPN for years and its made me feel very safe and its been extremely usefull for gaming!
Its easy to change my region from US to EU or Japan with a click on the application and its also made it so I could access some games earlier because they released at different times worldwide.

It also protects you against DDOS attacks, hackers and it makes downloading various types of content much safer since you are harder to track. 

Personally I wouldn't want to do the things I do on the internet unless I was hidden.
Maybe its because I work for a department where we track internet use online or maybe its just because I find the internet a much less safe place then you? Or maybe you didn't even know what a VPN is, well I would advice googling it.

Either way, vote away! 

A few clarifications.

Masking your identity:
Your anonymoity is at the mercy of the VPN host as much as it is at the mercy of your ISP when you don't mask it. If someone is determined to track you, they have the ability to find you depending how much the VPN host values your anonymity. It certainly blocks individuals but it won't do too much against bigger corporations and the government. Again, really depends on the ethics of the VPN provider. If you don't do anything illegal and you have data protection laws in your country then your ISP is as strong as a protection as any VPN host.
Add to that, that your IP is just one part of the huge amount of information you leave on the internet. Trackers and cookies work in your browser, so VPN does nothing to protect your identity here.

Protection against attacks:
No one will DDoS you. No one will directly hack you. So it's protection against a non-existing threat. And if someone DDoS attacks the VPN provider you will still be affected because you have to use a diffrent one.

Add to that the drawback of increased latency and incompatibility with some applications makes this  an unnecessary hassle, especially for gaming.

But if it at least gives you a good feeling I guess it's worth it for you.



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vivster said:

A few clarifications.

Masking your identity:
Your anonymoity is at the mercy of the VPN host as much as it is at the mercy of your ISP when you don't mask it. If someone is determined to track you, they have the ability to find you depending how much the VPN host values your anonymity. It certainly blocks individuals but it won't do too much against bigger corporations and the government. Again, really depends on the ethics of the VPN provider. If you don't do anything illegal and you have data protection laws in your country then your ISP is as strong as a protection as any VPN host.
Add to that, that your IP is just one part of the huge amount of information you leave on the internet. Trackers and cookies work in your browser, so VPN does nothing to protect your identity here.

Protection against attacks:
No one will DDoS you. No one will directly hack you. So it's protection against a non-existing threat. And if someone DDoS attacks the VPN provider you will still be affected because you have to use a diffrent one.

Add to that the drawback of increased latency and incompatibility with some applications makes this  an unnecessary hassle, especially for gaming.

But if it at least gives you a good feeling I guess it's worth it for you.

Ofcource you are at the mercy of a VPN host and it has to do with their reputation if they do/don't share. For many people when downloading or being active on the internet however their data can be traced even with no data from their ISP. The most usefull thing a good VPN does is encrypt your data and share a IP adress over multiple users of the VPN making it only trackable when your VPN host does decide to share information, which would make them lose any credibility to all their users.

Your ISP cannot track the encrypted data once you use a VPN, in details this:

"A VPN accomplishes two things: first, it re-routes all your internet traffic through a server in a location of your choosing, which changes your IP address to one used by hundreds or thousands of other people (assuming your VPN uses shared IP addresses, which most do). This adds a significant layer of anonymity and makes it much more difficult for anyone to track you. Second, a VPN encrypts all your traffic before it leaves your computer. That means your ISP cannot monitor your activity, nor can anyone else. And because all your traffic heads to the VPN server first, ISPs can’t even tell where it’s going.

Using a quality VPN is key; don’t settle for a “free” service or VPNs that log your activity, cap your bandwidth and data, or don’t provide sufficient DNS leak protection. "




Twitter @CyberMalistix

I don't currently use a VPN, but if I end up going to China, I almost surely will. I don't think I can handle going without YouTube!!



VGPolyglot said:
I don't currently use a VPN, but if I end up going to China, I almost surely will. I don't think I can handle going without YouTube!!

Yep its also a great way to unlock blocked content in certain countries and I cannot imagine not having youtube lol




Twitter @CyberMalistix

malistix1985 said:
VGPolyglot said:
I don't currently use a VPN, but if I end up going to China, I almost surely will. I don't think I can handle going without YouTube!!

Yep its also a great way to unlock blocked content in certain countries and I cannot imagine not having youtube lol

Yeah, but in the meantime, I'm not going to bother with one.