I just found out a built in VPN exists for windows 11 and I don’t get why I don’t hear about it if it’s free
Do you trust Microsoft to not keep logs and not turn over those logs upon request?
You can never trust your VPN completely, but Microsoft is about the last company I’d trust for the purposes for which I use a VPN.
It will probably be perfectly fine, just assume all of your data is going to microsoft.
a VPN is just a way to connect. Nord VPN provides you a VPN, but every OS do inculde VPN functionalities, it’s something very common for professionals user (and I wouldn’t consider nord VPN as a good one)
Is it a built in VPN service, or just a VPN client?
When you use a vpn service, you are trusting them to not keep logs, collect data about you, or profile you. There is no such thing as a free vpn service. If you find one, it means YOU (your data) is the product.
If you are fine with getting your data harvested, go for it. Otherwise you have to pay for a service that. Read the fine print to ensure the provider won’t be doing anything fishie.
I don’t/wouldn’t trust Microsoft with my data.
Disclaimer: This is a new feature to me and skimming the following article is the only exposure I have to it (at the moment, I plan on testing in my homelab later now), but I can speculate based off my own knowledge and previous behaviors of Microsoft. (The article: Microsoft is adding a free built-in VPN to its Edge browser | The Verge)
The good-ish: It’s free (for now).
The neutral: Server use/space and data isn’t free and Microsoft isn’t “the good guy”. If they’re not charging now they’re either planning on making it paid in the future or collecting your browsing data themselves (or more likely, both).
Would they shield you if you pirate movies (like paid VPNs advertise)? I’d say probably not, plus you’d lose the slight safety buffer you get from your ISP.
Do you need to briefly protect your browser data in transit while on public wifi? It’s probably fine in this case, but I’d feel safer using a VPN connection that’s open source or a paid service to be sure everything is getting encrypted.
Final thought: Where would I use it?
I have a paid VPN service (totally not for piracy), as a back up I also have my own home VPN server (for protecting my data should I need to use public wifi), and for added redundancy a Hotspot on my phone with unlimited data, so probably never… But if I were somewhere with no cell service, and on a public wifi that manages to block both my personal and paid VPN, and absolutely needed to access something right that moment and not a second later then I’d probably do it as a last resort.
don’t underestimate these companies. they purchase and sell information from each other. whatever you’re trying to hide from microsoft they probably already know
Does that mean it’ll work the same then?
I think it’s a client, under VPN provider it just says “Windows (built-in)”
Yes. However, you need to know to which VPN server connect
Not exactly.
If you have a paid VPN service, like NordVPN, in order to use it, you need to open the NordVPN client and select which server you want to connect to, say New York City. The VPN client will then connect to that server with a URL like: Nord.vpn.nyc.com (not a real server URL mind you, just an example). You don’t need to know the exact URL to connect to.
With the built in Windows client you would need to specify the URL, or IP address, or the VPN server you are connecting to. So you would need to enter Nord.vpn.nyc.com to connect to the NordVPN VPN server.
Yeah that would make sense. Last job I had used a VPN, but used the Window 10 VPN client to connect, and didn’t require a third party application.