I use Nord VPN, mostly because I value the message of privacy. That said, what all does it protect me from? I’m questioning if it’s actually worth keeping. How does the process work? If the government was after me could I flip it on and continue using my phone without worry? Or is it just keeping spam off my pages and email? Like what does 100% privacy even mean?
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I already have your address and full name bro. It’s joever.
good vid for you
I use router VPN’s myself, but the software VPN’s work along the same premise.
A router based VPN is the standard for security for remote offices. There’s a set of security keys that pass along the internet to a known point. The best security is to have 2 static IP’s but can happen with 1 IP or 2 dynamic IP’s (using Dynamic DNS).
The setup happens with certificates and large keys (2048 bytes is the usual) sent to establish the VPN along with a password. If everything matches then the connection is trusted.
Then any data is encrypted and sent. It should be nearly impossible to unscramble the data.
Now the real question is can a government unscramble any data? That I can’t tell you, but there’s probably easier ways to obtain it than unscrambling it. Perhaps a key logger? Perhaps a raid on NormVPN?
Having run a packet sniffer on a vpn setup, I can tell you that I haven’t seen anything, but perhaps there’s vulnerabilities that I’m not aware of.
Commercial VPNs like Nord VPN encrypt your internet traffic on your device, sending it to their servers where it is decrypted and sending it out to the websites you visit.
This does:
- Hide what site you visit from your ISP and wifi you connect to.
- Change your location.
What VPNs not do:
- Give you 100% privacy.
- Protect you from hackers.
- Stop the government and big tech companies from spying on you.
- Keep spam off your pages and email.
- Hide that it’s you when doing something while being logged into anything like Reddit, Twitter, Google/Youtube, Amazon, your messenger, etc. or anything that’s connected to your phone number like SMS.
The bottom line:
You see, they do actually very little and not even half of what they advertise with. Meanwhile the VPN company knows which sites you visit. Do they save it? Do they sell it? Will they rat you out to authorities? We don’t know so it comes down to trust.
My two cents:
If I have to decide whether I’m going to trust my ISP or some random profit oriented company I don’t now anything about with my data I would choose the former nearly every time. I do have a VPN but it’s from a company I trust more than Nord and I use it only for a specific, one the few actual legit use cases.
So without knowing anything more about your circumstances and judging only from what you said I wouldn’t recommend you to use any commercial VPN as it probably does more harm than it helps.
So last year, I visited some countries where certain types of internet pages, whether innocent or not, were banned in those countries. However, using VPN I could access whatever I wanted from any place on the internet.
Reliable to do what? As most things, it’s fairly good at what it’s supposed to do and fairly garbage at everything else.
It’s exceptional when you’re trying to watch Netflix or something from another country. It’s garbage at protecting your info while you’re doing so - or even in general. It doesn’t do lick against malware, cookies, or espionage. It’s not a security tool.
I have Nord VPN too, I don’t know how well it works either but if you want to become digitally invisible then get a Faraday bag. It works well if you’re on the run from the government, you’ll be untraceable as long as your phone is in the bag.
No see, but this was the info I need! Thanks for saving me $14.99 a month. I knew they were a scam. Feel free to reroute that ACH into your bank account broseph
Here in the UK, ISPs are obliged to keep their customer records for examination (ostensibly with a warrant, but wink-wink…). I use a VPN so that my ISP does not have the record of which sites I visit.
For what it’s worth, I don’t do terrorism or child porn or anything else illegal. I just have an in-built distrust of government.
I think the most important thing with VPNs is to understand what they do and do not as well as asking yourself the question of what you want to achieve. Everyone has a different background, threat profile and things they do and do not trust and that’s fine. I didn’t got this across as clear as I wanted to but since OP doesn’t really seem to know what VPNs do I wanted to stick to that.
That I trust my ISP more that i.e. Nord is just my opinion based on my background and threat profile and I hope I made it clear enough.
And I don’t think anyone here can tell OP what’s right for him as none of us knows his circumstances and who he trusts more so that’s a question he has to answer for himself so my main goal was to provide at least part of the information he needs to do so. And thanks to you and me he now has two more perspectives to think about.