I have no idea whatsoever what a VPN is and if I know enough to have one and if I should have one?
Everyone here should know that I am a Computer Dork.
Can someone give me a brief tutorial?
Thanks
Gwen
VPNs
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Comments
Well, these days vpn is a
Well, these days vpn is a must have for pirating things online, looking at grotesque porn (just in case) and doing other things that might get you in trouble. Also vpn allows you to change your country of origin so that you can look at content blocked in your country (you'd be surprised how many totally harmless things that affects). Basically vpn makes you untraceable and gives you more freedom from politics, laws and morals.
Virtual Private Network
Originally, my impression was that a (perhaps small) company spread out could have the equivalent of a small network internal to the company (Intranet), but it's actually distributed around and connects over the Internet. Transmission is encrypted, of course.
These days, one might connect to a VPN and to the Internet (or Dark Net) to anonymize oneself, and keep both eavesdroppers and (if you wish) sites you visit from knowing who or where you really are. Now that I think of it, I've forgotten quite a bit about them.
-- Daphne Xu
A definition, perhaps?
I note that neither of the previous responses actually say what a VPN is.
It stands for Virtual Private Network.
The idea is that, from inside your own little Local Area Network - the collection of bits and pieces that sit on your side of your connection to the Big Bad Internet (your router), you have an encrypted link to another server somewhere else, possibly even in another country.
Having this link, it looks like you are connected directly to that server and can then browse the Internet while looking as if you are where the server is, instead of where you are. One obvious benefit of doing this is that it enables one to get around restrictions on things that, for example, are forbidden in your local jurisdiction, since the accesses seem to come from wherever the server is based.
Of course, that is one view of VPNs. In business, it is common for a salesperson, for example, to use a VPN to connect their laptop from wherever they are back to the main office and connect as though they are local. This gives them access to everything they would normally use like email, printing and file services.
Having said that, I have never actually used a VPN myself, as the setup procedures seem to be "understood", ie vague to the point of uselessness, as if everybody already knows how to set one up. Nope. But then, I have never had the need to use one.
Penny
Quick and Easy VPN
At it's most basic definition, a VPN, creates a private connection from one network to another. What this means in modern terms is that it will create a private, encrypted tunnel that keeps your ISP or others from viewing what you are doing on your ISP's network and delivers it to a server at a data center, where it is often anonymized and made harder for people to track you.
QnEZ recently launched a VPN product: https://www.qnez.net/vpn/
-Piper
QnEZ is BigCloset
Just reminding anyone. QnEZ is BigCloset in a sense. It's one of the ways we attempt to recover costs and pay for TopShelf and associated sites. $6/month may not be doable for everyone, but it's generally affordable, and not out of the industry norm.
-Piper
One downside
If you have a VPN to hide your traffic from the local provider. Note that the company at the other end of the VPN can see the traffic. It comes down to, Who do you trust?
Who do you trust?
If you want to keep your activities private from local law enforcement (and the spooks in your country) then a VPN with an endpoint in a different country (preferably not one of the 5-Eyes) is your solution.
Then, if you ISP is injecting adverts into your data then a VPN is an obvious way to stop them in their tracks.
Then if you are in a country that blocks a site such as Google then a VPN is your solution (might have other consequences though)
I use a VPN just to combat the trackers. For many sites (not this one), my location as defined by my Internet Point of Presence is Latvia. Take that you location trackers.
Samantha
Neither good nor bad in itself
Many individuals use VPNs for the sake of privacy. If you use the Opera web browser, it has a VPN built in. When you browse the internet with the VPN option turned on, the Opera browser doesn't connect directly to wherever you browse. Say you look at Big Closet every morning. Now, rather than connecting directly from you to BCTS, the browser will send your request to a server in Sweden, say, or Ireland, or San Jose. That server will relay your request to BCTS, and relay the BCTS pages back to you.
Why might you do this? Because without a VPN, your employer, or your internet provider can see exactly where you go. If you use a VPN, they can only see that you're communicating with some server somewhere, but they don't see where you go or what you say on the internet.
Companies use VPNs in a different way. They don't want everyone on earth getting into the company servers, so they wall them off. No one can get in -- EXCEPT for people who sign into their VPN. The VPN in this case is a little private network that's difficult to get into, but once you're there, you can interact with your companies private stuff as if you were sitting in the office.
Hope that's clear.
- io
Security
I would say that the most important and pertinent use of a VPN in your case is if you either have a laptop that you use in public places like Starbucks or airports or if you use a public computer like at a library or an internet cafe. Whenever you connect at such a place other people also connected in the same place (local network) can "see" your traffic (where are you connecting to, what information you are sending our receiving) if they have specialized applications. Thus the VPN ensures that not only those people are unable to determine if you are connecting to your bank for instance, they are also unable to "listen" on your session.
Xtrim
Also...
Something to keep in mind, if you are in the market for a VPN service, Your data is only as safe as how trustworthy your VPN provider is. Of the assorted "Free" VPN services out there, several have been hacked, or even worse, sold it's customers data to third parties. There are reliable VPN providers out there, that have modest fees on a monthly or yearly subscription plan.
Keep in mind the old saying, "you get what you pay for". It's the same as Facebook, If they are offering the service for free, odds are you are the product.
There is an Email/VPN provider that I use occasionally, that is highly regarded. Proton mail is an encrypted email service and VPN provider that offers basic free encrypted email, plus subscription service that offers custom email addresses and assorted other services.
Virtual Private Network (VPN)
My first encounter with the term was in about 1996. I was attending an information session at my employer given by Cisco about their then new Fast Ethernet switches. The Cisco rep mentioned that the switch could be set up to provide a VPN between switch ports. I couldn't then, and still can't, visualize why you would want a VPN on a company's internal wired network. However, over the Internet, they can provide real value. I have worked at two different large companies which provided access to the internal network for remote employees over a third-party VPN, usually utilizing two factor authentication.
That's what's referred to as
That's what's referred to as a 'V-LAN'. It's used to segregate sections of network switches into virtual networks. For example, if you want five ports to have access to the router and each other, but not to the rest of the network, you can segregate five ports into their own little network. The router sees them, but the main network can't, and vice versa. That's the very simplistic description. Yes, it's a VPN in the true sense, but they renamed it to try to separate from the remote virtual network application. Technically, I wouldn't even call most 'VPN' services VPN. They're not virtual private networks, they're actually anonymizer encrypted tunnels/redirects.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
It is confusing to me too...
I only know the following about VPN's
-They make your IP (internet provider) Address, codes etc untraceable
-Commonly for the noncriminal, it is used so 'big brother' cannot fondle into your online panty drawer... so to speak ;)
-The original uses from what I understand was for criminal behaviour to go unwatched and or for authorities of some kind to work under the radar, against ones one privacy & constitutional rights
-VPN's are widely used by Pedo's or so I have heard
-VPN's are super expensive & you should never trust freebee's
-Downloading, demands the need and sometimes access to VPN's
- The internet via society seems to be more and more trying to force cis-gender & hetero-normative conversion... blocking and or giving adult level ratings to even the most innocent LGB-T+ Material, even heard some are trying to criminalize any involvement in accessing such 'pages' by trying to place it in 'undignified' illegal groups like pedophelia & nonconcensual sex etc
So & I hate to say it it is only a matter of time, especially if you desire to continue accessing tg material, that a VPN, is a must... hopefully myself, will be able to afford one before that hits the fan
With Love and Light, and Smiles so Bright!
Erin Amelia Fletcher
Super Expensive?
While I agree not to trust the performance or privacy of the freebie VPN providers, but the industry norm is currently $6.00/month with discounts for Quarterly, Half yearly, and Yearly payments.
-Piper
u sure?
I know it has been a couple years since my online-window shopping for 1, but the only real ones that have any acknowledgement, by common users, are like a few hundred a year... it is why after my test f one via free 30-day trial I never purchased it, I struggle just to eat everyday, due to almost and sometimes completely no funds, so $ for that is sorta out of reach
With Love and Light, and Smiles so Bright!
Erin Amelia Fletcher
Pricing
I did some "shopping" too and even the most expensive VPN service was just over $6.00 a month for 15 months. It was rated at a 9.8 out of 10.
Most were around $5-$6 mark per month for at least 12 months. I consider this cheap as VPN services were once much more expensive.
Have a look at see if there is one that is within your budget. I use one all of the time.
Jo
Quick and Easy VPN and Others
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/buy-vpn/
I can only speak for PIA at the moment from a personal perspective, as this is the only VPN (other than the Quick and Easy VPN from QnEZ which I represent) that I have used in recent years. The retail Price is $10/month but this landing page: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/linus-tech-tips will discount it to $8.45 per month, and while I can't find the cupon code I used at the moment, I can state that my current billing for PIA is $6.45 / month since 2019.
I can also state that another VPN I knew to trust, NordVPN apparently had a server breach in 2018 that recently came to light. So I can't honestly recomend them at this moment.
As for QnEZ, our offering is much smaller. We currently only have 32 VPN Servers/Endpoints in 25 countires. 6 of which are in the USA.
My location for all theese speed tests would be Brick, NJ, USA and they represent connections to various Quick and Easy VPN Endpoints using our Android App, as well as one in Torronto, Canada. There is a mixture of WIFI and AT&T LTE connections that were vpn'd and they all show persistently good speeds.
We are small, and growing and hope to open more locations, as well as expand servers at current locations if network congestion comes into play. - https://www.qnez.net/vpn/
Now I mention QnEZ because when I was pricing out our service, I found several smaller companies, not much larger than us, that were offering prices in the $6-$8 range. But as I said above, I can't really recommend them as I haven't personally used them.
-Piper
Just to be sure
QnEZ biannual is $24, what's $2/month?
I think you mean $4 per month
I think you mean $4 per month. Annual would be $48.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
6,5,4,3...
I'm sorry. I really thought I had replied to this...
Our plans break down as follows. Monthly = $6/Month. Quarterly = $5/month. Bi-annually (every 6 months) = $4/month and Annually comes out at $3/month. This is for automatically recurring accounts (the term renews whenever it expires).
We charge a bit of a premium for one-time billing (no recurring) accounts, and include a setup fee. These are accounts where you buy 1 Month, 3 Months etc and instead of renewing at the end, they just "expire" and if you want to continue you need to signup for new service.
One thing we will not offer, is one-time payment, Lifetime based accounts. While we are still small enough in this market to do so, we know that it is not a sustainable business model in the long run. We have seen MANY providers in this, and similar spaces just "disappear" leaving those who paid for "lifetime subscriptions" with no recourse.
Not to mention
For some of us, "lifetime" isn't all that long.
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” - Turkish Proverb
free to use
If you want only with your notebook or handy connect to your home computer, then you can try teamviewer.com . the programm is free for personal use, and you need to pay only for commercial use.
teamviewer can be used with windows, mac, linux, i-phone and android.
it can not be used, to mask your ip-adress but for private connections is very safe.
chris
-They make your IP (internet
- Harder to trace, if done right, but not untraceable. (It is kinda 'it depends').
- Or to avoid state level censorship (thanks Cthulhu, that state is usually inept at that).
- Truly original use was to link company departments, and similar stuff. (I think you are mixing up VPNs with TOR and similar things, they are similar but pretty distinct).
- More like different Darknets, not VPNs directly, at least as of lately
- Not very expensive - for DIY approach - cheapest VM you can get from Digital Ocean is around 5$/month, and there are cheaper ones from different services. Freebees - as long as they are in different country/jurisdiction and you do not install non-trusted software - should be RELATIVELY safe. (And read the small print).
The original use of VPNs.
VPN technology was created so that you could scatter a local area network across multiple physical locations. For instance, a business may have many computers, printers, servers, VOIP telephones, etc. in one physical building and it is isolated from the outside world by a router and firewall. But what happens when they have a second building in a different city or employees work from home? A VPN can logically connect two physical locations to make it look like one local area network and suddenly the VOIP telephone, the printer and computer at an employee's home is part of the company's local area network.
Of course, the same technology can be used to get through a firewall. So if you are in a school, hospital, library, your parent's house, your employer's, or wish to cross the barriers on a political border then a VPN will help. I don't know if the people who created VPN technology also intended to make it easy for people to hide their location and identity in the internet but it works great for that too.
The VPN I use.
My household downloads lots of stuff via BitTorrent so a VPN is an absolute necessity since everyone else that is uploading or downloading can see your IP address. I have been using Torguard for many years. 15 months ago PC Magazine rated Torguard as having the best download speed and latency change and the second best upload speed of all of the VPNs they tested. And Torguard appears to be among the best at protecting your privacy. If you find and use a 50% off for life code (they are frequently available) then it costs US$30 per year and provides 5 simultaneous connections. I.e. You can have 1 VPN connection on your home computer, 1 on your cell phone, etc. I have gotten phenomenally good and reliable service from them.
However, I am switching over to Ivacy before my current Torguard annual subscription runs out. I got a lifetime service subscription for 10 connections via a Stacksocial.com limited time offer for US$54. (It was US $60 for 10 connections, US$40 for 5 connections, but was 10% less because it was my first Stacksocial purchase.) I know the offer sounds too good to be true but Ivacy was the winner of the 2019 BestVPN.com fastest VPN award and placed third runner up in the Best Overall VPN at the exclusive annual Las Vegas event where VPNs compete with each other. (It's basically a trade show for VPN services.) While I bought it last summer I haven't actually gotten around to using it yet so I can't recommend it from personal experience yet.
I know this doesn't answer your original question of what is a VPN and why would you need one. I think other people have already answered that question. But if you decide to go ahead and get one, then these are two services that I recommend for price and privacy. Especially if you are trying to hide your perfectly legal (honest) downloads from the Motion Picture Association of America.
when big closet is blocked
can vpn help get access to big closet at wifi areas that block big closet, like hospitals.
Can it help? Yes it can
as long as the network you are on is not totally locked down and the ports used by the VPN software are blocked.
Samantha
Content Blocking and Port Access
Yes, VPN's can usually bypass most network based (especially DNS based) content restrictions. An Samantha is correct that it requires the port to not be blocked. That's one of the reasons we offer OpenVPN with several open ports including ports that are open on most networks (like 80 and 443).
VPN on Chrome OS
Thanks for all the info, Piper. Does your VPN offering work with Chromebooks?
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Quick and Easy VPN for Chromebooks
If your Chromebook has access to Android apps and is running Chrome OS version 64 or higher you should be able to use our Android app. If you can't, we can help you configure your device's built in support for OpenVPN or L2TP to work with our service.
-Piper
Thanks, I do run android apps
Thanks, I do run android apps on my Chromebooks.
Kris
{I leave a trail of Kudos as I browse the site. Be careful where you step!}
Quick and Easy VPN - KB
Please continue to ask questions if you have any, but I wanted to mention we have a small Knowledgebase on our "dashboard" portal, with some information. https://dashboard.qnez.net/knowledgebase/29/Quick-and-Easy-VPN
-Piper