Who's actively using a VPN… what and why?

DEVONthink Tips
1

Just curious how many people are using a VPN.

  • What one?

  • For what reason?

  • How’s the experience?

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2
  • ProtonVPN
  • Security purposes and tracking avoidance, occasionally to circumvent content blocks
  • 8-9 out of 10
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3

Your post is my thoughts too!

4

Express VPN which seems to be working great. Mainly to hide from others when on public WIFi but more useful to pretend to be in another country when blocked from access by sites in those countries.

5

  • Mullvad VPN

  • Reduce my “radar signature” in terms of reducing traceability and increasing security

  • Experience is positive. Choice of “gateways”, near-anonymous payment with no contracts etc. Downside? Occasional web sites that choke on it, but Mullvad offers easy on/off switches.

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  1. FritzBox (router) IPsec VPN
  2. rarely, mostly to overcome content blocks
  3. 10
7

I have used Nord in the past and it was OK, though I think it slowed down my service at times. Never been a fan of the interface. I still have a subscription, but hardly use it these days. I don’t have a lot of call for it. Pretending to be in another country isn’t something I usually need to do, and I do almost all of my internet work from home.

8

Fritzbox and Nord VPN … hoping that it does a little bit for privacy, although my social media activities are the opposite of being careful.

On a few occasions I had to turn the VPN, I think while purchasing things. I will probably not extend the subscription, unless experts tell me otherwise.

For work, I have to use a Cisco VPN client.

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Excellent. Thanks all for their input on this.

10

I’ll add in Private Internet Access (PIA), mainly to mention that it has a switch to allow local LAN traffic. This means DTTG can sync while the VPN encrypts internet traffic on both iOS and macOS. Would recommend this particular VPN for good speed and reliability over the years as well as (promises of) enhanced privacy.

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11

There is a free VPN (with limited bandwidth, or paid for unlimited) by AdGuard. It is the best one I have tried and the free tier is more than enough for me. (I use to circumvent restrictions. For instance, if you are downloading articles metadata in Bookends, after a while Google will block your IP).

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12

NordVPN. I only use it when I travel for work (a bit more again this year as things pick up), from hotels, public WiFi, airports, etc. Otherwise when I am on institutional (educational) networks at my university or other places who have it (virtually all unis in the UK use EduRoam), or at home, I don’t bother with a VPN.

I am unsure how to assess the impact on speed and performance because the public networks in hotels etc tend to be woeful anyway.

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Fritzbox’s VPN to connect to my home office network from anywhere in the world and benefit, e.g., from our Pi-Hole DNS. WiTopia for privacy where needed. 10.

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14

I am late to the party. PIA. It’s a nice price to feature ratio for me with no-hassle apps on each device. Not sure how it compares with others on the market, because I have stopped using others over the years—not much point when I am satisfied. I have it on all the time unless there is some reason (only able to access certain work things through local, physical LAN.

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15

Setapp includes ClearVPN, which has worked well for me – mainly to access US sites which prefer to block European access entirely rather than implement GDPR compliance.

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16

I don’t but am getting close, also considering Tor for some things. So my experience is from NOT using one as it were? Frankly I am feeling as if the ad people can read my mind.
We did have Alexa, now in the bin, and we felt it was picking up stuff from conversations. Meh! who cares really but, well there is something fundamental about privacy? Were it not for companies like yours by the way I would probably be off Apple by now…
What I do is in the public domain anyway so I do not have security issues or anything that could affect another person’s privacy. My wife does…

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17

1 - ProtonVPN

2 - Security (when using wifi away from home, viewing content protected by geoblocking)

3 - 9/10 (on all my devices, macOS/iOS/iPadOS)

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18

When working at home I had some issues with clients blocking access because my traffic cam through a blacklisted IP-address (I use Mullvad).

I use VPN when necessary (travel, public places), not permanent. Also a VPN does not make your internet traffic anonymous per se as fingerprinting is possible even when you IP-address is hidden. Most (if not all) internet traffic is encrypted (https, imaps), a VPN would not add much unless you visit untrusted sources which are not encrypted using trusted certificates. For privacy during web browsing Tor is probably a better way.

I think VPN’s are most useful when working on public networks and you want to be sure nobody on that network can intercept your network traffic. A VPN only does not make you anonymous, it is a way to encrypt you network traffic and to potentially hide your IP address but you need to be aware of WebRTC leaks and DNS leaks.

Using a browser like Brave also works for better privacy, Safari also has some protection built-in. (less fingerprinting)

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19

Outside of a VPN, the owner of the routers, gateways etc know exactly which sites you’ve visited. And then there’s the authorization: with a certificate based VPN, you can protect your own servers (think WebDAV) better.

20

** No “Surf safer” VPN.

  • Wireguard
  • To stay always connected with Macbook and Mini to my offsite Server with DNS, Backup Shares and “Playgrounds”.
  • Very good. Even TimeMachine Backups work well. Needs some CPU though when active in use:
    image
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