What is the actual point of a VPN?

[Violent Rainbow]

I keep seeing them advertised on almost every youtube channel I watch and it's starting to get annoying. Like I know they basically change your location data so websites don't know where you are but why would the average person need that? What is anyone doing that they need to hide their location like that? It seems suspicious to me.

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

VPNs are mostly used as a lazy man's well...the equivalent is norton or horton (that ♥♥♥♥ the guy who made it committed happy birthday in jail apparently ala epstein also apparently) free firewall for computers but for keeping stuff anonymous.

It helps but not by alot. Funny it doesn't help people who use the internet for stuff like social media and company projects. It doesn't help people who hardcore do ♥♥♥♥ like torrent or seed or whatever other shady ♥♥♥♥ they do online.
You have to be the right amount ignorance / casual and just enough tech savvy that you use it for stuff that's POTENTIALLY RISKY but not enough THAT IT IS RISKY.

like others have said if you wanna try true anonymity use proxy or other programs / links
If you wanna view region locked crap use proxies or other browser based extensions.


Really VPNs are like the microsoft paper clip for boomers / some millenials / zoomers. It'll alert you to potentially but blatantly obvious harmful sites

prawnhub...yup it's a no go
this shady 3rd party site with all spelling letters and symbols just thrown around to try to make a complete sentence....yeah not do that or go in there
any download site.....don't




The only 1 True use is for ad revenue from youtubers. They literally carry the entire monetized video creators along with mobile app games (you know exactly which one) and those dollar shave club commericials.
Youtube and other sites use the good ♥♥♥♥ like McDonalds and other name brands for themselves and leave the rest of the people scraps.
It's why getting sponsored by one of the 3 listed above is a big deal. Once you do you pretty much have it made AND they're pretty lax on how you portray their product for the most part. So long as it gets people's attention without bad mouthing them too tooo much they could care less.

Plus 5 to 3 if you do any ad that is distasteful YT and other areas will immediately take it down anyways so they really don't push it b/c they know that the main platform / site already does that for them.



it's sad really all these things like nord vpn or life lock they just don't work. You can't monopolize or try to patrol tech and medicine. They are 2 of the things that are just too fast changing and unpredictable that trying to and succeeding will only work for a couple of months give or take days depending on how fast b/c by the time the stuff is thought of tested made and catered for specific areas.....a new type of tech or formula is already being worked on that by the time it comes out it'll also be old news.

But it's also good otherwise you'd have stuff like big brother already injecting commercials into your brain.

BUY LIGHTSPEED BRIEFS


and you'd also have people like jeff bezos elon musk bill gates you get the idea.....trying and succeeding in controlling EVERYTHING!!!
EVERY aspect of stuff online would've been owned a long time ago if the internet weren't a chaotic and unlawful place.

[Sir Dookface McFerretballs]

Verizon recently updated their TOS silently to literally track every website you go to, what you type in searches, when you are online, how long you are online, and so on.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/5/22818783/verizon-app-data-collection-browsing-history

And this is just if you use their app or cellphones, as they have been able to do this stuff with your computer for years.

Default your IP "can" easily see everything you do online and they often log it for advertising and data selling reasons.

They can also see when you are using a VPN...

But this is where the VPN works, they may see you are using a VPN, but because ALL your internet traffic is going to the VPN the ISP can't actually see what you are doing beyond that after you are connected to the VPN.

[Fumo Bnnuy n Frends]

Sir Dookface McFerretballs님이 먼저 게시:

Verizon recently updated their TOS silently to literally track every website you go to, what you type in searches, when you are online, how long you are online, and so on.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/5/22818783/verizon-app-data-collection-browsing-history

And this is just if you use their app or cellphones, as they have been able to do this stuff with your computer for years.

Default your IP "can" easily see everything you do online and they often log it for advertising and data selling reasons.

They can also see when you are using a VPN...

But this is where the VPN works, they may see you are using a VPN, but because ALL your internet traffic is going to the VPN the ISP can't actually see what you are doing beyond that after you are connected to the VPN.

then the VPN company can use it lol

there is no 100% way to mask your identity online. I find it funny especially with how people find other people eventually through small notations not even on the VPN but stuff like what sites they visit or how they send messages with certain phrases or words or symbols.


which is why in the end they're not really worth it. just support them someway to indirectly support your fave streamers or sites.
Or start buying razors or join those mobile games.

[crunchyfrog]

As others said, theyre just a device to change the visibility of your IP address. So you can "pretend" you're from any country in the world.

This is obviously beneficial for sidestepping region requirements on things like Netflix. If you're here in Britain our Netflix is REALLY ♥♥♥♥, as most good films are removed by the copyright owners for whatever reason.

Also, if you are in places like China, where there's the great firewall, you can use this to get round such blocks in some ways, and post to Youtube, for example, which is otherwise blocked.

For me, a VPN is completely as useless as a mobile phone. I don't watch TV at all so I have zero interest in Netflix, regardless. And I have no regional blocks so it's pointless.

[76561199099449901]

Dunno if somebody already said this, but if you have programs at work that only function on the workplace network, you can use VPN when working form home to get access,

[A&A]

Ferro Maljinn님이 먼저 게시:

Dunno if somebody already said this, but if you have programs at work that only function on the workplace network, you can use VPN when working form home to get access,

If at your workspace have a your own or company's VPN, then yes. But then l would use cloud server or remote system

[Zoomii]

A VPN really comes in handy when they take your favorite show off of US Netflix but keep it on UK Netflix.

[76561199099449901]

☬A&A☬님이 먼저 게시:

Ferro Maljinn님이 먼저 게시:

Dunno if somebody already said this, but if you have programs at work that only function on the workplace network, you can use VPN when working form home to get access,

If at your workspace have a your own or company's VPN, then yes. But then l would use cloud server or remote system

yea, that's true

[Defenestration]

💕 𝓑𝓾𝓷 💕님이 먼저 게시:

I use mine only for viewing videos and websites that are for some reason banned in my country.

I assume it's due to the newspeak terminology "hate speech" and its laws, because being offended is apparently worse than free speech (assuming you live in the UK.)

To answer OP'S question: not only to bypass censorship, but it protects you from hackers, such as if you're connecting to a public network and want to keep your history private or making online purchases. The only people who can see the websites you visit on is the VPN host or the government if they directly go to the VPN host and demand your information from them.

[Defenestration]

DieDisneyDie님이 먼저 게시:

♥♥♥♥ the NSA pigs. And the ISP crooks.

Though a TOR-over-VPN connection is better.

Tor project itself doesn't recommend VPNs unless you really know what you're doing. You're probably safer just using Whonix or Tails along with Tor.

https://support.torproject.org/faq/faq-5/#:~:text=Generally%20speaking%2C%20we%20don't,doesn't%20compromise%20your%20privacy.

[A&A]

Even Tor have problems with some of their VPNs, maybe around 30% have a switch which can be used for tracking by governments. So the privacy everywhere is exposed. You can use i2p, but there is another problem, you can connect to other users, but also they can connect to yours network, so you are sort of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ if this user is making something illegal.

[KOOLLAYDTAC]

Violent Rainbow님이 먼저 게시:

What is the actual point of a VPN?

Well mates I often wonder this myself since back in the day if we wanted to hide or alter our IP we did it ourselves. We didn't pay anybody else to do it for us. lol I mean if I actually cared about it I could break out software from my old toy box of tools and bounce my IP literally any where on the planet. lol So other then the fact a VPN obviously uses their own network how is that really any different from what we used to do back in the day? lol Inquiring minds want to know. Thanks in advance.

[totti]

Violent Rainbow님이 먼저 게시:

I keep seeing them advertised on almost every youtube channel I watch and it's starting to get annoying. Like I know they basically change your location data so websites don't know where you are but why would the average person need that? What is anyone doing that they need to hide their location like that? It seems suspicious to me.

Without VPN we would not know anything about the Coronavirus in Wuhan

[Ash]

AnonymousImprisoned님이 먼저 게시:

💕 𝓑𝓾𝓷 💕님이 먼저 게시:

I use mine only for viewing videos and websites that are for some reason banned in my country.

I assume it's due to the newspeak terminology "hate speech" and its laws, because being offended is apparently worse than free speech (assuming you live in the UK.)

To answer OP'S question: not only to bypass censorship, but it protects you from hackers, such as if you're connecting to a public network and want to keep your history private or making online purchases. The only people who can see the websites you visit on is the VPN host or the government if they directly go to the VPN host and demand your information from them.

It is kind of a myth that public wifi isn't safe. SSL is pretty robust so as long as you make sure it is an HTTPS website instead of HTTP you should be fine.

[RIP BandaiNamco]

Scamming people with slower connection in exchange for "better security and anonymity"