Originally Posted by Gebo
Overkill, I really have no idea what you are taking about.
You are so far over my head I don't even know how to respond to you. I have researched a little and I don't understand what makes one VPN more advantageous than another. I'm obviously too ignorant and dumb for your help. There probably isn't a lot of need in you posting anymore in this thread. It seems to be making you angry.
Nope, not angry, sorry if it came across that way. It just seems when the topic of VPN's come up most people seem to think they are providing a level of security far above and beyond what they are capable of, make sense? I was attempting, in a relatively simplified manner, to explain what they can and cannot do, but I appear to have failed in that endeavour if you found it too complex to be of benefit.
Originally Posted by Gebo
My understanding was a VPN provided privacy but could slow your service down. Since all I got to start with is 25 mB to start with I was thinking someone here could tell me if there was one that minimized slowing down my service. And I watch Netflix, Amazon and YouTube.
At its most basic, a VPN provides an encrypted tunnel between your computer/tablet/phone (device) or, your network, depending on whether you are using it at the router-level or not, and a remote endpoint, at which point the traffic is decrypted and traverses the internet in whatever form it was originally. This is useful if you do not trust your provider, like alarmguy, or if you are connecting to services that you don't want them to be aware of, like non-private tracker torrents, which you've made no mention of. They can also be useful to skirt geolocation restrictions on content, like for example Netflix in Canada, you can make it appear as if you are in the United States, so you get US content.
So, when you say you want "privacy", what exactly are you trying to improve upon? And who are you trying to shield that data from?
For example:
- Google search is encrypted, so your ISP isn't aware of what you are searching for, but Google tracks you. A VPN doesn't change that.
- Google's YouTube is also encrypted, so your ISP isn't aware of what you are searching for, but Google tracks you. A VPN doesn't change that.
- Netflix uses an encrypted connection, so whatever you search for on Netflix is also obscured from your ISP, but Netflix keeps track of it. A VPN doesn't change that.
When you click on a web link or type in a web address the primary DNS server you have configured in your router, or on your workstation is queried to resolve that friendly name to an IP address. This process takes place in clear text, so that traffic is sniffable. The DNS queries are usually resolved by a DNS server your ISP operates, so they know, if they choose to log, the sites your computer or network is visiting. A VPN will conceal all of this from your ISP so you must then rely on being confident that the VPN provider isn't logging the DNS queries you are making to their server. That of course doesn't prevent your browser from logging them if you are signed into it, like with Chrome. So the real advantage here is if you want to conceal the websites you are visiting from your ISP.
The encryption process between you and the VPN provider carries with it overhead, which presents in terms of latency and a bandwidth penalty. These services are also typically over-subscribed, which has a further impact on the speed. This is why people complain about a VPN making things slower for them.
Does any of that help? I'm just trying to establish an understanding on what a VPN can and cannot provide for you so you can determine whether using one makes sense. Unduly imposing a slowdown on yourself because you want to stream content from a service that's registered to you isn't improving your privacy one iota.
I personally do not use a VPN for day-to-day activities, despite operating a significant number of them all over the place. I'll use one if I want to spoof my location, and I'll use one if I'm on an insecure network like a coffee shop, hospital or hotel. This works to prevent DNS hijacks/redirects and allows me to funnel all my traffic through a trusted router and queries through trusted DNS servers, like OpenDNS for example. So again, it comes down to what you are trying to obscure, and from whom