this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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Security, that's a major use of vpns.
Edit: I should of pointed out that I meant limited use for security reasons, like accessing your bank account in public areas, its not much but it can help to protect you from MitM attacks at the very least.
VPNs doesn't really improve security in a way that usually matters.
Nearly all web traffic is already encrypted.
VPNs absolutely have their uses (like accessing remote networks, bypassing firewalls and censorship, piracy) but they are not needed for just using all the time.
Web encryption is genuinely security theater considering whose root certificates come pre-installed. Microsoft has the ability to decrypt all web traffic on Windows at will due to their preinstalled cert, and they are almost certainly under gag order and compelled to give the NSA unrestricted access to this backdoor.
Futher, the EU is going to install their certs on every computer and make it illegal for browsers to uninstall or untrust them. I don't live in the EU so I can't confirm if this is happened already but theoretically this can have global impact.
I'm not saying a VPN necessarily helps here but your trust in web encryption is misplaced.
I am gonna need a source for that.
You sure? Are you talking about the encryption thing? That was (of course) rejected.
https://odysee.com/@RobBraxmanTech:6/Webencrypt-x1:e
YouTube sponsorship is the major use of VPNs. Hiding your IP does nothing to mitigate user tracking by application/hardware finger printing, tracking of users logged into a service, or tracking of user activity with cookies.
I know there are so many other ways they are tracking people. There was one discovered they put a list of I think 500 top sites and they could identify people with I think it was 90% accuracy, just by telling which sites they visited because the links turn purple. I these are the ones discovered, so they where doing this before people found out what else are the doing that nobody knows about yet.
So what are you gaining using a VPN to access your bank? Your bank website is https so it's already encrypted. VPN's are vastly misrepresented in their commercials.
If you must know, I seed my public tracker torrents to a ratio of 10:1. That's why I have a router-level VPN config. Someone's gotta do it.
Fighting the good fight. I have about 25 torrents that have one one seed, me, and can't be otherwise purchased. I just leave them on unlimited ratio and feel better when every I see a leech connect.
I wouldn't mind joining you in eternally seeding those torrents if you wanna send me a list.
Okay but why not set up a separate/dedicated route for that traffic?
Not that I disapprove of what/how you’re doing, curious because it’s what I do. I’d assume you’ve got a VM or node other than your workstation hosting your torrent client, otherwise this method doesn’t make sense.
The VPN runs on my router and my torrent client runs on my server. Anyhow, why would I want only some of my traffic to go through VPN when I can send it all through?