Another question for the brain trust. What VPN???
 

I do all my online banking and finical investments on my home computer, on my network with a Cat 6 cable. I guess I do deposit checks with my cell phone, but that is secure as well.

I have no desire to go explore the dark web, or porn sites, but a VPN is something that seems like a prudent thing, especially for my laptop that I do take to motels and use their WiFi internet connection.

In looking around, it seems like most VPN programs cost about 8 to 12 bucks per month with discounts for yearly subscriptions.

So the question is, what is the best, or top VPN that is affordable?

Are there some to stay away from?

What say you?

It's not a bad idea to NOT use hotel WIFI. I would probably use my cell phone as a hot spot.

I'm not sure how much I would trust many/most VPN services either.

Not a user, but Norton Secure VPN is $30 for a year for 1 device. At least that price option is available to me from their desktop Anti-virus Scan product.

What do I know? I'm still an old curmudgeon who doesn't give card numbers on the net. I do my banking by walking into my local bank.

Take a look at nord vpn.

I too am a old geezer. But one goal in life is to never go inside a brick and mortar bank ever again.

I can take car of all my banking needs online. Super easy, and from home I feel it is totally safe.

Considering Norton's focus on security, I would not be that concerned with their service.
I think Nord is pretty big and has been around a long time. They may be alright.

I figured there's 2 main issues with these services 1 are they really secure and 2 what are they doing with my data (it flows through them, so they see everywhere you're going).

I'd say that most of the BIG banks financial players have a pretty strong focus on security. And even then, bad things can happen. Part of the reason is that issues cause customer confidence issues which will cost the company even more money than a breach of some sort. On top of that, there are a slew of regulatory bodies and issues and repurcussions.

These VPN services likely have no regulatory mandates. Anyone can put up a "security" service and run it well or poorly and no one is going to knock on their door or fine them.

The main benefit of a VPN is to 1 provide a layer of security if you're using a public network (wifi provided by hotel, coffee shop, etc...) and 2 mask your source IP address (you'll look like you're coming from the VPN provider, not your home.

The layer of security only protects your traffic on that local network, but it does not protect your laptop on the local network. If your laptop is not secure, then a local bad actor can still potentially access your device locally. The benefit is only that the web traffic that is going through the VPN is not visible other than as an encrypted stream. Eventually the traffic going through the VPN is going to drop out onto the Internet. You would get any benefit between the VPN provider's network and the end target (website). That benefit would only come from http vs https and the health of the end point (are all vulnerabilities patched/mitigated). Even VPNs have vulnerabilities that need to be patched.

VPN.... gov says those should be illegal...


https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/could-tiktok-ban-bill-criminalize-vpn-use-the-eff-says-its-not-impossible/

"Totally" might be a bit of an overstatement, but it's pretty darn safe these days.

More likely sources of being compromised are 1 your device if it's not up to date or you click links in emails willy nilly or open attachments in emails without a care or 2 your "card" is compromised at a point of sale of some sort. Having your banking traffic observed and deciphered in transit between your device and the bank is pretty unlikely, or having the bank compromised in some way is also less likely.

I do everything from my phone, and have for over 15 years. All the data traffic is encrypted and I just roll with that....

I quit visiting porn sites 16 years ago .....

Glen .... do you NEED more protection :D?

All of my internet equipment is owned by me.My router firmware is always up to date and I check that regularly. The modem is one I own, but it has to run the software from the internet provider. I am using Win 11 Pro ant it just updated again today.

My WiFi passwords are annoyingly difficult.

Yea, maybe the NSA FBI can likely get in, but that is unlikely to happen as I am not a terrorist, money launderer, or drug dealer or criminal at all.

I may check out Nord for use on my laptop. I do use the hotel WiFi and my iPhone hot spot is a lot slower than the hotel WiFi. I never do any banking on the laptop, just simple stuff, and logging into Pelican!

In my dealings with SONY / MSFT / Nintendo I'm required to have a whitelisted static IP to access developer portals on the backend.

That used to be easy before COVID when we had physical office space to tunnel through.

For the last few years I'm using NORD and PUREvpn.

NORD is the primary and PURE the back up.

NORD has been rock solid although they have a bad habit of making unnecessary UI changes that don't lead to a better UX.

There are always deals for NORD, I pay something stupid cheap like $20.00 for the year plus some additional for the dedicated IP.

VPN's services will slow things down a bit.

The other thing to be aware of is you may get a bit cock blocked with your financial institutions.

Most everyone tracks the IP addresses you use to access sensitive accounts and when they see something new or abnormal, like you logged in the last 1,000 x's from Tampa but now you are coming in from Seattle or Nigeria, will challenge you to prove you are you.

Not unlike when you use your credit card outside your normal usage area.

If you use a VPN's public IP try to use the same server all the time to minimize that issue.

Phones are fairly secure/sophisticated these days, and security is a primary focus of mobile banking apps.

Thanks. I am leaning towards using Nord. It is something that I can turn on or off easily, or not use in day to day, and then just turn on the VPN when I want to use it?

At home, I have a network of my two towers, and one laptop. I suspect the VPN will make the network not want to play. If I just trun off the VPN, the network will share like I want.

Yes, with nord vpn, if you so choose, you can connect/disconnect manually.

The app/program resides on the laptop/tablet/phone. IIR, the subscription I have permits me to run on up to 6 devices at any given time. I have heard some folks run/connect at their internet facing gateway router which then supports the entire home network all the while counting as one device.

On my tablet, i keep it connected simply for convenience. On my laptop and phone I manually connect as/when needed.

You can also choose the location of the vpn server you are connected to (they have a boatload all over). There is some BW/overhead but to date I've never had issues with for example BW intensive video streaming.

I don't even use mobile apps .... just the encrypted http for the browser and 2-step authentication and I'm good with that.

My phone isn't "lean & mean" ..... but it's skinny and angry :D

LMAO!

That's probably better than old and dopey.

I'm a cheapskate and I use the built-in VPN on Opera browser.


Its just a button on the address line you can click on and off. You can select Americas, Asia, Europe, or 'fastest' as to where you want it to bounce.

Funny how after reading this yesterday my Avast antivirus is giving me pop ups to pay for VPN service because I'm being tracked. Makes you go Hmmmm.

Another vote for Norton........