The vast majority of consumer virtual private networks are abysmal.
That is, if your primary interest is privacy.
Of course, multiple threat models exist, and they will differ for each individual.
However, most VPNs are just frauds that collect your surfing data.
They may even force you to pay for it.
However, when it comes to privacy with VPNs, even reliable ones, there is a problem on the user side.
When you use a VPN to access a website, the only thing that changes in your advertising profile is your IP address, which they keep track of.
Websites will still be able to trace your browser history and use that information to identify you.
Your surfing history is solely kept private between you and your Internet service provider.
And that's assuming you're using a secure VPN that doesn't expose your personal data.
To understand why this is the case, you must first learn about virtual private networks (VPNs), how VPNs function, and how websites monitor you.
We'll look at the purpose of virtual private networks entering the market to address the first question.
Companies began creating local networks to speed up their company as the Internet became a more widely used mode of communication.
However, as companies increased in size, many began to branch out to off-
site sites and send workers to work from home or while on the road.
Businesses would have to devote a real-
world connection using physical infrastructure such as leased lines to join two organizations' local area networks at an acceptable distance.
This wasn't an issue if a corporation needed to connect two networks.
However, the cost of leased lines would rise exponentially as the distance and number of networks required by a corporation increased.
The Internet is a public network that is accessible to anyone.
No business can afford to have its data breached and their personal information taken by a third party.
They wanted a secure link that was both quick, dependable, and affordable.
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) were born as a result.
A virtual private network (VPN) is a private network that creates "virtual" connections across a public network, which may easily be, and in most cases was, the Internet.
A VPN connection might suit specific business requirements such as speed, data integrity, or secrecy.
A virtual private network (VPN) is a flexible concept that can adapt to varied industry requirements.
This is the first and most crucial element.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to creating a VPN.
Each service provider has its own structure and protocols, each with its own set of characteristics, not all of which are privacy-
related. So, how do VPNs function?
Basically, a VPN captures data packets that would otherwise be sent over an unsecured network like the Internet, encapsulates them in a new packet, and adds its own VPN header on top of it, hiding the source of the data.
Tunneling is the mechanism through which VPNs conceal your IP address.
This is how you can get around geolocation blocking by tricking websites into using a new IP address.
However, this isn't what ensures the security of your information.
You'll need encryption for that.
The most significant quality that most businesses need was data confidentiality.
VPNs do this by encrypting data sent between a client and a VPN server.
This implies that data sent from an employee's laptop in the field while connected to a local wifi network can be encrypted using a company's VPN software.
Companies can opt to host the VPN server at their own headquarters, where the VPN decrypts all traffic, providing near-
Encryption does not always imply privacy.
Encrypting a network provided a security layer for businesses, allowing them to protect their data from outside threats.
However, it did not provide any amount of anonymity to its employees within their network, because the company's leadership had direct access to their VPN server, and therefore to the traffic of everyone connected to that VPN.
You don't own the VPN server with a consumer VPN.
With your data, you must trust the organization that maintains the VPN server.
Encryption is still done on your device, where a VPN client configures your computer's connection to go through the VPN and be routed and encrypted.
When the VPN server gets your data, it decrypts it before sending it to the website you're attempting to access.
The website will only notice a connection from a private VPN server, not yours, based only on the IP address.
Assuming it's a reliable VPN that doesn't leak any other information that may be used to identify you,
As a result, this is a completely different concept from end-
to-
end encryption in email.
As a result, you should adapt your expectations.
The underlying nature of VPN technology is the reason why VPNs protect corporate privacy but not consumer privacy.
A VPN server will always have access to personally identifying data about you.
The act of gathering this information, whether it's your real IP address, information you supplied during account signup, or information acquired from your payment method, is known as logging, and there's not much you can do to check what a VPN business does with user logs.
We'll compare an end-
to-
end encrypted email service with a VPN service supplied by the same organization to help you better grasp the issue with VPN privacy.
Protonmail's end-
to-
end encryption is so good that if you forget your password, they will only be able to recover access to your account but not your communications.
Your decryption key will be lost.
This may seem inconvenient, but it is an effective security strategy for defending oneself against hackers.
Your communications are secure and cannot be seen by anybody, even Protonmail.
ProtonVPN is offered by the same firm that provides Protonmail.
And your privacy expectations for these two items should be somewhat different.
Protonmail can simply prevent itself from viewing your communications via email encryption.
Users generate decryption keys, which Protonmail then exchanges.
Your mails are not decrypted by Protonmail.
That's what your web browser is for.
However, ProtonVPN must encrypt and decode your data.
Creating a single point of failure for the ProtonVPN server.
A major no-
no in terms of cyber security
It's important to note that this isn't only about ProtonVPN.
This is a problem that every VPN provider faces.
Creating a consumer VPN with full privacy is technologically impossible.
Is it true that VPNs are ineffective for regular Internet users?
Yes, for the great majority of VPNs available.
VPNs, on the other hand, can provide some security from your ISP, advertising, and non-
for a select few and for particular threat models.
The Federal Communications Commission in the United States, for example, recently overturned a provision prohibiting ISPs from selling your surfing information for commercial reasons.
This is a huge breach of privacy since they are effectively recording everything you do in your living room in order to affect your financial activities.
So, if you're in the United States, your internet service provider is selling your surfing information to anyone wants it.
This is not only a breach of privacy, but also a security threat.
Because once companies sell your surfing patterns, hackers and foreign governments may and will intercept such communications in order to get a copy of your personal information.
You won't know there are databases containing millions of people's private information for sale or free until you become a victim of cybercrime.
It's a good idea to disguise your surfing history from your ISP if you can find a reputable VPN server, but keep in mind that we're talking about a lot of trust here.
However, due to the nature of the Internet, you must always place your faith in someone.
And you must choose between your monopoly Internet Service Provider, which imposes data limitations, Internet censorship, and costly sluggish broadband, and a Virtual Private Network created by privacy advocates.
So, how do you pick a VPN service provider?
Well, you'll need to accomplish two things: first, assess your threat model.
In the future, we'll talk about it on my channel.
You must also conduct extensive study and educate yourself on the subject.
Never put your faith on a single source.
Don't bother reading torrentfreak or PCMag's reviews.
Take a look at what others are saying about VPN services in the community.
Thatoneprivacysite.net is a fantastic source of evaluations of a variety of features from a variety of VPN providers.
Reddit is a great place to get customer evaluations, and you can read them even if you don't have a Reddit account.
To figure out what matters most to you, you'll need to ask yourself some questions.
What is the VPN provider's jurisdiction?
Is it in one of the 14 nations that participate with the National Security Agency on bulk monitoring and whose governments may be required to log users?
What measures are you ready to take to protect yourself from government surveillance?
Do you want to keep your personal information safe from shady marketers?
Are you seeking for a way to safeguard your sensitive data from hackers and cyber thieves (when using public wifi)?
Is it your intention to circumvent government censorship and eliminate the geo-
blockade of Internet content?
From which countries do you wish to access websites?
How much are you ready to spend for a virtual private network (VPN)?
All of these questions are part of the threat model analysis.
If your primary concern is privacy, a VPN is not the answer.
Tor is who he is.
If you wish to connect to Starbucks WiFi with more protection, a VPN is a perfect solution.
Never put your confidence in a free VPN service.
Those are the most deceptive.
Although VPNs are a less expensive alternative to leased lines for business networking, providing it as a free service is still prohibitively expensive.
But now we'll get to the third and most troubling question: how can websites monitor you even if you're using a VPN?
Let's assume you identify and purchase a reputable VPN provider's monthly membership.
Then you do something similar to this.
After successfully configuring your VPN connection, you launch your preferred online browser, which should never be Chrome but is statistically the most probable.
You log in to your Gmail account, which Chrome interprets as if you're logging in to the browser itself for synchronizing purposes, and then you surf the web for a variety of reasons: education, work, leisure, shopping, travel, and so on.
You just handed up all of your personal information to the world's most privacy-invading business.
China does not have Google's spying powers.
Google will also sell your personal information to each website or shop you visit.
If you want to learn more about how websites and marketers track you around the Internet, read this article.
You must question yourself: against whom are you attempting to secure your personal data?
Your Internet service provider, producers of Internet-
connected software and services, website owners, advertising, governments, and hackers are all on the same page.
For data gathering of your browsing history, all of your opponents employ the same points of access
—
either through your ISP, trackers on websites, identifying codes on software and programs, or online communication tools like emails and instant messengers.
Except for your IP address, everything about your identity remains unaltered on websites that use trackers.
What remains visible is your device, which most likely has a unique ID, as well as your hardware, software, configuration, operating system, software versions, web browser, browser plug-
ins, extensions, screen resolution, battery life, and so on. The combination of all of this data and your browsing habits creates a unique personal identification.
You already give your true name to numerous websites to verify your identification, such as your Facebook and email accounts, as well as any online store that has your payment information.
If you care about your privacy, you should disable all of these access points.
VPNs are blocked by ISPs.
Governments are blocked by Tor.
How can you prevent websites from following you throughout the internet?
By using web browsers with privacy settings and compartmentalizing your surfing behavior across multiple browsers.
Trackers, advertisements, cookies, and traffic analytics scripts are all blocked by various extensions.
uMatrix, NoScript, uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Cookie Autodelete, and Decentraleyes are among the finest.
You don't have to utilize them all.
All of the others will become obsolete once the uMatrix is correctly set.
Set your browser to prevent third-
party cookies and erase them on a regular basis with uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger.
Even if you go to all of these efforts, if you make the same error I did, you'll still fail.
You must restrict access to websites using your online identities, even if they are fictitious, as well as your surfing patterns.
Use a different browser for social media, email, and banking, and another for general browsing.
Only if you block all trackers and create a barrier between your online identities and surfing habits does it make sense to utilize a reliable privacy-focused VPN.
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