How many of you all use a vpn ? I hear more and more people are useing them And it’s got me thinking are they really worth it? Steps I’ve taken is useing duck duck go , useing fire fox which I’m sad to say hasn’t been doing so well lately.

It is sad to see how people choose Chrome over Firefox, I agree. I'll use Firefox for as long as it's feasible to do so. I don't love Google -- I tolerate them. And like you, I'm also using DDG for search.

As for a VPN... they're not expensive. If you're really concerned, go ahead and get one? I used one for a while and frankly, I got annoyed with how many sites would block my access because of it, or not remember my login, or something obnoxious like that. You could just flip it on when you want to do something you feel is extremely private/sensitive and turn it back off the rest of the time... but that's a lot of hassle, in my opinion.

Greetings Akhenaten! Ya I’m very fond of it and ddg. That’s kinda my concern about it being obnoxious, and whether or not it flags to isp providers when we use mega, or florenfile I see a lot of members getting some amazing vids from it , it’s always been something on my mind how they go about doing it , I see a lot of stuff being flagged from mega but i can’t tell if it’s because of our fetish or they see it as cp. digital hygiene can never be to bad a thing especially with all the things happening right now in the world

Very good points. I just don't think an ISP can flag a generic site like MEGA... I mean, what are they gonna do because you downloaded something from it? Realistically? Until people really start getting dinged for that kind of thing, I'm not going to worry about it too terribly much. Now, quite a few years back, ISPs started sending nasty letters to people if they got reported by THIRD PARTIES for torrenting copyrighted material, but I don't know if that's still something being practiced. It wasn't well-received, for obvious reasons.

It really depends on what you want out of a VPN. If you're file sharing or doing other stuff that uses lots of bandwith, then I would say yes it's worth it to avoid getting throttled. You won't get flagged by your ISP for simply using MEGA or even torrents, since they have legitimate uses beyond pirating media.

VPN companies like to focus their advertising on privacy and make claims that a VPN will keep you totally anonymous, but like everything, there are limits to this. I would still recommend getting one though.

Here is a good video on the limitations to VPNs.
hxxps://youtu.be/CNRdHQJ9AMk

Welcome feunski, Very good points , I think what fascinates me most is the idea of seeing content we can’t really see here in the states . And yeah Comcast will throttle you like crazy. I’d love to hear more about the benefits , I’ve heard gaming is one , streaming as well ,would you go into further detail Feunski on recommending? In the video he mentions a encrypted tunnel does that mean isp’s won’t be able to see what we download?

Regarding the encrypted tunnel, it means that your ISP will only be able to track downloads to the VPN server's ip address. It also has the added benefit of providing a secure connection when using public wifi. It should be noted that you would be vulnerable between the time you connect to the wifi and then the VPN, though I'm not sure how big of an issue that is. Remember that traffic between the VPN and websites might not also be secure.

I personally wouldn't use a VPN while gaming unless you already have throttling issues or an unstable connection. A VPN connection will slightly increase latency which can make a difference in a ranked match. The main reason the use a VPN while streaming is to access foreign content blocked in your country. While this is great, streaming sites will display an error page if they detect you using a VPN. The reason being that content owners want to get paid for licensing in as many regions as possible.

I don't think there's any real difference between the major VPNs in terms of service. Just look at reviews and compare how user friendly the UI is, connection speeds, price, etc. One thing I would like to mention is that you might want a VPN that's registered/headquarted outside of the United States or whatever country you live in. This limits the ability of your government to obtain information about you. It's also nice to find a VPN that doesn't log user traffic data to begin with.

Incredible. Ya I think that last part about traffic data may be tricky I appreciate your explanation very much.

(September 25, 2020, 6:17 pm)Akhenaten Now, quite a few years back, ISPs started sending nasty letters to people if they got reported by THIRD PARTIES for torrenting copyrighted material, but I don't know if that's still something being practiced.

ISPs still send nasty letters for torrenting, but these days I think they automatically detect it using deep packet inspection.

As for a VPN, use one on your cell phone or your home internet if it makes you feel better.

It all depends on what VPN you are using and if you are using one of those web browser extensions like NordVPN. It really boils down to what you are using it for and why. Some people use it to look at porn. Others use it to access Netflix in other countries to view shows that are not available in their country.