How is VPN security for online banking, shopping and filling out forms

VPN
1

I’m trying out a free VPN for my phone and laptop browser and have a specific security/use-case question.

My main purpose is to reduce the amount of tracking data collection that gets sold to companies for targeted advertising, etc. I am interested in greater security of my personal info. I’m not interested in torrents and I seldom use public WIFI.

Is the security better, the same, or potentially worse, when using a VPN to do things like online banking, online shopping checkout or filling out forms (e.g. government services)? The marketing would suggest there is more security in using a VPN, but the idea that I am using a heavy traffic shared IP halfway around the world to login to my bank just seems wrong. For example, sometimes Google searches requires a captcha if they know its a VPN.

So is this something I need to worry about? Was thinking rather than always leaving the VPN on, I would pick and choose based on what I am doing.

2

If your main goal is avoiding targeted advertising, consider using Firefox Containers to sandbox your sites. I have banks and social media sites on separate containers.

3

The two biggest advantages to using a VPN are:

  1. your ISP can’t track your DNS requests
  2. you can change your exit server to get around geo-trapping

With banking, in particular, I often have the trouble that my bank won’t let me log in if my VPN exit node is outside of my “local” region, so I have to switch exit servers before doing banking stuff.

4

Following. I’m new to all of this. I have been thinking about getting a VPN for a long time. I have Proton, but still haven’t tried using a VPN. I don’t know how using a VPN would easily allow me into online banking and other accounts. To me, it seems like it would cause alarm and require two factor authentication every time. Does the VPN just switch to one lone IP address that’s different from your current one? Is it always using an IP provider located overseas? And have you found that Proton is the best VPN to use?

5

Thank you for this great response and zeroing in on the conflation of anonymity with security. That makes total sense.

However I still wonder - even if https encryption is the same, am I more any more vulnerable as a random target if I am submitting data via VPN (shared among a specific set of users), vs. directly via my ISP where arguably, I am one in a billion households.

6

Thank you, I didn’t know about that.

7

You don’t need a VPN to prevent your ISP from collecting your DNS requests. All you’d have to do is change your DNS. You can take it a step further by using DoH which is default in Firefox anyways. If you want to take it even further you can setup your own DNS on your home network with unbound so your dns queries don’t even leave your network. Also you need to enable DNS leak prevention with PVPN because it’s not on by default.

8

Thanks, this sounds a bit beyond my knowledge but I get the gist, and look forward to learning more about what you have suggested.

9

I wouldn’t argue that either of those 2 reasons are the biggest reason to have a VPN. I’ve been using one for 7 years and there’s been 1 time that I can think of where I used it to get around geo blocking.

Reasons to use a reputable VPN:

If you’re on public WiFi or a network you know is monitored then your traffic is encrypted between you and the VPN provider which means that someone sitting on the network couldn’t fiddle with or monitor your traffic.

If you happen to upset some crazy person on the internet while playing an online game, on Omegle, countless other services or websites, or just because you exist, you don’t have to worry about the person discovering your IP address through various means which include inspecting the traffic in wireshark or even sending you a custom link that logs your IP address when you click it.

Your ISP can’t sell your data because there is nothing to collect.

If your IP address gets blocked on a certain website you can easily change it.

You gain a bit of privacy when visiting websites that other people using the same VPN/IP have visited, since you are sharing the same address.

In general you don’t really have to worry about your internet traffic being tied to you.

I’m sure I could think of more if I took the time.