Hi everyone, new to VPNs, interested in subscribing to one. I use a very small local ISP who actually lives down the street from me. I’m in a rural area and my options are his line of sight internet or terrible satellite internet. He claims it doesn’t matter if I have a VPN or not, my activity will be available to him and he will not hesitate to turn over my information if asked by authorities. Which I completely understand and don’t resent him for.
I’m not looking to hide nefarious activity but like most people using a VPN I just want to have my privacy. Is he correct? So hard to know when searching for a good VPN service with the amount of information available about VPNs these days.
All your ISP should see is that there is encrypted traffic going between you and your VPN provider so the person at the ISP is either lying or doesn’t know how a VPN works.
What you can’t really be certain of is that the VPN you choose doesn’t keep logs (many say they don’t but how can you be certain) so in essence you move trust away from your ISP and place it in your VPN provider.
He’s full of shit. All he can do is see how much traffic is going through and that it’s all encrypted. The worst he can do is see there is a VPN and shut you off.
if he says that, and you want privacy from him, you should definitely use a VPN…he will not be able to see any of your data, or even which sites you visit online.
He claims it doesn’t matter if I have a VPN or not, my activity will be available to him and he will not hesitate to turn over my information if asked by authorities. Which I completely understand and don’t resent him for.
First of all he is obliged to. That’s the country and todays reality you live in.
Secondly his answer is correct. What he doesn’t say is that he can’t give the information he doesn’t have.
Thirdly if you use a VPN, the VPN provider will be the first point of contact, not your ISP unless you leak in a horrible way.
Technically true, but this does not mean ISP’s can’t do heuristics on what that data looks like. That’s how they identify (and throttle) torrenting activity, the data can’t be read but its external patterns and behaviors can be identified and catalogued.
Seriously, especially from someone who’s literally your neighbor as well. I wouldn’t want any of my neighbors, even ones I liked, having the level of access to my web info that any ISP would have-- I’d be using one for everything were I in your situation, just so they don’t have any potential dirt that can be used in a RL neighbor dispute down the line.
Even if he hadn’t reacted so aggressively, that situation calls for a VPN of some sort, whether it’s a commercial one or a self-hosted one on a VPS just so he’s kept out of the loop.
A VPN makes “a difference”, it’s just not a cure-all that guarantees privacy. It’s a useful tool, but you need to add others too: blockers in the browser, container tabs in FF browser, delete cookies, don’t give private info to accounts, etc.
First time I hear about “brightvpn,” just checked their page and it says “you allow companies to use your internet connection” & literally has an “am I the product” page. I don’t get how safe a vpn like that sounds, could you share your experience with it?