Just been thinking about this lately. On public wifi? VPN all the way. but what about on your phone, when you are connected to your carrier? Surely this is safe right? The only thing to be concerned about is probably privacy reasons.
On my phone, I rarely browse and when I do, i dont mind if that browsing activity is “monitored” by my cellular network. Most of the time, on my phone i just use whatsapp/facebook/linkedin/etc. In your opinion, do you think my usage warrants 24/7 VPN use?
24/7 Also. I have the feeling of being more private from my ISP and websites I visit
Surely this is safe right?
What are you attempting to be “safe” from? Safety isn’t really an absolute and can mean different things to different people.
tldr: depends on your VPN & Country
The thing is, when you are using a VPN service, you are actually giving them your traffic. God knows if they log. Or, if the VPN provider’s ISP logs. “Safer” is being safe from the ISP. But if someone actually needs (NSA, FBI etc) its totally up to the provider to decide what to do. You have no ways to prove that they take any logs.
Also, what protocol is supported. Say if there is iKev2. Then probably all the time, like its designed for mobile connections that are unstable. Only OpenVPN? No chance. Take a crap ton of time to reconnect after moving to another tower.
So largely- depends on your use case, and your service, and whether you can accept the risks of getting a company into your data. If it is just whatsapp/fb/lik etc, I would say, don’t bother. Chances are, no one cares about a single man’s data on its own unless that this is related to their own stuff.
And it take up bandwidth for other users (not like that it should be a problem, but it is with some providers). Its like that if you have something, you don’t have to use it.
But for a piece of mind, if you are in the 5 eyes and if you are planning to do something bad (strongly advise AGAINST), you might want to consider using it. Remember to choose a reliable provider tho.
Hopes that this makes sense.
24/7 on vpn. Feel safer.
Joking aside (not really), it depends on your ISP and local legislation. If you live in a country with good data protection laws in place, and where your ISP’s income is solely what you pay them and not the data they collect about you and sell to others, then your best VPN is your home router whenever you’re not home.
I trust my ISP. They don’t make money from my data because that would get them into trouble, and they don’t have to, since the service isn’t exactly cheap. So what I do is I have a WireGuard tunnel in place on my phone that is active whenever I’m not in my home wifi. It’ll simply connect me to the internet through my home ISP’s network.
This certainly makes sense when I’m in a public wifi, but might be overkill when I’m connected to my cellphone carrier since that one has to obey the same laws. But due to the ads on their website and the bad usability of their billing system, I just trust them a little less.
Can you trust that VPN provider you found online 100%? Then good. Use it. I just think a LOT of them are way shadier than any ISP in a country with actual data protection laws.
Especially on mobile data, tweaked for performance if necessary.
Mobile providers have a bad history of collecting too much data and not protecting it. I would argue that public WiFi is much “safer”. I prefer to provide all ISPs with as little information as possible. I will pay well for their service and just want internet without more eyes.
Not “browsing” on your phone doesn’t change that you are providing a lot of internet traffic through apps and OS. Of course the apps you list are tracking huge amounts of your data, so if you are comfortable with that you may be comfortable with another layer of collection and selling of your information. I prefer services I pay for not to do that.
VPNs and VPN Service Providers are just one small tool for security and privacy and do not provide any of either on their own.
Whenever out of the country. When here in the states it just seems to unreasonably slow my connection.
I use mobile hotspot so when I stream something I use the VPN.
Used to do it 24/7, but I don’t like the unnecessary slow connection, so I stopped using it on mobile data
Yeah you’re right. If you use WhatsApp/Facebook, it really doesn’t matter. You’ve given up privacy already.
I use my wireguard VPN to tunnel home. Then I get to take advantage of my Adguard Home ad blocking.
No way. I only use VPN for activities that I dont want officially logged. I would rather my cellular carrier and internet provider at home have access to logs as opposed to going through the VPN. On the off chance that my VPN is not trustworthy, Id rather them only have access when I am bittorrenting or the like, not when I am banking or doing investment stuff.
edit: Thats why my bank, work, etc dont let me use my VPN to log into.
Thanks for your response. I personally 24/7 on my PC too. However, on my phone, I rarely browse and when I do, i dont mind if that browsing activity is “monitored” by my cellular network. Most of the time, on my phone i just use whatsapp/facebook/linkedin/etc. In your opinion, do you think my usage warrants 24/7 VPN use?
Ahh yes but VPN = security go brrrrrr
5 eyes
My no step on snek meme will protect me from those eyes. /s
Seriously I am just a regular person on the interweb. Lived for a long time with little online presence, but over the recent years my online life is out there. From banking to amazon accounts to ISP providers to well ?
I started using a vpn full time just a week ago. No loss in speed so far, as I don’t pirate/share, game - well not fps high end types, stream.
I cannot prove anything but I am learning some new things that make me understand a bit more about my online presence and behavior. And I feel a little better about being on the web now.
Is it not really frustrating with the slower speed and relentless captchas? I don’t know what to do since for whatever reason the google captchas just won’t let me through.
Not “browsing” on your phone doesn’t change that you are providing a lot of internet traffic through apps and OS
Thank you, finally someone with an indepth answer and technical explanation.
I thought that since i dont browse a ton on my phone, theres no need for VPN. So data goes in and out of my phone even when im not browsing yes?
This is the thing. I feel like the stuff I do on my phone doesnt disclose too much information. As mentioned, i just whatsapp/fb/linkedin etc. and minimal web browsing. Unsure if this kind of use warrants a VPN
These “stream for free” plans really show how deep they are scanning your data. It’s cool if you know you’re trading your privacy (usage information for them to sell) for “free” data, but most people don’t consider that.