VPN's are important

[0]

No, seriously, they are very important in this day and age. If you care one iota about your privacy online, you would get one. VPN's aren't too expensive, and block your IP address to the outside world.

I've recently looked at my own IP and a few friends, and if you search them in a whois database, you can get VERY specific information. It is possible to even have a street address, which is ridiculously dangerous.

Want to check what kind of information your ip gives yourself? Go to duckduckgo.com and type "what is my ip address". They will let you know. Then, you can search "whois IPADDRESSHERE" and see just what kind of information pops up. This is the type of stuff that pokecommunity, google, twitter, reddit, whatever else you use, can see.

You guys shouldn't underestimate this. Get a VPN for even normal browsing, you can't really go wrong.

Why not post your results? Mine tells me the city, state, and country I hail from.

 

[Banz]

Meh. If someone can trace my home address that's nothing to worry about. Most of me details are already public anyways. I did a search and they all got the city wrong (most said Mumbai and other neighbouring cities). The closest location they came up with was still half a kilometre away from me house.

I still use a VPN but for different reasons. Most of the cricket and football streaming sites are blocked by the DoT, GoI so I use a VPN to circumvent that.

 

[0]

It really depends on what you're using it for. The average consumer probably isn't super concerned with privacy and probably won't shovel out a few extra dollars a month to have security that they probably won't even take advantage of. The purposes of a VPN are for privacy and security, and when you're an average consumer that's using just Facebook, email, and a bit of YouTube and perhaps some online shopping, they're already basically handing out personal information and completely bypassing the entire purpose of that security layer if they're wanting to minimize their online footprint. For security though, especially in public, a VPN is good to have, especially when network traffic can be tapped quite easily on a public network. Adding a layer of end-to-end encryption is always good to have in public. For other purposes though, such as overcoming geolocation blocking, bypassing internet filtering, whistleblowing, or other less-legal purposes, a VPN is a good layer of security to start off with.

You do have a point. Most people already are intertwined with social media, so when they give out personal details, a VPN probably doesn't do much for them. I personally don't use such things, and I'm a somewhat private person, so perhaps I'm in a different category.

 

[Esper]

I've used a VPN to get around region restricted media before, including trying to purchase stuff that I wasn't able to normally, but normally I don't bother because it slows things down a lot.

 

[Melody]

There are "free" VPNs that exist, that allow a user some brief sessions easily for the occasional privacy need, or to circumvent restrictions. While they arent perfect, they are fine if you need a quick workaround to a blocked site or just need a browsing session to be unsnoopable, like when you are sitting on a public Hotspot.

 

[Snorl.ax]

For people like u, I suggest u buy a VPS at some provider like Linode, DigitalOcean.
Then u'll have ur own IP and be able to use that for VPN use and website hosting (When it comes to that, I have to say u could use certbot to enable SSL on the site......) and other things u could do on a computer......

 

[Tsutarja]

For people like u, I suggest u buy a VPS at some provider like Linode, DigitalOcean.
Then u'll have ur own IP and be able to use that for VPN use and website hosting (When it comes to that, I have to say u could use certbot to enable SSL on the site......) and other things u could do on a computer......

For what the OP is asking for, I think a VPN would suffice as there should be no need to get a VPS for simple protection from your ISP.