Is a VPN needed when you have an antivirus ?

L

Looping79

Hi guys.

I hear more and more about VPNs for online security. Yet, I'm not sure to really understand what it's for and if it's really useful when you already have an antivirus on Windows. I've just read this article : https://the-bestvpn.com/antivirus-or-vpn/ and apparently, the 2 solutions are complimentary.

The issue is that I'm not really willing to pay something like 5 to 10$ / month for a VPN if my antivirus already does a good job at protecting me. What do you think ? Should I use a VPN in addition to my antivirus (Bitdefender), or would it be a waste of money ?

Thank you for your help

Looping
 
VPN (Virtual Private Networks) is exactly as the name implies - for privacy. It's most commonly used when accessing public WIFI because ALL traffic is encrypted. Public WIFI is notorious for being sniffed for logons, passwords etc which is why VPN has grown in popularity. There even used to be a Firefox extension called Firesheep that would allow anyone to sniff login data while connected to public WIFI.

VPN WILL NOT protect you from any kind of malware you may get from a dodgy website, that's what your antivirus and quite frankly, your common sense is for.

That article is somewhat misleading - while your ISP can't track you the VPN provider certainly can so you aren't truly anonymous.

You need VPN if you:

a) Use public WIFI hotspots
b) Want to access Geo-locked content (Netflix, etc.)
c) Want to mask your IP address (remember the VPN provider knows your actual IP address)

If none of these requirements apply to you then you don't need VPN.
 
SmilinDoug said:
Instead of a VPN I have downloaded and installed the Tor web browser. I've installed a messenger called Ricochet that uses the Tor network, and that works fine too.
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You could use both a VPN and the Tor network in series, which would grant you an even higher degree of privacy - tracing you would be nearly impossible and decoding your data would require decades of efforts and an enormous waste of resources.

Somewhat paranoid if you will, but still quite understandable in an utterly paranoid world like today's internet :(
 
Chiron said:
You could use both a VPN and the Tor network in series, which would grant you an even higher degree of privacy - tracing you would be nearly impossible and decoding your data would require decades of efforts and an enormous waste of resources.

Somewhat paranoid if you will, but still quite understandable in an utterly paranoid world like today's internet :(
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But then the rabbithole of Tor with VPN starts, do you trust the VPN etc. The best way (if you don't trust VPNs) is nodehopping on Tor, through trusted nodes of course...
 
I found an old OpenVPN version: https://web.archive.org/web/20050301022932/http://openvpn.net/download.html#beta
If you have SP2, use OpenVPN 2.0_rc16 or newer

This is the version near Windows Vista ("Windows Vista-ready", as the creators wrote): https://web.archive.org/web/20080730205524/http://openvpn.net/index.php/downloads.html

Here is the OpenVPN book: https://web.archive.org/web/20070106180407/http://openvpnbook.packtpub.com/

For help and support of this version, check this out: https://web.archive.org/web/20130405172012/https://forums.openvpn.net/

OpenVPN is not just a proxy - drop in a .ovpn file and start using your VPN!
 
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