The IT Nerd

You’ve likely seen ads on line or via your favourite YouTuber saying that you need a VPN. And those ads make all sorts of claims about what they do. But the question is, do you need a VPN? Well, the answer is a bit complicated. So instead of giving you a yes or no answer, I’m going to walk you through all the various claims that VPN companies make to give you the information that will allow you to make a decision if a VPN is right for you.

First, let’s talk about what a VPN is. A VPN creates an encrypted connection between your device and a remote server operated by a VPN service. All your internet traffic is routed through this tunnel to the server, which then sends the traffic off to the public Internet as usual.Any traffic coming into your device is routed in a reverse manner. Because it’s encrypted, nobody can see what the traffic is until it exits the server and enters the public Internet. Which is why VPNs appeal to some people.

The next thing that I will do is to deal with if you even need to pay for a VPN. I say that because some home router companies make it possible for you to create your own basic VPN if you have their router hardware that supports a VPN. I’ll use ASUS as an example as that is what I presently have at home. They have their “WireGuard” VPN feature that is built into many of their routers if your firmware is new enough. And they have documents that describe how to set it up on the router end, as well as the client end. In my mind, this is meant for people who have the time to tinker with stuff like this to get things working properly rather than the average end user, and have very basic needs. But the advantage of creating your own VPN is that this is a $0 option that gets you some but not all of the benefits of a commercial VPN. More on that in a bit.

Speaking of the benefits of a commercial VPN that you often hear about, let’s walk through those and detail the facts behind them:

• A VPN will make you anonymous on-line: This is sort of true. I say sort of because of the fact that a VPN makes it more difficult but not impossible for your on line activities to be seen by others. Your ISP for example may make a ton of money by selling information about what you do online. And a VPN may stop them from profiting from your surfing habits. But advertisers on the other hand have way more ways to track your activities online such as using digital fingerprinting or browser fingerprinting to do that. That means that a VPN may not fully help you to be invisible online.
• A VPN will protect you against malware and spyware: Frankly if you have up to date security software on your computer, I cannot really see how a VPN would add any additional value in this use case.
• A VPN will keep you safe from other online threats: This isn’t exactly true. The main threats that you have to worry about online besides spyware and malware are pop up scams, social engineering scams, and phishing sites. A VPN will not address any of that. A better strategy to avoiding those threats is to use a DNS service such as Canadian Shield which will reduce the possibility that you will get hit by malware, pop up scams, and phishing scams by blocking them before they hit your computer as long as those threats are known to that service. Plus I will note that some routers have built in security software to do the same thing, along with the protection that modern web browsers have. Thus I have difficulty seeing how VPNs add value in this use case.
• A VPN will hide your BitTorrent activity: This is likely true if you’re the sort of person who is into “acquiring” copies of movies using this less than legal method. Your ISP is unlikely to see that you’re torrenting. But they will be able to see that you’re using a significant amount of bandwidth. Which means you may still get a email from your ISP complaining about your activities.
• A VPN will protect you if you use public WiFi: This is true. Coffee shop or hotel WiFi can be simply sketchy or really sketchy. For example, I’ve come across man in the middle attacks in a big name coffee shop chain here in Canada. My assumption is that they were sniffing traffic to figure out what you were doing so that they can either block it or sell that info. Perhaps both. And there’s nothing stopping a threat actor from setting up a fake WiFi network in a coffee shop to steal your information. Never mind a threat actor hacking a WiFi network to do the same thing. Thus using a VPN will help you to stay safer when you’re away from home.
• A VPN can help you to bypass censorship: This is largely true. VPNs are often the go to method to get access to news, information, as well as using apps that may not be legal in a given country. The catch is that in any country that has censorship in place, it’s often illegal to use a VPN to get access to news, information, or to use an app that isn’t legal in whatever country we’re talking about. Plus you might not be able to use a VPN at all as the government may have means in place to stop that from happening.
• A VPN can help you to get access to streaming content that you can’t get in your country: This is largely true. VPNs have been used for a very long time to get access to content such as the British version of Netflix or Hulu if you live outside the US. The thing is that streaming services know many people use VPNs to access their content in ways that they don’t like and actively work to prevent it. Thus you should be advised that this might work until it doesn’t.
• A VPN can make it look like you’re in another country: This is true. A VPN can make it look like you’re someplace else. That can help you to unlock streaming content for example. Or bypass censorship.

Now I want to circle back to the third paragraph about creating your own VPN. While that can be an option for some, it doesn’t give you the ability to do the last three things on the list above. So if you want to do your own VPN you should keep that in mind if any of that matters to you.

The final point that I want to cover is if you can trust your VPN provider. Many VPN companies have a “no logs” policy. That means that they don’t track your online activities. Or at least they say that they don’t. But besides the fact that a VPN provider may be compelled to hand over info to law enforcement or a government, there’s a bunch of other things to consider:

• Since VPN providers see everything you do online, there is nothing stopping them from selling that data.
• It could inject ads into the websites you view.

My advice on that front is that when you choose a VPN provider, you should look for third party auditing that is easily found for your VPN provider as well as clear privacy policies that spell out what they do and don’t do so that you can make an informed decision as to if they are the right choice for your needs.

So based on that, I would say whether you need a VPN or not depends on your use case. There are legitimate uses for a VPN, and there are reasons where having a VPN would make no difference in your life. You’re going to have decide which side of the fence that you’re on and whether a VPN would be worth it for you. Hopefully this has been helpful to you, and if you have any questions, leave a comment below and I will do my best to answer them.