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Why are there a million VPN apps and protocols with pointless variations? Why isn’t the VPN software included in my operating system enough? e.g. Settings/Gene

Why are there a million VPN apps and protocols with pointless variations? Why isn’t the VPN software included in my operating system enough? e.g. Settings/General/VPN on iOS. macOS and Windows have something similar. EDIT: This was an honest question. If anyone has any insights to share, I would really appreciate it. Over the years, I have dealt with some truly questionable third-party VPN software from the usual big name networking equipment vendors and plenty of other so called “security” vendors.

r3bl 8y ago
Because VPN is a service, not a piece of software. You're paying third parties for the service, and those third parties use the money to maintain the infrastructure powerful enough for each user to have high speed VPN service (nobody's gonna use a VPN that throttles the speed by 90%) across different geographical regions. If Microsoft and Apple wanted to offer a VPN as a first-party service out of the box, they would be forced to maintain a pretty complex infrastructure across multiple regions and somehow be able to support way more traffic than any third party VPN provider (because of their name). So, where's the money for the infrastructure going to come from? In Facebook's case, form mining the data. I would argue that Apple isn't stupid enough to attempt something like that, and as for Google, they already do have a first-party VPN integrated into Android[0]. I would argue that the reason that third-party VPNs are shady is because they need a large infrastructure in place before they can offer the service. Once they do have the infrastructure in place, they're not making profit, but covering their losses, while at the same time being forced to scale even further. [0] On Nexus/Pixel devices from certain regions that activates automatically when connected to an insecure WiFi: https://www.howtogeek.com/275474/how-to-use-androids-wi-fi-assistant-to-keep-your-phone-safe-on-public-networks/ https://www.howtogeek.com/275474/how-to-use-androids-wi-fi-a...
- sigjuice 8y ago
  You are confusing service with software. All major operating systems have built-in VPN support. Check the network settings on your phone or computer. There will be a section for VPN settings.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
I suggest you read up on how VPNs actually work. You're just tunnelling traffic through someone else's connection. A VPN app included in your OS would relay all of your internet traffic through whoever wrote the OS (unless they partnered up with another provider, I guess). I'll give Apple the benefit of the doubt but I'm not sure I'd be keen on this kind of setup in the case of Google or Microsoft. Then again, they have access to all of your browsing data anyway via the OS so what's to lose?
- opencl 8y ago
  Why would OS built in support go through the OS vendor's servers? It's exactly like every other network service built into the OS. Android and Windows at least both have built in VPN support and you just type in the server details of whoever your VPN provider is.
computerfriend 8y ago
Your OS probably only supports IPSec, etc., because of kernel support. OpenVPN is a third-party application.

r3bl 8y ago

Because VPN is a service, not a piece of software. You're paying third parties for the service, and those third parties use the money to maintain the infrastructure powerful enough for each user to have high speed VPN service (nobody's gonna use a VPN that throttles the speed by 90%) across different geographical regions. If Microsoft and Apple wanted to offer a VPN as a first-party service out of the box, they would be forced to maintain a pretty complex infrastructure across multiple regions and somehow be able to support way more traffic than any third party VPN provider (because of their name). So, where's the money for the infrastructure going to come from? In Facebook's case, form mining the data. I would argue that Apple isn't stupid enough to attempt something like that, and as for Google, they already do have a first-party VPN integrated into Android[0]. I would argue that the reason that third-party VPNs are shady is because they need a large infrastructure in place before they can offer the service. Once they do have the infrastructure in place, they're not making profit, but covering their losses, while at the same time being forced to scale even further. [0] On Nexus/Pixel devices from certain regions that activates automatically when connected to an insecure WiFi: https://www.howtogeek.com/275474/how-to-use-androids-wi-fi-assistant-to-keep-your-phone-safe-on-public-networks/ https://www.howtogeek.com/275474/how-to-use-androids-wi-fi-a...

sigjuice 8y ago
You are confusing service with software. All major operating systems have built-in VPN support. Check the network settings on your phone or computer. There will be a section for VPN settings.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

I suggest you read up on how VPNs actually work. You're just tunnelling traffic through someone else's connection. A VPN app included in your OS would relay all of your internet traffic through whoever wrote the OS (unless they partnered up with another provider, I guess). I'll give Apple the benefit of the doubt but I'm not sure I'd be keen on this kind of setup in the case of Google or Microsoft. Then again, they have access to all of your browsing data anyway via the OS so what's to lose?

opencl 8y ago
Why would OS built in support go through the OS vendor's servers? It's exactly like every other network service built into the OS. Android and Windows at least both have built in VPN support and you just type in the server details of whoever your VPN provider is.

computerfriend 8y ago

Your OS probably only supports IPSec, etc., because of kernel support. OpenVPN is a third-party application.