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It's not just that they're suspect or unreliable. They're complete bullshit. The actual use of VPN technology is to create virtual networks that are private (h
by _wcd2 4y ago
It's not just that they're suspect or unreliable. They're complete bullshit.
The actual use of VPN technology is to create virtual networks that are private (hence the name). It's a system level technology. There are several types of network topologies you can set up, when I was learning about this I found this article which is quite nice: https://www.procustodibus.com/blog/2020/10/wireguard-topologies https://www.procustodibus.com/blog/2020/10/wireguard-topolog.... You can proxy traffic through a VPN, but the only scenario I can think of in which it makes sense is if you are an OSINT researcher and you need a safe system on which to conduct your research.
If you need to proxy traffic and "hide" your IP, just use a flipping proxy. It's an application level technology (e.g. for torrenting, every torrent client under the sun supports a SOCKS5 proxy). If you don't have the patience to set up a VPS yourself, you can even use something like Outline (https://getoutline.org https://getoutline.org) which automates that (and it has a mobile client app as well).
If you need privacy (and to actually hide your IP), then use Tor.
- selectodude 4y agoUnfortunately that doesn’t fix the real reason most people use VPNs, which is torrenting. Nobody should be using NordVPN to hide from a nation state, but for torrenting they add one level of obfuscation.
- nfbyte 4y agoI specifically mentioned torrenting, please re-read. There is no reason to have all the network I/O of your computer go through an extra hop just for one application (e.g. a torrent client) when that application can be configured to use a proxy instead. It increases the network latency, complexity and attack surface of your system.
- barbacoa 4y agoIf the main use case is torrents, I think the reason why the method you mention isn't commonly used is that it is complicated to understand/set up and hard to verify. I've seen more advanced users encapsulate everything in a VM so that non-VPN traffic can be blocked globally by the OS.