Ok, thanks. I’ll get her to ask her IT folks about it.
What do we think of Hotspot Shield free for Firefox?
TANSTAAFL. Don’t use free VPNs.
Gotcha. (Haven’t seen that in a long time.)
I like Private Internet Access and NordVPN. If I were you though, before signing up with either I’d double check their bona fides.
Definitely don’t use Hola where they use you, the free users, as the exit nodes for their little make-shift VPN.
I still use PIA , but half the time I end up turning it off , because I can’t watch Amazon stuff with it on.
So it seems that Mozilla is coming out with their own VPN. Anyone have details?
Edit:
Yes, it’s rebranded Mullvad, which is the gold standard for paid VPNs. In more ways than one, it’s also extremely expensive compared to many alternatives. Runs wireguard which is what you want, and it’s a bit cheaper than Mullvad at 5 dollars versus 5 euros per month.
Yeah Wirecutter chose Mullvad as their best pick.
In truth, there are only 4 reasons to get a VPN.
- Piracy
- Evading geographical restrictions to watch US Netflix in the EU or whatever
- Evading work restrictions to read facebook at work (or porn you cheeky monkey, or netflix, or whatever else they’re blocking)
- You live in an authoritative country that monitors citizens or has a firewall blocking access, and you’re writing something they would call seditious, or you’re gay in an Islamic country, etc.
You do not need a VPN to surf the internet via public wifi. Every site is SSL encrypted these days. Any bad actor sniffing the network will know which site you went to, but can’t see what you did there.
VPNs are extremely lucrative services so people pay for them when they have no particular need and leave them on. Most people should just save their money and battery life.
- Fixing retarded ISP routing issues that pop up now and again
- Misc issues when traveling
Mullvad has an independent security audit of their client here but I don’t see one for the service as a whole?
I’m surpised if that’s true. Both Encrypt.me and TunnelBear do annual audits of their entire service. They don’t support WireGuard, though.
WireGuard is very low overhead, which is great for a VPN. As a client it can even run over 100Mbps on a tiny little travel router, or it’s big brother.
I get Encrypt.me free via my eero Plus router security subscription. Were I still traveling for work though I’d seriously consider the Mozilla option just for WireGuard.
This was the first VPN thread so I figured I’d ask here. I have a friend who does a lot of remote work for different hospitals throughout the US. She wants to travel outside the US (Columbia specifically) and VPN back into the US to be able to work remotely and still get to everything she needs to. I assume this isn’t a hard thing to do, but figured I’d check here first for any suggestions.
Not at all, just pay for a VPN service. I would suggest Mullvad.
Never heard of Mullvad, is it better than NordVPN?
Yes. Much more expensive than deals you can find elsewhere though.
Hmm looks like Mozilla VPN uses the Mullvad back end.
FWIW, I use Malwareybytes Privacy. It uses wireguard, too.