{"id":241076,"date":"2025-05-14T08:06:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T08:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/apple-2\/do-you-use-it-vpns\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T08:06:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T08:06:23","slug":"do-you-use-it-vpns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=241076","title":{"rendered":"Do You Use It? VPNs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Virtual private networks, or VPNs, promise enhanced privacy and security by routing your Internet traffic through an encrypted tunnel to a theoretically trusted remote server, ensuring that no one on your local network or between you and the destination can see inside that tunnel. VPNs are also commonly used to circumvent location-based restrictions, such as watching the BBC from outside the UK, and IP-based limits, such as those schools employ to block games and adult sites.<\/p>\n<p>But what about that remote server? You have to trust that the VPN provider has your best interests at heart because it can see all your unencrypted traffic. Even with encrypted HTTPS connections, the VPN provider can still track which sites you visit, when you visit them, and how much data you transfer. You\u2019re essentially transferring the visibility of your online activity from your Internet provider to your VPN provider.<\/p>\n<p>All that is a long way of explaining why it\u2019s a big deal that a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techtransparencyproject.org\/articles\/apple-offers-apps-with-ties-to-chinese-military\">recent report from the Tech Transparency Project<\/a> identified 20 of the top 100 free VPN apps in the App Store as being owned\u2014often surreptitiously\u2014by Chinese companies. One of these companies, Qihoo 360, has been sanctioned by the US Department of Defense as a \u201cChinese military company.\u201d It\u2019s behind at least five free VPN apps: Turbo VPN, VPN Proxy Master, Thunder VPN, Snap VPN, and Signal Secure VPN.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re using one of those apps, or one of the many others listed in the Tech Transparency Project report, now would be a good time to pick another. Or perhaps you\u2019re unhappy with the VPN you use, or have been thinking that you should start using a VPN. This week\u2019s Do You Use It? poll aims to determine which VPNs are most popular among the TidBITS audience.<\/p>\n<p>This seemingly simple question quickly grew in complexity. Many people don\u2019t use VPNs at all, and others use them only occasionally or to achieve a specific outcome. So our first question is: <em>When do you use a VPN? <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/talk.tidbits.com\/t\/do-you-use-it-vpns\/31030?u=ace\">Respond to these polls on the TidBITS Talk site<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For those who answered something other than \u201cNever,\u201d the questions continue, with this next one aimed at helping those who aren\u2019t sure what the point of a VPN is: <em>Why do you use a VPN?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>A system-level VPN protects all the traffic from your device, but there are also browser-based VPNs that are limited to traffic in Web browsers unless you install additional software to bring them up to full VPN status. Additionally, there are browser extensions that are proxies that route traffic through a different remote server without strong encryption\u2014again, they protect only data within the browser. Depending on the desired outcome, that may be a distinction without a difference for most people. Our next question\u2014<em>What type of VPN do you use?<\/em>\u2014at least tries to tease out some of that distinction.<\/p>\n<p>At long last, we can return to the original question, focusing on the system-level VPN services to keep things somewhat manageable. Since Discourse polls are restricted to 20 answers, I\u2019ve chosen what seem to be the most popular VPNs with help from TidBITS Talkers. If your VPN isn\u2019t listed, please add it in the comments, with a link. We\u2019re also interested in hearing what you like or don\u2019t like about the VPN service you use. So, <em>which VPN do you use?<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"c-post__link\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/talk.tidbits.com\/t\/do-you-use-it-vpns\/31030?u=ace\">Read original article<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Virtual private networks, or VPNs, promise enhanced privacy and security by routing your Internet traffic through an encrypted tunnel to a theoretically trusted remote server, ensuring that no one on your local network or between you and the destination can see inside that tunnel. VPNs are also commonly used to circumvent location-based restrictions, such as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11768],"tags":[11336,69821],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-241076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple-2","tag-vpn","tag-vpns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Do You Use It? VPNs - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=241076\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do You Use It? VPNs - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Virtual private networks, or VPNs, promise enhanced privacy and security by routing your Internet traffic through an encrypted tunnel to a theoretically trusted remote server, ensuring that no one on your local network or between you and the destination can see inside that tunnel. VPNs are also commonly used to circumvent location-based restrictions, such as [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=241076\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-05-14T08:06:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=241076#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=241076\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b85e3c3dc0e1daea076524dc8810c371\"},\"headline\":\"Do You Use It? 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