Ask HN: Do you use a VPN? Does your family?

[asim]

Curious to know who here uses a VPN and whether you get your family to use one as well. I think I'd struggle to get people to install it.

[runjake]

I use Tailscale on everything, instead of opening up ports on a firewall.

I use Mullvad for any unfriendly environments (public wi-fi, cellular networks, etc)

Family members use iCloud Private Relay[1] because it's almost completely seamless.

1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212614

[Raed667 → runjake]

Curious why you consider cellular networks as an "unfriendly environment" ?

[runjake → Raed667]

Because, at least in the US, cellular operators monitor customer traffic and sell it to marketers, along with your identity details.

[replwoacause → runjake]

Thanks for the link to the documentation on Private Relay. I didn’t know about that.

[PaulHoule]

I use Tailscale on all my devices so I can access my "home" computer and the applications on it from anywhere.

My impression with the "VPN for outside traffic" is that somebody who wants to gather a lot of sketchy traffic for monitoring it might just start a VPN service to concentrate it.

[sysadm1n → PaulHoule]

Some peace of mind: https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/4/20/mullvad-vpn-was-subjec...

Not saying they're now bulletproof as they have to comply with Swedish law, but that news is somewhat comforting. Better than popup VPNs who just plug in AWS credentials and then just add customers, and then get raided a week later.

[temp2022account]

I hate to be that guy, but the vast majority of people using "VPN"s are actually using Proxies. A VPN connects a laptop at starbucks to a printer at the office so you can print something. A Proxy forwards requests on your behalf to web servers and returns results. Modern VPNs are marketed as such because people love the "P" part without realizing that... they already had that with SSL.

[asim → temp2022account]

Morale of the story, build a proxy and call it a vpn?

[Aperocky]

Isn't using a commercial VPN exposing yourself to the same risk except simply to a different/single provider?

[ptsneves]

I do when i can. I have protonVPN but then most of the times i get banned from usual sites or get captioned to hell. I kind of gave up, as I believe this is the natural outcome of having real anonymity: abuse.

[lapufifarre668]

Yes multiple ones. Trying to get my parents to use one, but guess they are to old to get the concept. Ideas how to explain it to them?

[rozenmd]

I use a few:

WARP/1.1.1.1, Mullvad, and Blokada on Android

[KomoD]

Yep, no.