Use of a VPN

[Barkingsparrow]

I like watching Youtube videos on travel, long-distance thru-hiking, and astronomy/science. During elections, I start seeing more political Youtube ads which annoys me to no end. So I just set the VPN to say, Australia, and presto, political drivel gone.

[cheesepep]

I also use a VPN to get around the China firewall (when I travel). It only works sometimes, however.

Does the vpn work? I call my wife’s colleague was visiting his colleague in China but when he got a warning for doing certain searches. I was curious if vpn get blocked.

It works sometimes. Sometimes I cannot even connect at all. And sometimes, it takes a while to connect, but it works. Things may be slower than normal. I never had any warnings for doing searches.

Please note that from my own limited experience that Hilton hotels, at least in my area, seem to allow VPNs, whereas Hyatts do not. At least one Hilton allows you to access Youtube, Google, FB, etc without the use of your own VPN (I do, however, use my own) because I suppose that the entire hotel is on their own custom VPN.

[Hebell]

I use the free VPN service through Google one. I pay for 2 TB of storage, so the VPN is a freebie on top of that.

it does not allow you to pick your location. But it does what I needed to do, which is to add a layer of security while I am on any shared network. I leave my default tablets, phones, and even desktop in VPN enabled mode.

[will86]

Downloading Netflix shows isn't like "buying" a movie. It's just caching them locally so you don't have to stream them. Netflix isnt regularly searching your hard drive for unauthorized content, it's simply refusing to play its own content in locations where it doesn't have the right to do so.

Netflix is not deleting your iTunes movies, DVD rips, etc.

netflix would need at least read and write privileges on your device to accomplish that.
Do you know for a fact you did not also grant execute privileges to them?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleeta ... a-service/

[bikechuck]

I like watching Youtube videos on travel, long-distance thru-hiking, and astronomy/science. During elections, I start seeing more political Youtube ads which annoys me to no end. So I just set the VPN to say, Australia, and presto, political drivel gone.

I have never used a VPN but I would like to. Can you share which VPN you use?

[dukeblue219]

Downloading Netflix shows isn't like "buying" a movie. It's just caching them locally so you don't have to stream them. Netflix isnt regularly searching your hard drive for unauthorized content, it's simply refusing to play its own content in locations where it doesn't have the right to do so.

Netflix is not deleting your iTunes movies, DVD rips, etc.

netflix would need at least read and write privileges on your device to accomplish that.
Do you know for a fact you did not also grant execute privileges to them?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleeta ... a-service/

Of course it needs read/write, that's a core function of a streaming app, but it should be sandboxed like any other app. Apps cannot silently get execute privileges for other binaries so I'm not sure what the concern realistically is.