Are VPNs worthless?

I don't know about your bank, maybe they don't like the anonymous nature of the connection, but for all of the other services you mentioned, they are legal restrictions about where they can stream content. I wouldn't be surprised if there were financial repercussions if they stream out of area so they err on the side of caution.

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it's really for concealing your online identity.

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How does it hide it differently than say duckduckgo? Seriously have no clue how to be the most secure in general online.

And what is the current best one?

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How does it hide it differently than say duckduckgo?

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Let's say you're at your mom's house with your best friend Rick. You tell Rick, "ogay uybay omesay eedway omfray ablopay". Rick goes to Pablo's house and buys some weed. He returns with it in a brown paper bag.

What does ISP mom know? What does VPN Rick know? What does Pornsite Pablo know?

That is basically how a VPN works. It's not end to end anonymity.

I currently use private internet access (PIA) for home use. It works pretty great and I can choose any server locations of my choosing locally or internationally. However, the only protection a VPN will offer is to conceal your IP address. If you are using Chrome for example, google is still tracking all of your searches, browsing, and behavior. This is called digital fingerprinting. They track the operating system you use,sites you frequent etc. This is to paint a digital canvas that will know who you are no matter the IP address you are using.

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If you are using Chrome for example, google is still tracking all of your searches, browsing, and behavior. This is called digital fingerprinting. They track the operating system you use,sites you frequent etc. This is to paint a digital canvas that will know who you are no matter the IP address you are using.

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But if you combine a VPN with TOR browswer, you are ok?

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Let's say you're at your mom's house with your best friend Rick. You tell Rick, "ogay uybay omesay eedway omfray ablopay". Rick goes to Pablo's house and buys some weed. He returns with it in a brown paper bag.

What does ISP mom know? What does VPN Rick know? What does Pornsite Pablo know?

That is basically how a VPN works. It's not end to end anonymity.

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This is the worst explanation of anything I have ever seen.

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I wouldn't recommend using Tor. Tor is solely running off of volunteers who contribute nodes to their community (A node being a virtual check point that is supposed to intercept, encrypt and redirect your traffic). A volunteer can be literally anyone including hackers and the government.

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Tor routes your traffic using multiple layers of nodes. Yes, there's a good chance some nodes could be compromised, but redundancy makes up for that.

There's absolutely nothing that stops a VPN provider from being a malicious actor either.

This is why we have layered security.

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It's not though. It doesn't do that at all. It's for hiding your traffic from your ISP.

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That's what I meant but was trying to keep things simple. Obviously if you are logging into sites, they will have some info about you. But you can hide your identity if you know what you ate doing.

I like Tunnel Bear