Privacy

31609 readers

345 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

Chat rooms

[Matrix/Element]Dead
Discord

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Do I really need a VPN or does DNS over HTTPS does the trick? (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Considering my threat model is just preventing my ISP to know which websites I am visiting and to prevent my government (India) from tracking me, do I need to use a VPN?

Currently, I am using a trusted VPN provider with a permanent kill switch and am never off of the VPN. Today, I was reading IVPN's homepage and it says, "A VPN can be effective at encrypting your DNS requests so your ISP or mobile network provider cannot monitor or log the domains you visit." But as far as I know, DNS over HTTPS does encrypt the DNS requests. Right?

I regularly clean my cookies, use hardened browsers, etc. So is a VPN really necessary for me? Or shall I just shift to using Quad9's DoH or something?

Edit - I am using the router provided by the ISP and I cannot change it because I am behind CGNAT. I can use a separate device and install PfSense or OpenWRT or something on it and use that as a firewall. Any suggestions there?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

How do you access banking apps/websites with always-on VPN and permanent kill switch?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My banking apps and netbanking work just fine regardless of which country I am connected to. UPI (unified payments interface) requires an Indian IP, though. But I can still do everything while connected to my VPN provider.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

None of my banking apps work with VPN even with a spoofed Indian IP. UPI works without issue for me as well.

[–] Sequence5666 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

The good one like Mullvad does not have a server in India. Do you recommend something as good as Mullvad for accessing UPI and strem vid apps?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I haven't used mullvad but I do use protonvpn. On my android phone icici banking app doesn't work even while being whitelisted. Prime video needs to be whitelisted but functions. Didn't find an issue with Netflix. Haven't tested other platforms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not OP, but back when I used Surfshark it had the ability to allow bypassing the VPN only for certain programs, IPs or URLs.
I mostly used it to get less latency with online games or getting access to them in the first place as often I'd encounter login servers that just didn't work though a VPN.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks! I will look into my VPN client and see if it provides this feature.