- Did you know that.
- With this VPN, you can protect yourself
from all hackers trying to get into your personal data.
- What?
Who told you that?
That's crazy.
- Hackers can set up fake access points.
They're able to sniff out any important information,
steal it, and you get ripped off.
- That's not entirely true.
What I was going to say was that.
- [Announcer] Without a VPN,
your internet browsing data can be tracked by your ISP,
cellular provider, ad companies, and hackers.
- All right, would you just stop?
This is getting ridiculous.
- [Narrator] I use ExpressVPN because
it keeps my information anonymous.
- NordVPN.
- ExpressVPN.
- Okay, okay, okay, that's enough.
You need to understand this.
There are good reasons to use a Virtual Private Network
or a VPN, and I'll share what those are in a moment
but judging by all of the content
you'll read or watch online,
you'd be forgiven for thinking that this piece of software
is the ultimate solution to every hacking
and security problem we have in the world today.
Welcome to All Things Secured.
My name's Josh
and my goal here is to clearly explain three ideas.
First, the security you already have without a VPN,
the legitimate reasons to use a VPN.
And finally, the things that a VPN cannot do
'cause let's face it,
there's a lot of confusing information
about Virtual Private Networks.
And if you watch through the end of this video
not only will you have a better understanding
of what a VPN can do for you,
I'll also share with you
the number one threat to your security and privacy
that no VPN can protect you from.
So to help us sift through the truth versus fiction,
let me share with you five things that are true
about your internet connection right now
even if you're not using a VPN.
One, your ISP or Internet Service Provider
can broadly see which websites you access.
So while it may not know exactly
which YouTube video you're watching right now,
they can know that you accessed YouTube.
Two, HTTPS is now an internet standard.
All this military grade encryption you hear about
marketed by tech companies is present
in more than 85% of the websites you visit.
If you see the padlock on your web browser,
your internet traffic is already being encrypted.
Three, despite this encryption,
our browsing activity is being tracked
by more companies than you might realize.
Using tools like cookies, the Facebook pixel cookies,
the Chrome browser and well, cookies.
Four, your device is assigned an IP address
wherever you get online.
This IP address provides information
about your geographic location
which is how online streaming services can restrict content
in specific countries or locations.
Five, our security and privacy is a product of trust.
Sure, we can encrypt our data in transit,
but what about your login information
that gets stored on target servers
or our credit information that's with Experian?
When we give them our data,
and sometimes we don't even have a choice,
we're trusting that they'll keep it secure.
And that's usually not under our control.
You have to trust somebody.
You're either trusting your ISP,
the owner of the Wi-Fi you're using, the Tor nodes,
or if you're using a VPN, the VPN company.
It's virtually impossible to be 100% private.
So how does a VPN help in any of these situations?
Well, let's lay the groundwork here
by discussing what a VPN does well.
What are the legitimate reasons
you might want to use a Virtual Private Network?
Well, the most common use of a VPN around the world
is to combat censorship.
I used to live in China
where the government blocks everything
from Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Wikipedia,
the New York times.
And dare I say, even YouTube.
A VPN is the perfect tool to bypass
this kind of state censorship to access the free internet.
Along those same lines,
a VPN is a good tool for location spoofing
which basically allows you to hide your location
and make the internet think you're located somewhere else.
The most common use case here is streaming blackout content
from major networks or geo restricted content
on platforms like Netflix, Disney Plus,
Hulu, Pandora and others.
For example, I'm here in Thailand
where Disney hasn't yet launched for some odd reason.
By connecting to a VPN server in the United States
and paying for my Disney subscription fee,
I can access this geo restricted content
as if I were in the US.
Ironically, the last legitimate reason to use a VPN
is actually what it was initially developed for,
for encrypting data.
As I said earlier,
internet security has already become more than acceptable.
And when you're accessing something
like your bank via HTTPS, which all of them do now,
a VPN doesn't make that connection stronger,
it just acts as a safety net.
The only exception worth mentioning here
is that a VPN does encrypt your DNS requests.
Remember when I told you that your internet service provider
can see what websites you're accessing
even if they don't know what you're doing on those websites.
Well, a VPN will hide that information so that your ISP,
your university, or whatever network you're on
doesn't know anything about your connection.
So really all that talk about a VPN
protecting you from hackers
and offering military grade encryption.
I mean, it's a half-truth.
I think there is value in having that backup security
for those who are at a higher risk of attack,
but for most people it's just redundant security.
And before I forget, let me be clear
about what a VPN does not do.
And you may hear what I'm about to say
and think it was completely unnecessary.
But trust me,
these are questions that I get every single day
in my email inbox.
First, a VPN isn't an internet connection.
You have to connect to the internet,
whether that's on your cellular network,
your home network or public Wi-Fi,
and then you connect to a VPN.
Second, a VPN isn't a cloak of invisibility
that will let you do whatever illegal thing you wanna do
while you're connected.
Every commercial VPN company
claims they don't keep activity logs on their users,
but they have no accountability of that claim.
So don't do it.
Finally, a VPN doesn't protect you from viruses and malware.
I mean, some providers have that as an additional service
but that's not inherent feature of a VPN.
A VPN is a tunnel that can encrypt every kind of data
including viruses and malware
being delivered to your device.
And that's the perfect segue to my final point here
that I'm glad you've stuck around to hear.
As my friend, Ron White is known for saying,
- You can't fix stupid.
- The biggest single threat to your online security
and privacy is not hackers, it's not malware,
it's not viruses or tracking software, it's you.
If you're not aware of the common scams today,
if you're not skeptical of every email you receive
and every link in every email, I can guarantee that no VPN
and no antivirus software is gonna be of much help to you.
Before you succumb to the fear of marketing
that might lead you to purchase
this kind of software, know this.
You can avoid more than 80%
of the problems people face with their online security
and privacy by just using common sense.
I mean, things like using better passwords,
turning on two factor authentication,
monitoring your credit and identity,
and especially being skeptical
of every inbound email and phone call that you receive.
If you've made it this far
please take a moment to browse through
some of the videos that I've linked to
in the description below
that will help you do all of these things better.
Subscribe to this channel
if you're interested in more honest clear explanations
of online security topics like this.
I hope it's been helpful, thanks.