VPN are they worth it?

[Chuck Wintle]

Considering a VPN to avoid any sort of online censorship as it looks like they will do it. What can you tell me about a VPN?

[Andrew More]

They're pretty simple, and I don't see a lot of difference between them. You might need to try a few if you run into performance problems. I live in the states, so my results might differ from yours, or somebody who lives another state over.

[Jonathan Pace]

If you value your online privacy, then a VPN is worth it. It protects you from hackers and snoopers, even if you are connected to a public Wi-Fi spot.

[Doug Garson]

I'm curious what "online censorship" you are referring to?

[Greg Funk]

Considering a VPN to avoid any sort of online censorship as it looks like they will do it. What can you tell me about a VPN?

I use NordVPN to spoof my IP and make it look like I'm in the UK in order to watch bike races. Don't care about privacy. It is significantly slower than the fiber internet we have but works fine for streaming video. I don't know if there will be any censorship or if Google will just need to pay some media companies for sharing their content. I subscribe to a couple news feeds and doubt they would be affected.

[Greg Funk]

I'm curious what "online censorship" you are referring to?

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/what...tent-1.6286816

[roger wiegand]

So not censorship but a dispute over whether news creators should be paid for their work by companies like Google and Meta who profit from redistributing it. Presumably all of this content is available from the original providers, albeit perhaps for a fee.

[Keegan Shields]

Alternately, you might consider subscribing to a reputable news provider that does actual investigative journalism. The quality is much higher than the free stuff. It’s been my experience that the free news sites are “reporting” on other reporters that actually do the leg work.

[Brian Elfert]

I don't know what a VPN is going to help with here. Is Google going to allow access if you appear to be coming from a different geographic location?

This is hardly censorship. Google is not blocking, and really cannot, block direct access to these news sites. It is an economic move by Google because they don't want to pay when user click on a link from their search engine.

[Monte Milanuk]

A good first step in my opinion would be to stop using Google directly - they (and others) have a history of 'tuning' your search results to what they think you want to see. There are other sites that will submit the search in an anonymous manner for you and return less biased results.

[Jim Becker]

VPNs are great for privacy when you are out and about using WiFi connections that are not under your control...they add an additional security layer to help prevent nefarious folks from intercepting your private information by monitoring the publicly accessible WiFi connection network. They are less valuable for security at home because your network is already secured. The big benefit there might be "appearing to be somewhere else" in order to access content that's not normally accessible where you live. In all cases, there is exactly ZERO additional security benefit once the stream of ones and zeros exit the VPN at the other end.

[Alan Rutherford]

I have used and been happy with PIA (Private Internet Access), primarily when traveling. One problem is that when I tried to use Google, Google recognized that I was using a VPN and would ask me to prove that I was a human by finding all the motorcycles or something in one of those blurry picture montages in which it's hard to recognize anything. Annoying and time-wasting. If they were going to filter your content based on your location, they might not know your true location but would likely know you were hiding it.

[Curt Harms]

If you value your online privacy, then a VPN is worth it. It protects you from hackers and snoopers, even if you are connected to a public Wi-Fi spot.

ESPECIALLY if you're using public WiFi. That's the primary reason I have a VPN, another layer of encryption. Some sites won't permit a connection if they detect a VPN is use (yes bad guys use them too). With a home network connection you sorta control both ends of your network connection. I say sorta because most gateways are controlled by the ISP or manufacturer and if there's an exploit the ISP or manufacturer hasn't gotten around to fixing your home network may not be as secure as you think it is. Same issue with wireless access points at restaurants, airports, hotels etc., you have no control over the other end of your network connection. Most connections these days are encrypted so if a bad guy intercepts your data it's of no immediate use to them.

[Chris Parks]

This follows what happened in Australia, the major media took Google to court backed by the Government. australia media fights google - Google Search

[Bill George]

I use Duck Duck Go for a search engine. Yes and your local IP will track you also.