Does anyone use a VPN

[Wcdhtwn]

Trying to decide if I need one. I don't have any big data security needs, just for general browsing including my investment, bank accounts. I don't do anything that I need to hide, but I like the idea of what I do online being no one's business.

I saw an article, I'll post it if I can find it again, on Yahoo Finance that internet history and social media is becoming more important than, and potentially replacing, credit scores to determine your access to credit, other things your credit is evaluated for. If true, I don't like this. That it was on Yahoo Finance, and from a credible source it didn't sound like a conspiracy theory, but maybe.

If you don't mind sharing, do you use one, why, which one, and anyone with more knowledge do they really provide the privacy they say they do?

Thanks!

[Blansky]

I use Nord.

No idea if it’s better or worse than any of them. Or if it even works.

[sickened1]

I've tried Nord, TunnelBear and Surf Shark VPN. Might try Proton VPN next.

[ELLimon]

In my opinion, you do not need it for banking, connect directly to your bank, verify the certificate trust.

vpn are good for hiding your identity when torrenting or doing something you don’t want others to know. It will still be cached in your browser. So use Firefox in privacy mode.

Source: I have 30 years experience as a software engineer specializing in cloud working for Top financial company.

You need to be more careful of spoofers and people stealing your passwords,

Use different passwords and never share information to random people over the phone.

[swils8610]

Yes…I’m currently using yours!


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[77T]

Originally Posted by ELLimon

In my opinion, you do not need it for banking, connect directly to your bank, verify the certificate trust.

vpn are good for hiding your identity when torrenting or doing something you don’t want others to know. It will still be cached in your browser. So use Firefox in privacy mode.

Source: I have 30 years experience as a software engineer specializing in cloud working for Top financial company.

You need to be more careful of spoofers and people stealing your passwords,

Use different passwords and never share information to random people over the phone.

I agree it’s not needed for most of people’s ordinary use cases. As people move around in and out of trusted networks, Apples new Relay Service might be an easy answer.

Not a VPN per se, but masks and encrypts much of what people want - and can be easily turned on or off. No configurations and it’s free…

https://www.macworld.com/article/348...n-privacy.html


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[airchitect]

Mullvad was serious but slowed things to a crawl. Express is fine and works without fuss. I also use Brave (chrome based) as my browser, Firefox as a backup. Google chrome…never.


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[Mifune]

have used... but not always.
what happens is your regular log in's always get rejected because the servers think it is someone trying to log in from outside your area. Not a big deal, but it is annoying.

[daveo5]

I use ExpressVPN, no problems on any units.


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[yoast]

I use mullvad and its actually increasing my speed vs not using any vpn.

[Wcdhtwn]

Originally Posted by airchitect

Mullvad was serious but slowed things to a crawl. Express is fine and works without fuss. I also use Brave (chrome based) as my browser, Firefox as a backup. Google chrome…never.


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Thanks! I'll check out Brave. I used to use Firefox all the time, just haven't gotten around to downloading it on this computer.

[Wcdhtwn]

Originally Posted by 77T

I agree it’s not needed for most of people’s ordinary use cases. As people move around in and out of trusted networks, Apples new Relay Service might be an easy answer.

Not a VPN per se, but masks and encrypts much of what people want - and can be easily turned on or off. No configurations and it’s free…

https://www.macworld.com/article/348...n-privacy.html


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Thank you, haven't heard of Relay until now. Definitely will use on my iPad and iPhone.

[Wcdhtwn]

Originally Posted by ELLimon

In my opinion, you do not need it for banking, connect directly to your bank, verify the certificate trust.

vpn are good for hiding your identity when torrenting or doing something you don’t want others to know. It will still be cached in your browser. So use Firefox in privacy mode.

Source: I have 30 years experience as a software engineer specializing in cloud working for Top financial company.

You need to be more careful of spoofers and people stealing your passwords,

Use different passwords and never share information to random people over the phone.

I appreciate your insight. I use Webroot antivirus and think that's pretty good stopping ID theft and malware. I've never used torrent or visited the dark web. I'd be curious to see the dark web just to see it, but no interest in most of what's there.

[SDREW22]

I've used ExpressVpn for years.

[zengineer]

Whatever the neighbors who don't have a password on their wifi router use.

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[Wcdhtwn]

Originally Posted by zengineer

Whatever the neighbors who don't have a password on their wifi router use.

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What's your address?

[zengineer]

Originally Posted by Wcdhtwn

What's your address?

I have an apartment above the feed store out on Highway 8.

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[Mendota]

Originally Posted by Wcdhtwn

I saw an article, I'll post it if I can find it again, on Yahoo Finance that internet history and social media is becoming more important than, and potentially replacing, credit scores to determine your access to credit, other things your credit is evaluated for. If true, I don't like this. That it was on Yahoo Finance, and from a credible source it didn't sound like a conspiracy theory, but maybe.

Short answer - Zero chance this will happen. Absolutely zero. This is either a simple misunderstanding of the original source material, which happens to all of us when reading something new, or the original author misinterpreted what is really going on.

I have heard zero about this from any of my banks and lenders. In fact, neither the Federal Housing Finance Agency nor the FHA have issued any guidance, either. Fannie and Freddie just implemented an alternative credit qualifying model for first time buyers that takes into account rental payment history and electronically verifiable assets for people with very thin credit profiles, but internet browsing history being used as a means of determining ability to repay a debt is utter nonsense.

I am in consumer and commercial finance. Federal and state regulations require any lender to verify the borrower's ability to repay the debt obligation. Anti-money laundering regulations require financial account information and identity to be verified, as well. On no planet does internet browsing history of watching cat videos and epic fails on Youtube constitute a verification of a consumer's ability to repay, nor does it satisfy AML requirements or the Patriot Act identity verification requirements. The list goes on and on.

[Wcdhtwn]

Originally Posted by zengineer

I have an apartment above the feed store out on Highway 8.

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I know the place.

[zengineer]

Originally Posted by Wcdhtwn

I know the place.

Of course you do...only place in the county with a decent VHS rental selection.

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[Blansky]

Originally Posted by zengineer

Of course you do...only place in the county with a decent VHS rental selection.

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I’m still trying to feed my Betamax. I’m down to one movie.

Saturday Night Fever.

[ashbaug2]

I used Nord VPN for a year while I was deployed (to Poland; there were significant issues with Russian interception on the networks there). It was good, not great. It didn't always choose the fastest connection, so I would have to manually select servers to get a good connection. Other than that, one account was good for my phone and my Macbook.

[Wcdhtwn]

Originally Posted by Mendota

Short answer - Zero chance this will happen. Absolutely zero. This is either a simple misunderstanding of the original source material, which happens to all of us when reading something new, or the original author misinterpreted what is really going on.

I have heard zero about this from any of my banks and lenders. In fact, neither the Federal Housing Finance Agency nor the FHA have issued any guidance, either. Fannie and Freddie just implemented an alternative credit qualifying model for first time buyers that takes into account rental payment history and electronically verifiable assets for people with very thin credit profiles, but internet browsing history being used as a means of determining ability to repay a debt is utter nonsense.

I am in consumer and commercial finance. Federal and state regulations require any lender to verify the borrower's ability to repay the debt obligation. Anti-money laundering regulations require financial account information and identity to be verified, as well. On no planet does internet browsing history of watching cat videos and epic fails on Youtube constitute a verification of a consumer's ability to repay, nor does it satisfy AML requirements or the Patriot Act identity verification requirements. The list goes on and on.

Not saying you’re wrong, but this is the article I mentioned in my first post: https://www.yahoo.com/now/credit-sco...183000645.html

I mis-remembered that it would be part of the credit score, not replace credit scores.

[Mendota]

No problem. We don't know each other. I own my own mortgage company and have been playing in this sandbox for 24 years. I ran this past my credit vendor rep today, since I'm not a credit expert. I just review the completed reports. He's with one of the largest credit vendors in the US so this is his area of expertise.

All banks, lenders, or any 3rd party wishing to pull credit on a consumer, obtains credit bureau level data through a credit vendor. There are less than a dozen companies and what they do is they retrieve, format, and then package the raw credit report data to the end user from Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian in an easy to read format.

He said he's heard nothing about this and doubts very much that it would ever happen in the lending world. He said "maybe" in the consumer side of things, where as a consumer if you wanted to obtain a copy of your own report you could pay a vendor, such as Credit Karma, and they could include some other data points in there, as well as the traditional data points, to calculate a score. Likely not in lending. This type of data is completely irrelevant to the decision making process that we are engaging in. Our scoring models are designed for other purposes, which is why your scores will vary based on who is pulling the report and for what purpose. My mortgage credit report will likely have different scores than what you as a consumer would get from a company like Credit Karma, where it is not being used for a lending decision.

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[TC94]

Originally Posted by Wcdhtwn

Not saying you’re wrong, but this is the article I mentioned in my first post: https://www.yahoo.com/now/credit-sco...183000645.html

I mis-remembered that it would be part of the credit score, not replace credit scores.

To be fair, the article doesn’t state what your originally mentioned. The article claims “Lenders could soon be using data from your browsing, search and purchase history” and not social media. Further quote from the article “ In theory, a lender would be able to see a credit report that uses an algorithm to show a mix of your online shopping and browsing habits as well as the traditional financial data like your income and payment history.”

Your OP is worded as follows “ Yahoo Finance that internet history and social media is becoming more important than, and potentially replacing, credit scores to determine your access to credit”.

That’s a big difference from what the Yahoo article states.

On your VPN question, I use Nord without much slowdown. I often don’t use it at home, but usually do when accessing financial accounts when traveling and on airport, airplane, or hotel WiFi, etc.

[GradyPhilpott]

I use Firefox VPN on my home computer and Norton on my phone.

That's just the way it worked out and I'm not concerned about consolidating services, so it's likely to stay that way.

I'm all for security and VPNs are cheap and easy, so I have two providers, even if I only need one.

All the rest, I don't care about.

[keithmax]

I travel a lot and use Nord VPN. Financial companies and other websites may block you if your in another count. Look for a VPN thank changes both your IP address and DNS.

[airchitect]

Originally Posted by TC94

To be fair, the article doesn’t state what your originally mentioned. The article claims “Lenders could soon be using data from your browsing, search and purchase history” and not social media. Further quote from the article “ In theory, a lender would be able to see a credit report that uses an algorithm to show a mix of your online shopping and browsing habits as well as the traditional financial data like your income and payment history.”

Your OP is worded as follows “ Yahoo Finance that internet history and social media is becoming more important than, and potentially replacing, credit scores to determine your access to credit”.

That’s a big difference from what the Yahoo article states.

On your VPN question, I use Nord without much slowdown. I often don’t use it at home, but usually do when accessing financial accounts when traveling and on airport, airplane, or hotel WiFi, etc.

I still can’t understand how online browsing habits would be the business of a lender? The lengths companies go to these days to overstep bounds is getting nuts. Right to repair is just the tip of the iceberg….


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[Mendota]

Originally Posted by airchitect

I still can’t understand how online browsing habits would be the business of a lender? The lengths companies go to these days to overstep bounds is getting nuts. Right to repair is just the tip of the iceberg….


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They aren't, and they won't be. This is clickbait, nothing more. All it takes is a simple 30 second thought experiment to realize it makes zero sense.

[train-time]

Both my wife and I have been working from home since March 2020 via corporate VPNs and we expect that to continue for a while. It's been a great commute while it lasts.