• war@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Why would you ever need or feel compelled to connect to a public wifi network? What a deranged thing to do.

    • Psythik@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Cause I get shit service in Walmart and don’t really have any other option if I need to look something up while shopping.

      • ManosTheHandsOfFate@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I live near a shopping area with a bunch of stores. It has zero cell coverage from any provider. Apparently there’s been some NIMBY resistance to putting up towers in nearby neighborhoods.

    • trippingonthewire@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      Fair, but even using your normal router without a VPN isn’t good imo. Even if it’s not as bad as public. And VPNs are usually an extreme measure. If I was using public WiFi, and doing stuff on my bank account, then yes, VPN all the way, but I usually don’t feel that I need it.

      • neosheo@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        Why is the vpn necessary when you have https to the bank? Just to hide you’re ip from the bank?

        • derpgon@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          I always wonder why those VPN absolutists aren’t happy with your regular HTTPS. Sure, maybe HTTP is safer with the VPN, but it just hides your real IP from the target website.

          • neosheo@beehaw.org
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            1 year ago

            Well im just saying thats what https is for but there’s nothing wrong with extra security

            • trippingonthewire@lemmy.mlOP
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              1 year ago

              So if https is all that’s needed, why do VPNs recommend using them at public locations? Just false advertising? I click on my bank app and it always wants a password and I guess I don’t know enough about network engineering. I’m interested in Android Development but don’t know much about WiFi I guess.

              • neosheo@beehaw.org
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                1 year ago

                Marketing mostly. The vpn makes an encrypted tunnel that you’re traffic goes thru. If using https and vpn there are 2 layers of encryption. It’s not false advertising bc an extra layer doesn’t hurt. Now if your sending password over http it would help but you shouldnt be using a site that sends passwords over plaintext. I would say vpn is mostly to either hide your ip from websites or to hide internet activity from your isp

                • trippingonthewire@lemmy.mlOP
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                  1 year ago

                  So more for privacy than security, so it would make sense to use a VPN depending on your threat model I suppose, or how much you care.

                  • neosheo@beehaw.org
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                    1 year ago

                    Yeah it’s more for privacy. Still you can just have it always on and it really wont cause many issues except for sites that block vpns.