Let's say, if I use both NordVPN's own software (random VPN location) and its Google Chrome VPN extension (random VPN location), does this add an extra layer of protection/encryption - means hiding internet activity from ISP and/or from your network plus an encryption- ?
Or connecting to the VPN server via NordVPN software plus Epic browser's VPN, what kind of protection is that?
Is it double layer or just connecting to different ports?
great question!
First, lets break down what browser and standard VPN can do:
Standard VPN will tunnel ALL your traffic through VPN server.
Browser VPN will tunnel ONLY the traffic sent to websites.
Tunneling - meaning that the data sent from your requests (or OS requests) will be encrypted, and will be sent to VPN server. The VPN server will decrypt it, read it, encrypt (where possible) and forward your request to original sender. After receiving response he will do the same steps in reverse order.
Now, regarding your question about ADDITIONAL layer of security, it all depends on several things:
Is VPN service transparent? - Meaning will it show the original IP of the sender or not?
Does VPN have are under agreement block the traffic to restricted sites? (i.e. Kaspersky VPN in Russia is obliged to block the traffic to blacklisted sites, meaning it have to INSPECT the traffic being sent through it)
In general, additional layer of security that you gain depends on against what exactly you are trying to protect your data.
One of the examples is - Browser VPN does not support anonymity, but standard VPN does not, so you want to implement both in order to maximize anonymity.
No, using two VPNs (desktop + browser) does not increase your privacy.
Your best option is to use Tor + VPN, ideally on a VM, such as Tails.
To give you a better understanding about the privacy implications about VPN providers, I have copied this great post from this GitHub repository, which is published under the WTFPL.
No, seriously, don't. You're probably reading this because you've asked what VPN service to use, and this is the answer.
*Note: The content in this post does not apply to using VPN for their intended purpose; that is, as a virtual private (internal) network. It only applies to using it as a glorified proxy, which is what every third-party "VPN provider" does.*
A Russian translation of this article can be found here, contributed by Timur Demin. There's also this article about VPN services, which is honestly better written (and has more cat pictures!) than my article.
Because a VPN in this sense is just a glorified proxy. The VPN provider can see all your traffic, and do with it what they want - including logging.
There is no way for you to verify that, and of course this is what a malicious VPN provider would claim as well. In short: the only safe assumption is that every VPN provider logs.
And remember that it is in a VPN provider's best interest to log their users - it lets them deflect blame to the customer, if they ever were to get into legal trouble. The $10/month that you're paying for your VPN service doesn't even pay for the lawyer's coffee, so expect them to hand you over.
I'll believe that when HideMyAss goes out of business. They gave up their users years ago, and this was widely publicized. The reality is that most of their customers will either not care or not even be aware of it.
Doesn't matter. You're still connecting to their service from your own IP, and they can log that.
VPNs don't provide security. They are just a glorified proxy.
VPNs don't provide privacy, with a few exceptions (detailed below). They are just a proxy. If somebody wants to tap your connection, they can still do so - they just have to do so at a different point (ie. when your traffic leaves the VPN server).
Use SSL/TLS and HTTPS (for centralized services), or end-to-end encryption (for social or P2P applications). VPNs can't magically encrypt your traffic - it's simply not technically possible. If the endpoint expects plaintext, there is nothing you can do about that.
When using a VPN, the only encrypted part of the connection is from you to the VPN provider. From the VPN provider onwards, it is the same as it would have been without a VPN. And remember, the VPN provider can see and mess with all your traffic.
Your IP address is a largely irrelevant metric in modern tracking systems. Marketers have gotten wise to these kind of tactics, and combined with increased adoption of CGNAT and an ever-increasing amount of devices per household, it just isn't a reliable data point anymore.
Marketers will almost always use some kind of other metric to identify and distinguish you. That can be anything from a useragent to a fingerprinting profile. A VPN cannot prevent this.
There are roughly two usecases where you might want to use a VPN:
In the second case, you'd probably just want a regular proxy specifically for that traffic - sending all of your traffic over a VPN provider (like is the default with almost every VPN client) will still result in the provider being able to snoop on and mess with your traffic.
However, in practice, just don't use a VPN provider at all, even for these cases.
If you absolutely need a VPN, and you understand what its limitations are, purchase a VPS and set up your own (either using something like Streisand or manually - I recommend using Wireguard). I will not recommend any specific providers (diversity is good!), but there are plenty of cheap ones to be found on LowEndTalk.
A VPN provider specifically seeks out those who are looking for privacy, and who may thus have interesting traffic. Statistically speaking, it is more likely that a VPN provider will be malicious or a honeypot, than that an arbitrary generic VPS provider will be.
Because it's easy money. You just set up OpenVPN on a few servers, and essentially start reselling bandwidth with a markup. You can make every promise in the world, because nobody can verify them. You don't even have to know what you're doing, because again, nobody can verify what you say. It is 100% snake-oil.
So yes, VPN services do serve a purpose - it's just one that benefits the provider, not you.
This post is licensed under the WTFPL or CC0, at your choice. You may distribute, use, modify, translate, and license it in any way.
