I thought I would throw this one end since you hear so much about how you just have to have a VPN. This seems to be the latest tech wonderchild. If you listened to some of these people you would swear that your life is in danger if you don’t use a VPN.

So what is a VPN? It stands for Virtual Private Network. What is does is creates an encrypted tunnel from you home to the website you are visiting. You install their software on your computer and turn it on. When you open a web browser and go to a website it routes you through the VPN company’s server and then to the website you are visiting.

In all honesty the average person has no need for a VPN service. There are situations where I would not work without one and I will get to that. If you are sitting at your home and you go to your bank website it is already encrypted. You are using HTTPS for that connection. That is secure HTTP. Any bank, investment firm, retailer and even google.com uses HTTPS. You know that when you see the little lock up in the address bar on the left side. See the screenshot below. That lock signifies that the site is using HTTPS. These sites are already encrypted.

When you read stuff now they are constantly pushing these various products. You just gotta have them!! What the tech world is about now is having you constantly spending money every month for some little new security feature that you can’t live without. I read an article recently by some tech write expounding on the virtues of VPNs. Just so you know, the site he writes for provides all kinds of advertising for VPN companies. He is helping his salary but hyping that product.

There are some downsides to VPNs that they don’t tell you about. First of all, because of encryption going back and forth it can slow down your internet connection. I have seen a VPN block sites. I had one customer that had an issue with the VPN blocking avon.com on her. I didn’t know that cosmetic websites were such a danger. I had another situation where I was just beating my brain senseless trying to get a printer installed. Come to find out, the VPN service was keeping me from seeing that printer. This is the kind of problems they can cause.

When would I use a VPN. There is no doubt that they have their good sides. I don’t ever use one myself but under certain situations I would not work without one. If I am a remote worker for a company that works with personal information and proprietary company information I wouldn’t dare work without one. If I worked for say Micron, St. Lukes, St. Als or companies that do remote accounting I would definitely use a VPN. I personally think that laws should require that.

As you can see, I’m not anti-VPN. They definitely have their uses but not for most of us. It’s just added expense, added software and complications that really don’t do us that much good.