To VPN or not.

[Gipsy]

Having read through a couple of posts that mentioned using a VPN, I'm wondering what peeps views are about an ' ordinary ' internet user making the effort to use one.
The use of the word ordinary is somewhat subjective, but I meant it to mean that we use the internet fairly extensively for communication and also do all our banking on line. We also shop fairly extensively using the computers. We don't run a business on line, and don't download ' illegal ' stuff that we might like to hide.
We travel extensively although less of late as we now have a 5mth old granddaughter and a 10 week old puppy.
I've always wondered about the ability of peeps to access our wifi data at home, and had particular concerns about using free wifi while travelling, but wouldn't think we are high on the list of valuable targets.
Having seen the reference to Witopia and looked at the blurb I'm thinking we might take the plunge. Also the ability to watch UK Television while abroad ( son number 2 lives in Australia ) would be nice to have.
Very sorry for the long description and if you've not dropped dead of boredom I'd be grateful for the collective views.

 

[rce]

Only downer is leaving a machine on at home and you may well be restricted by your upload speed at home.

Conversely I have been using vpn for a number of years, I used to use it as a dial-up from a mobile phone many years ago to provide mobile internet before mobile internet became mainstream (free call to home, with home providing the internet connection).

Now on BTinfinity the vpn is mega fast, so retrieving files from home, or remote access to a PC works really well.

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

I think he means the type of VPN supplied buy providers often used by people to download torrents.
Most of your concerns seem to be around security. VPN will give you security between you and the providers end but as ever its only as good as the weakest link. So you crate a VPN between you and whoever. That is secure but as soon as you go out to the internet from there you are at the same risk as any other connection. If this is an unsecured web page your data is just as much at risk. Thinks like online banking and shopping use encrypted HTTPS so in this instance you would be protected on an open hotel wifi connection. Whether it is worth it or not is really up to you. The watching BBC online is a valid point so long as what your connected to is fast enough to cope and not limited in data use. Hotel connections are rarely good enough and you can forget 3G for streaming video abroad. That will get really expensive in a hurry.