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Does a VPN used on a smartphone with Wi-Fi disabled (mobile data only enabled) provide any sort of protection? (beehaw.org)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I've never completely understood this, but I think the answer would probably be "no," although I'm not sure. Usually when I leave the house I turn off wifi and just use mobile data (this is a habit from my pre-VPN days), although I guess I should probably just keep it on since using strange Wi-Fi with a VPN is ok (unless someone at Starbucks is using the evil twin router trick . . . ?). I was generally under the impression that mobile data is harder to interfere with than Wi-Fi, but I could well be wrong and my notions out of date. So, if need be, please set me straight. 🙂

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

A VPN doesn’t do much to protect HTTP connections.

[–] stephen01king 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Explain?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Your data still travels across the internet unencrypted. It only protects you on the LAN level.

[–] stephen01king 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Wouldn't the lan level be the most important part to protect when accessing http website? How likely are your connections to be hijacked once you are outside of your VPN tunnel?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I don’t know how likely that is. But I was a bit too quick in my judgement, on public networks a VPN does ass significant protection to HTTP connections. Not really on home networks, mobile networks or well-secured public/office networks though.

I honestly don’t know how much risk your data is at after leaving the tunnel. Luckily most things are HTTPS now.