What’s the difference between a VPN and a Proxy Server?
A proxy server does not encrypt your traffic at all, it’s just a middle-man you connect to before going to your ultimate destination. You’re just connecting to a website that connects you to another website. If you’re going to Yahoo through a proxy, then Yahoo will usually see that you’re connecting from a proxy because it usually has a fixed or very limited range of IP addresses.
A Virtual Private Network, as the name implies, is an actual network that you connect to. Your traffic is protected (encrypted) when connected to that network.
VPNs usually are more secure, but it can be hit or miss. And some “VPNs” are just glorified connections to proxy servers…
Lul, I literally had this misconception that a proxy server was meant for laptop/computer, and that it was more secure. So how does the classic Hacker from the Dark Web that’s meant to scam people and leave with zero trace, protect themselves?
Is being secure or completely anonymous online actually propaganda that everyone’s fell for…? And I know this is stretchy, but what if companies like Google/Yahoo make and promote VPNs so we can “feel” safe without actually being covered in any way?
Someone on the dark web is probably using a lot of things to help protect themselves - a virtual machine that emulates an operating system without exposing their main operating system and computer to malware, a VPN. You can use The Onion Router (TOR) network which is itself a VPN, and then they might use an extra VPN to further obfuscate any attempts to track their traffic.
but what if companies like Google/Yahoo make and promote VPNs so we can “feel” safe without actually being covered in any way?
That ultimately all depends on the terms of their service.
Not all VPNs are created equally. Some advertise that they have a “no logging” policy, which means they don’t keep track of what you do through their service at all. But in some cases they don’t actually uphold that policy and do create logs of where you’re coming from and where you’re going.
There are also considerations about legal jurisdiction. A VPN service based out of China or Russia is more likely to be required to feed user information to the governments there, or keep that information available if there’s a request for it. Something like ProtonVPN, which is based out of Switzerland, does not have that requirement - if they get a legal request for information about what DarkWebHacker69 was doing on their VPN, they can literally only provide … the username and whatever identity the person gave when they registered because they don’t keep any information beyond that - not that useful to the government that probably already knows that.
Another risk is just how technically sound some services are. Properly maintained open source projects can be a little safer because you’ve got a lot of people studying them and looking for flaws that the company can fix - it also lets you look behind the scenes and see how it works. A private proprietary service might be 100% safe, too, or it might have a lot of flaws that aren’t being properly addressed because they don’t have that community expertise feeding into it and auditing it. This isn’t 100% true for all of these different types of projects, but something to consider.
And not to further complicate things but even with a VPN web services can still track you through cookies and browser IDs and other things. So you’d still want to take additional steps to protect your browsing habits if you were that paranoid about it - using browser compartmentalization or container tabs (like on Firefox) is one way to mitigate that.
I’m using ProtonVPN, so that scared the crap out of me.
ProtonVPN does have a login prompt, and it keeps a log. I was exploring it the other day, and I saw this extremely comprehensive one with a lot of words/commands that actually takes a lot of time to scroll through, even at high speed.
Since you’ve pointed this out, I’m a relatively paranoid person, so what means would I have tk perform if I wanted to be 100% anonymous?
Proton Vpn actually does not keep any logs. I have not heard of tk perform lol