Do I need a VPN?

Debbie292d

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The work I do from home is transcription of fed immigration court cases from around the world. It involves me having to research sometimes things about a little hamlet in a Third World Country. I've been doing this for about a decade. I got spooked about looking things up last night.

Do I need a VPN? I knew very little about those until doing some reading about them today, and am still pretty ignorant of this stuff. NordVPN seems the best at $3 something per month for two years.

What about using this browser? https://www.torproject.org/download/ Is this as good as a VPN for just looking things up, but not let them know who I am?

Does anyone use anything else to mask who you are online? This would only be for several hours per day while I'm sitting at my computer.

@azurbanclucker I know you're computer savvy, but about this stuff?
 
VPN software like Nord and surfshark are fine. Make sure you're complying with work policy for it. In general, if you're doing research in an official capacity, you should be fine, but you can be traced. That's why VPN's are such a big thing now.

DO NOT USE TOR. Especially not for anything official. TOR is "The Onion Router" and is a common tool used for criminal activity on the "dark web". The onion network is a "community network" meaning all of the exit nodes are privately owned to some extent. Like you could hit an exit on a very illegal endpoint and never know. A lot of it is innocent enough, but unless you really know what you're doing, avoid it. I gave up hosting a tor exit in 2001 because it was too spicy. It hasn't gotten any safer since then.
 
A VPN hides your traffic from your ISP. BUT, whomever your VPN provider is can see it instead. If you're on your home network you probably don't need a VPN, instead I'd just make sure your WiFi network is secure and that your computer itself is up to date and doesn't have any dodgy programs or extensions. The TOR network can be good for privacy but again, you probably don't need it. I can post a bit more about some good ways to harden your security when I get home
 
VPN software like Nord and surfshark are fine. Make sure you're complying with work policy for it. In general, if you're doing research in an official capacity, you should be fine, but you can be traced. That's why VPN's are such a big thing now.

DO NOT USE TOR. Especially not for anything official. TOR is "The Onion Router" and is a common tool used for criminal activity on the "dark web". The onion network is a "community network" meaning all of the exit nodes are privately owned to some extent. Like you could hit an exit on a very illegal endpoint and never know. A lot of it is innocent enough, but unless you really know what you're doing, avoid it. I gave up hosting a tor exit in 2001 because it was too spicy. It hasn't gotten any safer since then.
I'm in no official capacity. I'm security cleared, but I'm contracted to simply type court hearings.

It's my computer, my software, and I just download their court audios, type them up, and upload back (Sharepoint). But to do those accurately, I've got to look up how to spell things, for instance, last night, what cities in X country have "intelligence and security" departments (alleged terrorists). I couldn't understand the interpreter, so I Googled it, then bailed out, too scared to go further. Again, I've been doing this for about a decade and never got afraid to click somewhere before.

I appreciate the info! I'll not consider that browser, and wait for @FrostRanger.
 

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