# Chromebooks and public wifi security



## CajunSunshine

I have Googled myself silly looking for a good VPN company that supports the Chrome OS on Chromebooks.

There seem to be a few, but the reviews are rife with too many serious complaints about compatibility. ugh...no.

It seems that VPNs work very well with all of the platforms _except _Chrome OS.

I realize Chromebooks are fairly secure from malware, etc. as far as the machine is concerned, but what I am looking for is encrypting my outbound data/passwords/etc. via public wifi...especially when signing into places that are not https secured (HomesteadingToday is one).

Can anyone point me to the right direction?



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## Nevada

While I don't want to discourage you from making your browsing as secure as possible, the need for tunneling everything via VPN is mainly for business customers who want to keep their interests secret. The fact is that services you access that need to be secure probably already are.

If you connect to a bank or credit card site to access your account information you'll be using the https protocol, which already uses strong encryption. That's the same protection you'll get with a VPN. Other sites use it also. Even Google has gone to https for general searching. Notice the lock on the Google home page.

https://www.google.com/

But using a VPN with strong encryption isn't browser specific. It should work as well with Chrome as it works with Firefox or IE. Why do you think VPN communications aren't working with Chrome?


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## arabian knight

And if you don't want the outsiders to see what you are doing when banking or paying a credit card for example don't use a public WiFi spot. Many avoid such problems by not doing banking in those places. But just surfing and reading boards is no problem as there is No Outgoing info to be spread around the WiFi spots.


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## Nevada

arabian knight said:


> And if you don't want the outsiders to see what you are doing when banking or paying a credit card for example don't use a public WiFi spot. Many avoid such problems by not doing banking in those places. But just surfing and reading boards is no problem as there is No Outgoing info to be spread around the WiFi spots.


Nonsense. Bank & credit card sites use strong encryption. Payment gateways are always encrypted. You're pretty safe doing those activities anywhere, depending on how random your password is.

Some sensitive data is unencrypted though. Your HT password is sent unencrypted, but nobody cares. POP3 email passwords are often not encrypted, and some webmail sites are not encrypted. Someone could do a lot of mischief with an email password.


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## CajunSunshine

Thanks for the fast responses!

Still looking for a Chromebook compatible VPN (that is not a study in frustration as the reviews would have you believe)...




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## Nevada

CajunSunshine said:


> Thanks for the fast responses!
> 
> Still looking for a Chromebook compatible VPN (that is not a study in frustration as the reviews would have you believe)...


Here's a PCMag recipe.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2470160,00.asp

Are looking to use a VPN for connecting to a specific server, or are you just looking for more privacy in general web browsing?


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## Nevada

arabian knight said:


> And if you don't want the outsiders to see what you are doing when banking or paying a credit card for example don't use a public WiFi spot. Many avoid such problems by not doing banking in those places. But just surfing and reading boards is no problem as there is No Outgoing info to be spread around the WiFi spots.


To be clear, just because you're using your own private wifi network that is protected with a network key, that doesn't mean your communications are encrypted. Your network key is encrypted, but your communications aren't. When banking online at home you rely on the same encryption that you would rely on at a public wifi hotspot. In other words, your private wifi network offers no more protection from prying eyes than you get at a public wifi hotspot. The network key is only intended to keep freeloaders from using your Internet service.

For example, homesteadingtoday.com doesn't offer https access, so when you login from home (or anywhere else, for that matter) your username & password is sent unencrypted over the wifi network. If someone was monitoring the network he could see your HT login credentials in plain text. But if you login to view your banking activity your bank will use https, so your communications with the bank are encrypted, including your login credentials.

Access to your private network is protected with the network key (password) so people won't be able to use your Internet service without knowing the key. But communications are only encrypted if the communication was already encrypted over https.


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## CajunSunshine

Thanks for the link, Nevada. I saw that one last week and learned that VyprVPN (and a bunch of others) for Chromebooks was problematic and generated frustrated complaints by users...

I do not use wifi at home, but will be needing security on the road...

Is there any such thing as having every keystroke encrypted...on a regular laptop or a Chromebook?


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## Nevada

CajunSunshine said:


> Thanks for the link, Nevada. I saw that one last week and learned that VyprVPN (and a bunch of others) for Chromebooks was problematic and generated frustrated complaints by users...
> 
> I do not use wifi at home, but will be needing security on the road...
> 
> Is there any such thing as having every keystroke encrypted...on a regular laptop or a Chromebook?
> 
> 
> .


The only way that would work is if the web server you're communicating with could decrypt the communication at the other end. Really, https is the only way to do that. I would search at google for a free https proxy.


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