It is quite common to hear that you need to use a VPN any time you are on a wireless network. Your typical free wireless network at the mall or your favorite coffee shop is not encrypted in any way. If you travel, you can rest assure that hotel wireless internet is terribly insecure, just because you never know if there is someone in the next room sniffing all your packets. Lastly, the internet service provider for the hotel is not to be trusted at all. However, VPN companies themselves can be shady and there is not a good way to verify who can be trusted with your internet communications. It is possible for technically minded people to spin up a virtual machine and provide their own VPN service, but this requires some effort and virtual machines costs can add up. In the end, I decided to go ahead and pay for a dedicated VPN service.
iPhone with Windscribe VPN
My VPN usage is primarily for my iPhone and so I am not going to go into any detail about using Windscribe on a Mac or Windows machine. Needless to say, Windscribe provides multiple clients and setups for all your devices. I chose Windscribe VPN because of their reputation and my initial experience with their free trial. I pay for a yearly plan, so that I can keep my costs down. Anything beyond a year for a service seems to be a gamble. No one wants to sign a 5 year lease, so don’t do it for software as a service either!
The iOS app allows you to connect to a variety of locations. I specifically choose the Chicago locations and select Wireguard as the protocol. My experience with iOS and VPN apps is that once you plug in your phone to charge, iOS will close out your VPN after a period of inactivity. This means I have to open the Windscribe app and establish the VPN connection. You can create rules that exempt your home wireless network or other wireless networks you trust so that the VPN is bypassed. For the most part I keep Windscribe on for all connections, wireless and Verizon cellular. I know for a fact that if you do not use a VPN and are on your cellular network, that a telecommunications engineer can actually see all your data in real time, (if they connect to the cellular tower device). If you have a VPN, you might as well use it all the time.
No VPN Allowed
Now there are some exceptions, when you cannot use a VPN connection and you might want to turn it off. These are annoying to say the least, but there is not much choice.
Some eCommerce sites do not allow VPN connections. The website will most likely give you an HTTP error such as 404 with a message that proxy connections are not allowed. I have had this issue with Lowes.
Warehouse stores and my Verizon cell service do not work well. Often when I am at Menards, Lowes, or The Home Depot, I will get zero bars and if I try to use the in store WiFi, they do not allow VPNs and so my choices are to walk out to the outside yard of the store and use my cell service or choose an insecure store wifi network.
I do have to say that Target and Walmart have great WiFi and their mobile apps make it very easy to scan for in-store prices.
The other exception is at home when I have apps that need to connect to the WiFi network to see local devices. My Sonos speaker is a good example of this. I want to stream Spotify to my Sonos, and so I can either make an exception rule for my home WiFi or just turn off the VPN.
Block Stuff
Windscribe offers a variety of blocking options. Turning some of these on will save on bandwidth and also keep you safe from malware. Windscribe describes this feature: R.O.B.E.R.T. as a customizable server-side domain and IP blocking tool.
Turning on any of these options is account specific and will apply to your other devices as well. Note there is a link at the bottom of the screen that takes you to your account, where you can specify your own custom rules.
Final Notes
I recommend Windscribe as a VPN option for your iPhone. Overall it has worked well for me and my kids.