I own a small IT consulting firm, so I use VPN to connect to my customer's networks all the time. I would never pay for a VPN, that's just silly, you might be paying someone to spy on you. If you VPN to a network you don't control, you have no idea if they are sniffing your traffic. Yes it's encrypted over the internet to the remote end, but from the remote VPN network they could be monitoring everything you do because you are routing all of your traffic through them to get out to the internet. Proceed with caution. LOL @ nar, I used VPN the last time I was laid off to collect unemployment before deciding to start my own company because I got tired of layoffs. It was like the 3rd time I got laid off, because of the crappy economy. I took off to the Philippines for a while, so I VPN'd so that when I filed online would show up as a local IP address and not be suspicious, and also for the you can't access this site from your country BS. Glad that part of my life is done. Now I create jobs, instead of hoping I don't get laid off six months after starting a new job.