Right, a VPN is going to encrypt / secure the traffic completely when using a Hotel or Coworking / Shared Office Connection. When I am trading / researching, the last thing I want to be worried about is the security of my connection because my brokerage connections are a portion of that traffic. The same argument is or the guy at Starbucks exiting positions on his iPad over their free wifi I think.
I reach in secured mode with my VPN over 100MB/sec wireless and 200MB/sec on cable. More than enough for trading. My programs use less then 100KB/sec. And ping is just a fraction higher then without VPN. Ping under 100ms will not damaged my trading. At home is important as nobody can see what I am doing. Big brother is watching you. And nobody can intercept anything.
I was going to give NordVPN a try with their trial to see what it is like. While I am definitely a privacy advocate, I am trading using a Windows OS, so I am more worried about my traffic right now. Thinking down the road a Linux Laptop running some VM's for Trading purposes or using a broker that has a Linux platform is on my radar.
I am not sure whether you trade Futures or not, but some credentials that are used for a downloadable program could be sometimes used for a web-based execution. For example. if you use CQG then you can use the same credentials for their CQG web-based when you travel, and use your downloadable when you not (on their own platform, Multicharts, Sierra, etc.) The same is offered with a TT as they cover downloadable, web and mobile. If you trade other asset classes maybe you can ask your broker if he offers the same type of a solution. This may save you the issues of a VPN.
Good point. I am using TOS right now, but just opened a GFF account and was looking at AMP due to their lower margins on Futures, so CQG may be an option. I would still use TOS charts. I travel enough, that I should probably be using a VPN, but the remote desktop side of the argument gave me a different angle to think about. Thanks for all the help guys, I am going to test out NordVPN the rest of the week and maybe spin up a VPS to get a feel for what it might look like next week to see what fits me best.
We clear through AMP and would love to earn your business. They have very low rates for CQG execution.
As someone already pointed out; apples and oranges. Please be strongly advised: if you are using Teamviewer over a public/open/insecure network, you ESPECIALLY need a proper VPN. I use PIA (Private Internet Access). A very well known (and battle tested) VPN in 'the community.' (I also use Teamviewer, btw.)
Just to show how many VPN providers give you a fake feeling of security. Part from an article, outdated a bit but showing the problems. "Specifically, the researchers tested the VPNs by attempting two kinds of attacks: passive monitoring, whereby a hacker might simply collect the user’s unencrypted information, and DNS hijacking, where the hacker would redirect the user’s browser to a controlled Web server by pretending to be a popular site like Google or Facebook. What they found was unnerving: 11 of the 14 providers leaked information, including the websites the user was accessing and the actual content of the user’s communications. The only three that didn’t were Private Internet Access, Mullvad and VyprVPN. TorGuard offered a way around the problem, they noted, but it wasn’t enabled by default." https://www.pcworld.com/article/294...-may-not-be-as-safe-as-you-think-you-are.html I use a Swiss based provider as they will NEVER keep information and are out of the "14 eyes countries"; so putting pressure on them to release information is impossible as a result of the Swiss neutrality. I also use "secure core mode", that to my knowledge, isn't used by any other provider. https://protonvpn.com/support/secure-core-vpn/