On 8/16/25 08:40, john doe wrote:
On 8/16/25 15:57, Fred wrote:
On 8/15/25 14:14, Tim Woodall wrote:
On Fri, 15 Aug 2025, Fred wrote:
On 8/15/25 09:26, Dan Ritter wrote:
Fred wrote:
Hello,
Can a VPN be used on a per instance basis or once installed it has
to be
used for all (browser) use?
A VPN is a network connection that (usually) appears just like
another network interface.
It can be configured to send all traffic elsewhere, or traffic
to a particular set of networks.
If you run one with proxy support, then you can have a
particular browser (with proxy support) use the VPN, and nothing
else.
Technology can be configured in a large number of ways.
-dsr-
Some web sites I want to continue visiting as I do now. Amazon.com
for example. There is at least one other site I sometimes want to
visit but am blocked because of my location. It is my understanding
that using a VPN to access this site allows my location and IP
address to be changed so I wouldn't be blocked.
Yes you can do this but exactly how you do it will depend on the VPN
and how much complexity you want to deal with.
The "guaranteed to work"(TM) method would be to setup one or more
proxies on virtual hosts and then route different websites to
different proxies. I don't remember the details but you do something
with proxy.pac to select different proxies for different destinations.
And then each virtual host can have a different route to the internet.
On a single host you can potentially do something similar but if the
proxy uses a different source address then you can use source based
routing. Many proxies allow binding to a source address.
You can also run one instance of the browser in a network namespace,
that way all traffic from that browser could be routed over the vpn
while other traffic goes directly - this avoids the complexity of
setting up a proxy but adds the complexity of setting up a network
namespace.
Tim.
Hi Tim,
It looks like a big can of worms and way more complexity than I want
to deal with.
Thanks for the help.
The easiest way is simply to enable the VPN when you need to access
blocked web site and disable it otherwise.
Note that VPN providers will know what web site you are looking at.
This is the exact answer I was looking for - that it is possible to
disable the VPN when not needed. So, how is that done? Or does that
vary by provider?
I don't care if the provider knows what site I am visiting. I would not
do anything illegal.
Best regards,
Fred
