Hi Erich and Tom,

Thank you so much for sharing your helpful thoughts, experience with
TunnelBear and links to trusted review sites.

They are hard to come by for everything these days – consumer goods,
electronics, etc.

You wrote <snip> If you want the privacy from tracking or surveillance, I
wouldn’t use a free VPN service.”

What would you use?

How affordable is that option?

I’ve since learned she’s been a victim of fraud on the net via Instagram
and Facebook so she doesn’t want be found by these miscreants and wants to
ensure her Social Security money isn’t drained from her bank checking
account via unauthorized withdrawals.

Would TunnelBear suffice under these circumstances?

Hi Joe… Thank you for educating me re: what VPNs but what would you do/use
if you were in this patron’s circumstances?

Hi Tamara, since you don’t recommend using a VPN in these circumstances how
would you suggest someone who isn’t a systems administrator and doesn’t
have that training ascertain how to check that her public WIFI provided by
a smaller public library is secure with a valid certificate?

She logs on to the net with the library hotspot and types in her bank’s url
(or click the bookmark in Firefox, Brave or Vivaldi) and is prompted for
her user ID and password to her bank web page. Once in to that back she
checks on checking account balance and for any unauthorized debits.

She then needs to connect to the online credit card bank to log in so she
can transfer funds from her local bank to the credit card bank so she can
pay off her monthly credit card balance.

Thank you so much.

Charles.

Charlotte County Public Library