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VPN, Country of Origin, Vivaldi, is the VPN service active on PC?

  • 29 June 2019
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--How do I tell if Webroot VPN service is working on my PC? On my cell phone, I can see a small key icon in the upper right corner. There is no icon on any of my browser bars (Vivaldi, Chrome, IE, Firefox, Opera) to indicate that VPN is active.

--How can I change my country of origin?

--Does the service work with the Vivaldi browser? How can I tell? PS. I prefer Vivaldi as a browser. Great for people doing research.

--Is my smart TV a weak point in my security network? e.g., when I am streaming through a ROKU set box.

Thank you for your response.
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Best answer by pstonethompson 2 July 2019, 18:42

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The VPN works for all network connections from your computer, so should work with any browser. It isn't a browser extension like Opera's built in offering, or the VPN subscription planned by Mozilla for Firefox.

As well as browsers Webroot WiFi Security should protect mail clients (such as Outlook, Thunderbird), messaging applications and anything else that might need to transmit data to the internet. This is especially useful for any applications that might not encrypt traffic whilst you are on untrusted networks - a surprisingly common state of affairs with email servers (for example).

I don't believe that Windows itself offers a VPN connected indicator like your mobile device (although it appears a commonly requested feature), but you should be able to see connection status from the Webroot WiFi Security task bar icon.

One simple way you can see that this is working is to connect to a site like that attempts to GeoLocate your IP address (such as https://www.iplocation.net/) before connecting to the VPN, and then revisiting it afterwards. The location should change to match the location selected within WiFi Security.

There are instructions on how change the selected location at https://community.webroot.com/knowledge-base-76/how-to-change-the-server-location-for-webroot-wifi-security-326420

With reference to Smart Television, it is a reasonable question as many of the networks used to initiate Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are formed of large numbers of compromised low powered devices such as printers, routers and webcams. Samsung demonstrated this with a widely publicised tweet last month when it reminded users to initiate antivirus scans on their smart televisions.

The good news is that if your smart television were compromised, being connected to WiFi Security would effectively shield your traffic on that device from being intercepted by any attacker who managed to compromise a WiFi connected smart television or media device on the same network. In that case your trusted home network has effectively become an untrusted network.

An additional technique that a lot of security specialists advocate, and something I do personally at home, is to segment your network so that if a smart television or smart device is compromised - it cannot access your main network and see the more sensitive traffic or access devices connected to that network in order to try and compromise them in turn. This can sometimes be done by connecting internet enabled devices like the Roku to the "Guest" network offered by many ISP's routers. Some aftermarket routers offered by brands like D-Link, Netgear and Billion have more advanced network segmentation built in, potentially allowing multiple separate networks or device isolation on one or more network.

It is important to note that both network segmentation and using the WiFi Security app all the time at home may not be possible with devices like Chromecasts where you need to be able to communicate with the device from your phone, tablet or computer in order to use the core functionality of the device, and may also prevent app remote control of media devices (where this is offered as a feature).