comma@midwest.social to

No Stupid Questions@lemmy.worldEnglish · 2 months ago

What's the difference between a proxy and a VPN

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What's the difference between a proxy and a VPN

comma@midwest.social to

No Stupid Questions@lemmy.worldEnglish · 2 months ago

I’m going to need an ELI5 because I have read several explanations online, and I still don’t fully understand what makes them different. Why would you want to use one over the other? Don’t they both just forward your internet traffic? How do they work, in general?

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2 months ago
Functionally the same for most people. A VPN is a virtual LAN so you can access other computers on it. Ex. company’s internal websites from a remote location

Proxy just forwards traffic like a gateway. In both cases the source is hidden. LANs have gateways too

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