Does VPN node country matter?

[species8472 3]

I've always used nodes in other countries (not the US) because it seemed like it would be more secure for torrenting...and stuff. But it drives me crazy because all websites think i'm in Canada so prices and a lot of other info is always wrong on websites. Does it matter which country the server is in that i choose? I do torrenting so want to stay safe. thanks for your help. tried googling this but couldn't find what i was looking for.

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

2 hours ago, species8472 said:

Does it matter which country the server is in that i choose? I do torrenting so want to stay safe.

There's no limitation on which servers are "allowed" to be torrented over, something I didn't quite understand with other competitors. Just pick one, everyone works.

[species8472 3]

7 hours ago, OpenSourcerer said:

There's no limitation on which servers are "allowed" to be torrented over, something I didn't quite understand with other competitors. Just pick one, everyone works.

is there any benefit to using servers outside of the US? Is it riskier to use servers in the US?

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

5 hours ago, species8472 said:

is there any benefit to using servers outside of the US?

I know you're nervous and you want to be extra careful but, really, it's fine. All servers fulfill AirVPN's requirements on privacy and technology. If an US server is by geographic distance and/or latency the "best" for you, use it.
 

5 hours ago, species8472 said:

Is it riskier to use servers in the US?

Define "riskier". All connections are encrypted. Sometimes people may quote a benefit of connecting to servers outside the country you're in. In my humble opinion it's a recommendation based way too much on what feels secure rather than what actually is, and a false sense of security is much worse than no security at all.

[species8472 3]

that's exactly what i was hoping for. thank you! i've been using nodes in other countries for many years and it is gonna be so sweet to stop watching canadian news and converting to american dollars lol

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

6 minutes ago, species8472 said:

that's exactly what i was hoping for. thank you! i've been using nodes in other countries for many years and it is gonna be so sweet to stop watching canadian news and converting to american dollars lol

One can refer to NSA's documents from a decade ago or Snowden's interviews and say that it can be a bad idea to connect to US servers, or from US outside of the US: Everytime traffic is entering or leaving their borders, it gets redirected through some NSA backbone for obvious purposes and gets dissected by various softwares. Encryption is not much of a hurdle apparently, but the NSA did note difficulties with Tor and OpenVPN back then, as far as I remember.

In any case, something to be aware of. Maybe you'll end up being much less of a target, if at all, if you keep to the servers in your country. Problem is, it's much more difficult than that. Even traffic from US to US can pass some backbone in Europe because it's the "best" route at the time, so your traffic might end up in NSA's backbone, anyway…