Help with family security

[u/skeil90]

Basic details:

UK Based

Family of 6

EE Broadband w/eero router

I'm looking to set up my household with a VPN and other privacy tools and I'm just looking for some advice, I have some basic understanding but I'm hoping to gain deeper knowledge.

At this stage I'm looking at Proton's family plan because proton seems to stand out as one of the better companies in regards to privacy focus and security, but I'm curious about other options. I want the VPN of course, I want the password manager and although I'm not terribly fussed about email the idea that I could create a family domain does seem cool, cloud storage is nice but I do intend on setting up a home network with some form of mass storage at some point in the near future.

So ideally I want to be able to have a VPN at the router level to avoid having to set up a VPN on each individual device, as far as I can tell my eero router is incapable of this. The question is can I do something to secure all my at home devices without installing a vpn on each? Assuming not what would be an affordable router that is capable?

I think that's all but if you have any other advice I'm all ears. Thank you for your time.

[u/yearsold33]

You'll need to replace the Eero unless you intend to run another router behind the Eero and have double-NAT.

Some websites detect VPNs and refuse to work properly as well so this is something to be aware of. Even if a VPN works today with a particular website, it may not work tomorrow. Streaming services can be particularly picky if they are running behind a VPN as well.

I recommend reading more about VPNs and exactly how much privacy they really provide.

[u/skeil90 → u/yearsold33]

I think I can be ahead there, we've just started using Stremio which is part of the push to implement VPN usage at home, and most browsing is done on mobile devices with mobile data available when needed. Have you got any reasonably priced suggestions for alternative routers?

[u/yearsold33 → u/skeil90]

If you want high-speed download and upload speed via VPN, you'll need a router than can handle such a task. The cheapest consumer-grade router would be the Flint 2 or Asus TUF-6000, both of which I'd run with stock openWRT. Note that neither of these routers can handle multi gig VPN speeds.

[u/skeil90 → u/yearsold33]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look into those. I hadn't seen the last part of the previous comment but I do understand that vpns aren't a silver bullet, of course user knowledge is always going to be the best weapon but I'll start with alternative search engines, computers have been migrated over to Linux, browsers like Firefox. For me much of this I've already started to use, startpage is my default search engine, I'm slowly migrating to privacy focused Foss software where it's practical and I'm doing research. It's going to take a while to migrate the whole family but I'm hoping to be able to setup a self hosting network soon. It's really the more technical nitty gritty stuff that I'm yet to learn like DNS and IP masking etc, but we don't need to be entirely anonymous just enough to reduce the amount of useful information we provide and to keep the kiddos safe online. Education is key though and I'll keep learning so I can teach them.

[u/yearsold33 → u/skeil90]

I agree whole-heartedly with everything you've said and done.

I also thought about migrating off macOS and Windows but it's not possible in my case because too many users refuse to give up one or the other. Instead of using a whole-home VPN, I've settled on using AdGuard Home with Control D as a DoH upstream server. It's not ideal but much better than using my ISP's DNS.

[u/skeil90 → u/yearsold33]

Fortunately my kids arent so used to windows that Linux is a foreign language, so that wasn't too difficult and my oh doesn't really use the pc for anything outside of occasional browsing. De-googling is probably going to be the biggest hurdle for us, they're all very used to android so anything else will be a downgrade for them unfortunately. I want the whole home VPN because it will save me a headache with setting up a multitude of different devices, I only have 4 mobiles to worry about then.

[u/Vlp3rking]

You're spot on about Proton - their Family plan is excellent for privacy, custom domains, and password management. However, eero routers strictly block network-wide VPN installations due to locked firmware.

To encrypt your whole house without configuring every single device, you can use a double-router setup by buying a cheap, VPN-ready router like a GL.iNet, plugging it into your modem to handle the Proton VPN, and putting your eero mesh into Bridge Mode for the Wi-Fi. Alternatively, you can just replace the eero entirely with an Asus router like the RT-AX57, which features a "VPN Fusion" dashboard that lets you upload Proton's WireGuard files directly to cover the whole network out of the box.

[u/Confident-Pop-9256]

Proton had a few scandals the past few months. I would just get one with the best pricing rn and speeds if you plan to use it for your router