I have heard a few people say that I should be using a vpn on my iPad Pro since it is being used as my laptop replacement and is used on both cellular and WiFi. I have never used any virus protection on any of my Mac’s or iPhone‘s, wondering if I should be on iOS or iPadOS?
The beauty of both Apple's Mac OSX and iOS is that it is a pretty secure operating system as long as it continues to receive updates on the OS. What the security updates do is patch up the security holes that those malware and viruses target upon, so there's nothing that can exploit the security holes. Most of what you see out there with compromised systems is that, they are running an older version of Windows, Mac OS, iOS, Android OS and Linux where the vulnerabilities of the older OS are exploited by the hackers. And this is also true for home routers -- all consumer routers you buy can be compromised by hackers and install malware in its firmware to compromise your security.
Having said that, there is a misconception about VPN. VPN DOES NOT prevent NOR STOP malware and virus infection on your computer. This is a common sales pitch sold by AVG, Bit Defender, Trend Micro, Norton etc... to instill fear on you and a false sense of security, because they include some sort of AI protection against these Malware stuff. But truly, it's just them phoning home to their database, cross reference them and prevent you from going to those websites. What a VPN truly does, however, is to mask your IP address, encrypt your traffic and mask your geolocation. In essence, people don't really know where you come from or you can bypass censorship in countries that stops the expression of free speech. The TOR site is a common free VPN community for investigative journalists, where coupled with an encrypted email service like ProtonMail can provide almost complete anonymity, if you decide to become a whistleblower. Most people who do this, however, run on an exclusive OS like TAILS for a complete anonymous presence.
The reason VPN does not stop malware and virus infection is because with VPN, you are still browsing websites that can potentially be a malware site. In order to infect your computer, you need to hand over your administration (or SUDO) account to these people and the way the iOS system works is that, there is a sandbox system (like app armor in Linux) that sandboxed any potential attacks and isolate them. Unless you give them your complete iTunes account, which then includes your credit card info, your likelyhood of infection with an iPad Pro is pretty pretty nill and non-permanent you can always reset and reboot your iPad Pro and the infection is gone.
Where VPN becomes useful for privacy protection is using public WIFI or fake public WIFI where people use them to steal your personal info through sites offering very weak encryption. At least with a VPN, your data and passwords are encrypted point to point for all the sites that don't offer strong https encryption. Keep in mind that public WIFI is a bigger threat and easier for people to steal your bank account. Cellular not so much as you know your provider. But with public WIFI, anyone with a hotspot router can mask and pretend to be Starbucks. You log into that hotspot and any personal data is then siphoned off to its own drive and they take your info to break into whatever sites you frequent with and then change passwords. Then they send you a ransom note demanding payment. Or else, divert legitimate http requests, change the DNS server to go to a fake site of the same website you thought you are in and you download some stuff and that stuff is infected with a virus. So in essence with a VPN, you can encrypt your data so that these thieves can't divert nor steal your data. Even public routers can be infected by malware and then they too send you to sites that are malicious and fake. With a VPN, you work with a VPN provider you trust and you are less likely to be diverted to malicious sites.
I use a VPN myself. In fact, I'm using now. It cuts down on cookie tracking and spams by a big margin and no site diversion in public hotspots.
