Welcome to the forum Marilyn. Hope you enjoy as much as we do. Good people ,good ideas, and great info.
Ask any question and you will get the  answers very quick...

As you are quickly finding out Marilyn, Australia has HUGE charges for Internet use compared to the rest of the civilised World. We paid $39 a month for mobile Optus broadband on the road that included 4g of data but that is woefully short for long term internet usage (such as yours). At home we use TPG which gives unlimited data allowance for $39 a month - a BIG difference. Be very careful what you pick also as our Optus mobile USB was practically useless in at least 60% of this Big Brown Land as we found out to our cost. Also, when travelling, try and find Wi-Fi hotspots to tether to; it will save you a fortune!

maybe you could try a local library, most mid size towns have free internet access, bit slow but at least its free

Marilyn wrote:

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Thanks Paul and Val - Have you got favourite hotspots? I have been skyped from someone who stopped at Macca's for a quick cheap coffee, the conversation lasted at least half and hour. Is this ok to do? and is it private enough? Is there a rule of thumb here?

Marilyn

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 You'll find private wifi systems on the road are open to everyone who can gain access just like you, not private, unreliable in many cases and easily hacked. They are fine for just browsing, but not for doing business, especially banking as it's extremely easy to hack or corrupt. When travelling, you need to encrypt all your data and use non traceable systems which don't record your online use or log your work. For business, you need to use a safe secure browser and none of the proprietary ones or the majority of free ones like Firefox, are not safe for business and what ever you do, don't use IE, it's an open book for anyone who wants to see what you're up to and take it. You need to use a secure online network which cannot be easily traced or hacked and you need a browser that doesn't record your online data, so no one can access it.

We have friends who have conducted their business whilst on the road for the last 30 odd years, so I'm just repeating what they do and how we have set up our on road internet. We don't encrypt unless dealing with them or our work, but they have a system setup which is virtually uncrackable because it uses very high end encryption and  works in the deep web, where it's almost impossible to be tracked. They also use open sources systems, which are not vulnerable and open like proprietary junk and have state of the art software. Plus it's all free.

Marilyn wrote:

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Thank you native pepper, this is good information and clear. I gather I need to find a good browser now (any recommendations?) and learn about encryption. I guess this is good info for a lot of people who thought that they were working and banking safely. Marilyn

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 Lxquick is probably the best private browser around currently, there are others but lxquick doesn't record any of your use and has good security practices.  https://www.ixquick.com/

The Tor system is one of the safest web system on the planet as it works in the deep web and not where proprietary system work in the open for everyone to see and hack. https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

You must also remember if your using win or apple, your system is wide open to the world and anyone with a small amount of knowledge can hack you any where any time. For business this is imperative to overcome, no matter what others may tell you, the facts are windows and apple are on the way out very fast. Win is about to shut down XP by stealth, they first will stop all updates and security patches next month, when that happens all xp systems will be wide open and especially business systems to unlimited attacks and as w8 is made up of xp with stuff on top of it, win7-8-8.1 are just a vulnerable, which you see daily. They intend flooding xp machines with constant reminders to upgrade until people do. The biggest problem will occur when hackers start using DDos against businesses, which they are doing now and hijack your computer denying you access. That can only occurs with win and apple, not open source. So you need to take that into account when setting up your business on line for the road. They can only hack your system, if they can see it or you have vulnerabilities, win and apple are the vulnerability kings.

Make sure you have the safest and most anonymous system you can, for working on the road, you have no idea what systems are operating and because traffic is much smaller on the road, it's pretty easy to find easy targets. Unlike in Europe where it's wall to wall people everywhere, so internet traffic is always very high and cluttered. It's an easy thing to see how many people are on any wifi system with the right tools in the bush, sometimes there is no one, then the kids get home from school and the wifi lights up as more and more come on and display their iT addresses. Set your system up right and you'll be fine.

Hi Marilyn

Have to agree with Bob. In my opinion, native pepper is scaremongering. Like Bob, I started using the internet when it was text based and an Apple 11E was the bees knees. The security issues with Windows and IE are well known but not enough reason alone to cease using them. Have been down the Linux road - twice - and have come back to Windows both times.

We bank and both locally and internationally and buy both locally and internationally via the internet and have never had a problem. Common sense when using wifi is needed and good access security and passwords are essential.

In terms of your original question, I think you have the best solution already. Australia is expensive when it comes to internet.

Cheers

Rex A

Marilyn wrote:

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Thanks Rex, thats reassuring in some sense. I am doing a short house sit with 100g a month to log into. If only we could get a tenth of that on mobile broadband on the road and, (looking at the Telco's) why not? They must be making a fortune, its time they were shaken up!

Marilyn

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 Marilyn, the first thing you should ask the abusive deniers, is do they run an internet based business, with a web site and online payment facilities. You may find they are just normal people who do some banking and buying on the net. As you would probably know, there is a big difference between personal online, selling, buying and banking, compared to a fully operational online business transactions and operations. 

We operate a website for our work and also with other online businesses aligned with what we do. All operate with high security and the majority, use open source systems because of security, reliability, state of the art and economic reality. Even if you don't use the security of open source systems, you should make every effort to make sure your business is safe from any intrusion and to do that, you require top of the range security and encrypted abilities. If you don't deal in economic transactions, then don't worry about it and continue the way you are.

Do you realise, for high end use, you can negotiate costs with most internet providers, sadly the major operators don't give you that opportunity, but many others can give you really good deals, if you're prepared to approach them with a proposition and long term involvement.