If you’re not familiar with Tailscale it’s a very user-friendly “overlay network” that lets you securely connect all your devices no matter where they are over the internet.
No need to forward ports on your router to access your home network anymore. And no need to set up VPNs manually either. Just install Tailscale on all your devices and log in with Gmail or other providers.
Tailscale has official apps for Windows, Mac Android and iOS.
Thanks to a project called Trayscale we now have a GUI app for managing Tailscale on GNU/Linux as well.
it’s a mesh network built on wireguard. it’s not just a direct connection to another PC on your network. you can select exit node devices on the fly and control acl’s and access based on groups in their admin panel.
and yes, if you want a properly secured vpn setup without the necessary background knowledge, it’s pretty difficult. there is no opening ports on your router, which is especially useful for people on cgnat.