Another good use for VPN is to counter dynamic pricing. My wife visited a website some time ago to request the price for a ticket. When she visited the website a second time the price had increased considerably. However when visiting the price with VPN it was the original price again. It saved her a lot of money.
Solvespace is a FLOSS light weight 3D CAD alternative. Although it lacks the advanced features of Solidworks works really great for most of my 3d designs.