short answer (and the safest one) is yes, use HTTPS always.

However, if and only if a service you are using is confined locally or via your privately hosted VPN (this just means not available over the public internet) you are probably OK without, unless there are other people on your local network who might be interested in snooping.

with your VPN (looks like netbird in this case) you should be OK, as the VPN handles encryption in the absense of HTTPS.

For more research checkout LetsEncrypt. its a super simple way to setup SSL (Which generally makes up the S part in HTTPS) and it’s free.

i think many of us started like you. you’ll get there, you’re just about to learn a lot of stuff before you do.