The way i work with MYSQL is always the php side. Meaning i use online MYSQL and make php files to connect to the database to read.write ect.

Then for VB i would use webrequests to read/write to the php file. So all the MYSQ work is done through a php script. This is much easyer than it sounds and the php file code would only be a few lines of code to connect to the database.

Then VB code can be just a few lines for the webrequests.

Thanks