Do you use a VPN?

[Zkuq]

malistix1985 said:

Zkuq said:

Hiding something (e.g. piracy, your general browsing when using public WiFi) and getting around restrictions are the two only things that come to my mind when I try to think of good reasons to use VPN (for general use). For almost everything else, VPN offers pretty much no benefit. If you have a reliable VPN provider (i.e. a good paid one), it shouldn't hurt to use VPN for other stuff either, but if you're using a free VPN, you should only be using it when you really need it and disable at all other times.

Just to clarify it for others: If you think you're protecting your internet use by using a free VPN, you're probably just endangering it unless you're turning it on only when you really need it (e.g. to circumvent regional restrictions or hide piracy and then disable VPN when you're done). A VPN service costs money to run, and if you're not paying for the service with your money, you're paying for it in some other way. It could be ads, or it could be your data, but you're paying for it somehow.

FYI: I have been using ExpressVPN since 2010 and I use it because of the work I do on my computer mostly but I also use it to purchase products from different regions because they are cheaper that way and I use it to access other countries their digital stores and so forth.

Its also been very usefull to connect with friends from the US in certain games and get around limitations, all around its been usefull and yes obviously when you pirate series and other stuff its essential and I would personally never advice anyone to use a free one either, so good point by you.

But when you use a VPN either you have a bad provider which doesn't value your security *aka not paid scam* or you have a good one and if people want to know what you are doing they need to really really want to know to do the effort thus making most activities very safe and secure by having a good paid VPN provider.

Like I said, there are some valid use cases and good providers that should work even all the time. Still, a lot of people seem to have misconceptions about VPNs, and I'm just trying to make it clear that they're not automatically good and can indeed make the situation even worse. Most people want it free, and can end up worse because of that. You have to check if the VPN provider is good if you really want to improve your situation.