How effective is VPN really?

[Sumiokas 0]

Hello,

I started using AirVPN yesterday, refugee from Mullvad and ProtonVPN.

My question is how important is VPN really nowadays and how effective from technical perspective?

Asking this mainly because I follow many great tech channels on YouTube and some of them say that VPN is bullshit and doesn't help with privacy at all and it's just a new way of milking money.

Don't worry, if you want, get technical with me, always looking forward to learn, Thank you!

[go558a83nk 372]

With the way browsers are fingerprinted and users are tracked via cookies, etc. chances are "they" know who you are whether you use a VPN or not.....unless you do everything you can to create a new identity through the VPN and totally separate that from your other self(s).  And that takes effort and some technical knowledge.
 

[fsy 37]

5 hours ago, Sumiokas said:

VPN is bullshit and doesn't help with privacy at all and it's just a new way of milking money

My use cases show it's not.

1. I connect to a VPN to jump to I2P and Tor when they are blocked by specific ISP that lets AirVPN connections but not Tor's. Once the VPN connection is live I can then connect to Tor or I2P and further enhance identity protection and actually hide how I use the Internet from the ISP.

2. I use the VPN even with an ISP that does not enforce blocks, in order to access medical sites, use political tools and any other activity I am not comfortable to let my ISP know or store for years - since in some countries there's mandatory data retention from one to six years of all traffic including metadata. Tor would do the same but most Tor exit nodes block specific connections, or the final service block Tor, or the service I need would be too slow for the Tor network. Typically when I have to download large documents and tools whose source would provide important clues (that would remain stored for years for data retention again) regarding my health status, my political preferences and any other thing I don't want to be potentially used for profiling or other purposes by my ISP - and everyone accessing my ISP data - , and/or stored for years.

3. I connect to a VPN when I am forced to use a crappy ISP that shapes anything, literally anything, except HTTP-S and makes FTP and anything else a pain. By connecting on TCP to port 443 I can enjoy FTP and some other protocols full speed, even when the activity is not privacy sensitive. In this case too Tor is very problematic for performance and because most exit nodes block some destination ports I need for FTP etc.

These are my own use cases and I think that they are not uncommon. I guess that a few bucks a month is a fair price even for one of them. OK, case 3 is not very privacy-related and could be off topic from your initial message, but it shows how a VPN can be worthy in occurrences not strictly privacy related.

[OpenSourcerer 1471]

VPNs are not anonymous by design, they're pseudonymous – because the only thing they do is change IP addresses in the end. It's a component for a system, not the system itself. They're not enough on their own if you aim for an anonymous setup, but for certain other use cases, like geoblock circumvention and peer-to-peer of copyrighted material, they are sufficient to prevent uncomfortable situations.
As mentioned above, as an example, while surfing your browser still downloads things and in doing so exposes certain info which doesn't change whether your network is routed via ISP or VPN. Logging into accounts associated with your data is also a dead giveaway that it's you yourself using a VPN (so, do not log into your Google account ).

Besides, the most recommended tool for anonymity even around these forums is Tor over VPN: Connect to a VPN server, then surf using the Tor Browser for example.
 

9 hours ago, Sumiokas said:

Asking this mainly because I follow many great tech channels on YouTube and some of them say that VPN is bullshit and doesn't help with privacy at all and it's just a new way of milking money.

 

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To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions: Both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

As such, praising VPNs as the solution for everything, or cursing them as "just a new way to milk money" are equally two extremes indicating no prior analysis was done.
In this case you should probably be aware of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect when you continue watching those who said it: They might be conveying inaccurate info on other topics as well. Always fact-check yourself.

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The Gell-Mann amnesia effect is a cognitive bias describing the tendency of individuals to critically assess media reports in a domain they are knowledgeable about, yet continue to trust reporting in other areas despite recognizing similar potential inaccuracies.

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