I’ve been using a paid VPN for about 3 years now, but have recently been told that they are just for peace of mind and don’t actually do anything. I looked into it and saw others saying the same thing online, that the VPN companies are just data mining and scamming you without actually doing anything to protect your privacy online is this true or are VPNs actually protecting you online?
Note, if you know how they work I would love a explanation as I would love to know more about the service I’m paying for thank you in advance.
So there’s a few different uses of the term “vpn”:
Theres the group of technologies all considered as vpns, think IPsec or openvpn or wireguard. Which do encrypt your traffic from end to end preventing the middle man from seeing what you’re doing.
Then there’s vpn service providers which are businesses hosting the endpoint for you also referred to as “vpns”.
So you’re half right in the sense that those companies are mining your data, you’re just changing who collects it.
Leveraging the technology can make your web browsing private but only if you build your own endpoint. That way you’re the one in control of your data in and out. There’s a ton of tutorials online how to host your own vpn and where.
For 99% of people it is being marketed for it does not protect. Most people were raw dogging internet for ages and with same OS same browser turn on vpn goes to webpage with same cookie yeah no it does f*** all. Its a tool to help hide, but alone and without knoweladge how it works and how to utilise it, its just a scam.
By all means VPN is great tool. But it is only in right hands.
Yes, VPN gives certain limited protections and features. It hides your traffic from your ISP. It hides your traffic from other devices on the LAN, important if you’re using a public network. It hides your home IP address from web sites. It can make you appear to be in a different country. Some VPNs have added features such as ad-blockers.
It’s not a cure-all, or magic bullet, but I think it’s worth using, for me anyway.
While I use a VPN when traveling—primarily to securely connect to work, watch Netflix, and handle other tasks—it’s essential to understand that a VPN isn’t a magic tool that makes you invisible online. It might obscure some of your activity from your ISP, but if you have something to hide, a VPN alone won’t make you completely anonymous.
Here’s an analogy I like to use: imagine you’re expecting a delivery but want to keep its contents secret from your neighbors. You package everything in plain brown boxes, load them into unmarked trucks, and bring them inside your yard. Neighbors can see the traffic and know something is being delivered, even if they don’t know exactly what. They might not know it ain’t candy, but whatever it is they know it’s a shitload of it, and it can’t be good because you are hiding it.
Similarly, while your ISP might not see the specific sites you visit when using a VPN, they can still observe the volume of data moving through their network. Depending on your VPN setup, they may even detect that you’re using a VPN. Since your ISP owns the physical infrastructure, they can inspect traffic if they wish. Ultimately, a VPN can be useful for privacy, location masking, and security, but it has its limits.
If you don’t control both ends of the VPN connection, you’re placing trust in the VPN provider to handle your data securely and not to log or monitor your activity. This means that while your traffic may be encrypted between you and the VPN server, it can still be exposed or tracked from the VPN server onward. In other words, you don’t have complete control over where your data goes or who may have access to it on the other end.
Well what’s the point in hiding from the ISP if you’ve replaced it now with the VPN host
You haven’t just “replaced ISP with VPN host”. If you didn’t give ID to VPN when you signed up, you’ve split your data between the two companies, so neither knows all your data. A win.