I just subbed to a VPN last month for other things, but I realized, does this gives me extra protection to use public wifis? (The one from cafes and not just from a random stranger) and whats really the danger of connecting to public wifis if I don’t have VPN? (I use to do this and so far nothing bad happened but maybe VPN would keep me safer)
Yeah, using a VPN when connecting to public Wi-Fi networks does provide extra protection.
Depends on the VPN. But, generally yes.
They wouldn’t be able to read transmittable data since it’s encrypted, but they will still know your MAC and can block you by it if you overuse the net.
Yes, IF you are using a good premium VPN
without a vpn, the public wifi can see what sight you’re visiting, but with https they won’t see what you’re doing on the sites. but a vpn can shield from them seeing what sites your visiting.
Not really. Most of the traffic that need to be encrypted is already encrypted.
Awesome!!! Their internet in one cafe I know is actually 2x faster than at home. Gonna make that cafe my office now 
Heh, my local mall blocks any sort of VPN connection…
Perfecttttt!!! Can you elaborate on the MAC part? What do you mean by block me? If you mean the cafe can prevent me from signing in, their wifi is specifically for customers, it just doesnt have a special login like other public wifis on my area (the one with ads popup) so it kinda got me worried. its similar to connecting to my wifi at home
By the way the cafe Im referring to is a Krispy Kreme (its just that one krispy kreme, oher krispy kremes near me doesnt have a wifi)
Exactly what Bkeeneme said; a vpn makes a direct encrypted tunnel between your device and the VPN endpoint. Obviously it’s WiFi so the traffic from your device can literally be captured but it should be garbage because of that VPN tunnel.
However a VPN isn’t a magical security solution. It won’t protect you from malware or phishing or anything. Think of the basics of a VPN as just hiding where your device appears to be on the Internet and that’s all it really does.
When you connect to Wi-Fi spot the router register that the device with your MAC has been connected and gives you IP writing down that this IP belongs to this user. Admins of this net can recognize how often you’ve been connecting to the spot, what IP you had and what resources you reached (just the VPN servers in your case) and have opportunity to prevent router from giving address to the device with this MAC and/or to send data to it. Depending on their net they can block the device in one place or in the whole franchise. Also, talking about public network danger, someone can spoof this address on public net once you are connected and virtually change their own addresses to make vision like it’s you doing things in the net and not them.
The question with MACs is actually solved for mobile devices since they have ability to randomize MAC and send info about random virtual MAC rather than the real one. Not sure about laptops though, AFAIK they don’t implement that feature.
Perfect. Exactly what I need 
Awesomeee thanks for the info.
Regarding spoofing address, youre talking about the the cafe employees who are in charge with the wifi or just anyone who can connect to that wifi?
Second thing. But I actually googled it and yes, at least Win11 has the option to turn on MAC randomization
Gotcha, it appears macos have this as well after doing a quick google search.
Im curious tho, what van a random stranger really do to frame me using my MAC address? Like hack the wifi using my MAC address?
Use your address on his own machine for bad intentions like hacking things. So they will keep anonymous. Also some time ago, like 8 years and more, when there was no random MACs on phones, hackers and frauds used vans riding across towns with Wi-Fi routers. The spots in this van had Wi-Fis with names of popular free hotspots. Name is how the device define the Wi-Fi so if you connected to a spot “Free Wi-Fi” previously and then your phone see it again it’ll automatically connect to “Free Wi-Fi” even if it’s being translated from another router. So the phone will connect to fraud’s hotspot, hackers write down your MAC and so they can figure out it’s not just a random device, it’s your device, you, “John”, is a user, and they can track you down if they see this MAC anywhere else on the net connecting to other networks and so on.
Just random facts, y’know