No, seriously, don't. You're probably reading this because you've asked what VPN service to use, and this is the answer.
Note: The content in this post does not apply to using VPN for their intended purpose; that is, as a virtual private (internal) network. It only applies to using it as a glorified proxy, which is what every third-party "VPN provider" does.
- A Russian translation of this article can be found here, contributed by Timur Demin.
- A Turkish translation can be found here, contributed by agyild.
- There's also this article about VPN services, which is honestly better written (and has more cat pictures!) than my article.
Because a VPN in this sense is just a glorified proxy. The VPN provider can see all your traffic, and do with it what they want - including logging.
There is no way for you to verify that, and of course this is what a malicious VPN provider would claim as well. In short: the only safe assumption is that every VPN provider logs.
And remember that it is in a VPN provider's best interest to log their users - it lets them deflect blame to the customer, if they ever were to get into legal trouble. The $10/month that you're paying for your VPN service doesn't even pay for the lawyer's coffee, so expect them to hand you over.
I'll believe that when HideMyAss goes out of business. They gave up their users years ago, and this was widely publicized. The reality is that most of their customers will either not care or not even be aware of it.
Doesn't matter. You're still connecting to their service from your own IP, and they can log that.
VPNs don't provide security. They are just a glorified proxy.
VPNs don't provide privacy, with a few exceptions (detailed below). They are just a proxy. If somebody wants to tap your connection, they can still do so - they just have to do so at a different point (ie. when your traffic leaves the VPN server).
Use SSL/TLS and HTTPS (for centralized services), or end-to-end encryption (for social or P2P applications). VPNs can't magically encrypt your traffic - it's simply not technically possible. If the endpoint expects plaintext, there is nothing you can do about that.
When using a VPN, the only encrypted part of the connection is from you to the VPN provider. From the VPN provider onwards, it is the same as it would have been without a VPN. And remember, the VPN provider can see and mess with all your traffic.
Your IP address is a largely irrelevant metric in modern tracking systems. Marketers have gotten wise to these kind of tactics, and combined with increased adoption of CGNAT and an ever-increasing amount of devices per household, it just isn't a reliable data point anymore.
Marketers will almost always use some kind of other metric to identify and distinguish you. That can be anything from a useragent to a fingerprinting profile. A VPN cannot prevent this.
There are roughly two usecases where you might want to use a VPN:
- You are on a known-hostile network (eg. a public airport WiFi access point, or an ISP that is known to use MITM), and you want to work around that.
- You want to hide your IP from a very specific set of non-government-sanctioned adversaries - for example, circumventing a ban in a chatroom or preventing anti-piracy scareletters.
In the second case, you'd probably just want a regular proxy specifically for that traffic - sending all of your traffic over a VPN provider (like is the default with almost every VPN client) will still result in the provider being able to snoop on and mess with your traffic.
However, in practice, just don't use a VPN provider at all, even for these cases.
If you absolutely need a VPN, and you understand what its limitations are, purchase a VPS and set up your own (either using something like Streisand or manually - I recommend using Wireguard). I will not recommend any specific providers (diversity is good!), but there are plenty of cheap ones to be found on LowEndTalk.
A VPN provider specifically seeks out those who are looking for privacy, and who may thus have interesting traffic. Statistically speaking, it is more likely that a VPN provider will be malicious or a honeypot, than that an arbitrary generic VPS provider will be.
Because it's easy money. You just set up OpenVPN on a few servers, and essentially start reselling bandwidth with a markup. You can make every promise in the world, because nobody can verify them. You don't even have to know what you're doing, because again, nobody can verify what you say. It is 100% snake-oil.
So yes, VPN services do serve a purpose - it's just one that benefits the provider, not you.
This post is licensed under the WTFPL or CC0, at your choice. You may distribute, use, modify, translate, and license it in any way.
Before you comment: Be aware that any non-constructive comments will be removed. This includes advertising for VPN providers (yes, even when you phrase the marketing claims like a question), trolling, harassment, insults towards other people, claims that have already been addressed in the article, and so on.
If your comment isn't a genuine question or a concrete counterargument supported by evidence, it probably doesn't belong here.
As I stated above:
"EXACTLY!
It all depends on what your threat model is and who is going to target you.
If your threat is the forum admin mentioned above, then you're 100% safe in posting your ramblings.
BUT remember: Tor, and also VPN, are pretty good as long as you're not a super government agency target.
A super government agency like the NSA/GCHQ/China MSS/etc., will find you in good time and no one will know about it.
The guys in the Suburbans dressed in black will show up at 4am in your place, put a hood over your head and take you away, and no one will know about where you'll be going.
BUT for that to occur you must represent a pretty huge threat to them!
BUT if you are that type of threat you wont be using VPNs or Tor, at least not in any set way, with any set equipment, in any set locations, and far away from any video surveillance cameras."
BUT:
There are a few VPN services, like Proton VPN, located in a privacy protected country, Switzerland, that do not log.
Using such a VPN (or two) to hide your IP identity along with an anonymous/encrypted email service like Proton Mail or tutanota will protect your identity, say in case you wish to stay untraceable if you write a politically incorrect letter to news publication like The Guardian or the New York Times, or the Washington Post, etc., and you do not want some woke editor or IT guy there tracing your IP and then calling their friend at your IP provider and the next thing you know you are identified and you are being fried alive on Twitter or Facebook, etc.
In that case a VPN can live up to its expectations.
Absolutely Avoid any VPN service servers located in any of the 5 eyes or the 9 eyes or the 14 eyes or the xx eyes, or Russia, China, etc.
Again, as I stated previously above, if you are a huge threat given enough time and resources you'll be ID'd, but for run of the mill anonymity a VPN service like that described above is fool proof.
For every day security HTTPS will suffice, as it has been stated by others above, but for anonymity a no-log VPN located in a safe jurisdiction is required.
Now, the problem is that some VPN services may be secretly run by the super government agencies like the NSA/GCHQ/China MSS/etc., and that you'll never know! BUT such VPN operations will be truly valuable assets with extremely strict security operations protocols and will be focused on really huge threats, not your politically incorrect letter to the editor!