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.
@hackers-terabit There is actually a distinction in the industry between a proxy and a VPN, and consumer VPN providers are just a glorified proxy.
First, you wrote as if encrypted proxies haven't existed. There are two kinds of consumer VPNs - Encrypted proxies that rebranded using the acronym, and proxies that have always been lying to you.
They may even use VPN protocols, but ultimately, they miss one important distinction. They're not private. They are by definition public. This is a case of "we use ['military'|'enterprise'] grade ['encryption'|'protocols'|other marketing woo] therefore you're getting some kind of advantage."
This is the way Microsoft hypes up its new consumer software or services. "This used to be only for enterprise, now you can have it too! You know, cause you aren't switching to free software which has been able to do the same thing without having to buy a million CALs all these years"
In businesses, military, and at Laevateinn, VPNs are used to tunnel into a private network, either to appear as originating from that location, or to access private resources. That's the P in VPN. If you're not going into a private network, there is no P. Additionally, a lot of "VPN" services aren't even using the right protocols. They're just proxies with an encrypted connection to you. Not only that but if they're sold by an antivirus peddler, you can be certain the VPN client replaces your root cert too, decrypting your TLS traffic for their viewing pleasure.
"configuring a VPN by default eliminates an entire class of security vulnerabilities"
No, no it does not. If you use a VPN to browse the clearnet, that traffic will reach the clearnet. In addition, if you browse to a malicious site, a VPN will provide zero protection unless it's blocking the entire site somehow. But for such a purpose, why not just use a blocker? On that same note, a VPN provider might block something you're trying to access, at which point you now have to exit the VPN. And if you don't have control, there is no P in VPN. Or I guess you could say in that case, the P is for Proxy instead of Private, because you're using it wrong.
Your traffic can easily be de-anonymized, too. A simple javascript, an HTML tag, a login, or a browser fingerprint can compromise the entire tunnel. I've even deanonymized some VPN connections by simply, programmatically, asking the VPN provider. Not only was I able to get the real IP, I got the user's IDENTITY. That's less secure than just going onto the clearnet without one, and I would have had no clue who it was if they had simply dropped the VPN and connected to a coffee shop. (This was part of an experiment, not for malicious purposes. No innocent bystanders were deanonymized)
And there's another thing. Most public Wifi networks today are using a WPA key or a captive network. Sometimes both. Combine that with HTTPS and DoT, nobody knows what the hell you're doing. Especially if they're using WPA3 (with or without a password). Sure, the router will see what IP you're connecting to, but this is that Web2.0 crap where everything is centralized because people for some reason thought that centralizing the Internet to some giant corpos wouldn't bite their ass. So like a million sites can be hosted in one datacenter, meaning you NEED the domain name to determine the real destination.
Consumer VPNs - Not even once. At least, not if you're doing anything more than watching TV shows banned in your country.