Don't use VPN services.

vpn.md

Don't use VPN services.

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.

Why not?

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.

But my provider doesn't log!

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.

But a provider would lose business if they did that!

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.

But I pay anonymously, using Bitcoin/PaysafeCard/Cash/drugs!

Doesn't matter. You're still connecting to their service from your own IP, and they can log that.

But I want more security!

VPNs don't provide security. They are just a glorified proxy.

But I want more privacy!

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).

But I want more encryption!

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.

But I want to confuse trackers by sharing an IP address!

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.

So when should I use a VPN?

There are roughly two usecases where you might want to use a VPN:

1. 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.
2. 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.

So, then... what?

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.

But how is that any better than a VPN service?

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.

So why do VPN services exist? Surely they must serve some purpose?

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.

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This post is licensed under the WTFPL or CC0, at your choice. You may distribute, use, modify, translate, and license it in any way.

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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 said, this isn't even an argument against VPNs in general. You can distrust state-owned companies, but there are VPNs not owned by them. There are many provably secure ones to choose from.

Even then, they're pretending an SOE is something suspicious or odd and don't offer any additional arguments, counting on pre-established anti-Chinese sentiment because this kind of propaganda is prevalent in American media lately.

they're pretending an SOE is something suspicious or odd...

I know perfectly well how this works under totalitarian regime because I fucking live in such a country, as I've already said. This level of naivete you demonstrate here is beyond good and evil.

I prefer to base arguments on things that are objective and provable.

You prefer to flood any discussion with 'what ifs?' and 'whys?' and ignore any arguments that don't fit your narrative.

What is an article with a vague reference to the fact that some VPNs are owned by some company connected to a government of some country if not a "what if"? That's not an argument for or against any properties or characteristics of the VPN technology, it doesn't mean anything for the principles of this technology, etc.

Why we shouldn't trust companies infecting our devices with malware? I have no idea...
And the fact I found cute is that you try to discredit the whole article based on that claims about Chinese companies. But they are just a small part of the whole story about a few companies owning the majority of available VPN services.

By itself it doesn't mean anything. It's a common business practice for companies to own dozens of brands. Look at Unilever. I'd rather focus on actual objectively provable downsides.

That's a well known propagandistic tool. Nothing is objectively good or bad, nothing is certain, it's all relative, evidence are insufficient etc.

Once you find something real to get mad about, feel free to let me know. Until then...

Is it possible to add that link I posted to the article above? Because nukeop did a good job burying it under the two screens of irrelevant crap.

You're gonna have to do better than SEO content farm.

Spend the most of my life here like you?

I prefer to base arguments on things that are objective and provable.

Great. Now prove your trust in these entities is warranted beyond a shadow of a doubt. Objectively, of course. Not something subjective like "They've yet to fuck me" or uncertain like "They claim to have a no logs policy". Surely you're not taking an unprovable position.

So you just distrust everyone until proven otherwise. Ok, but that's not an argument against VPN technology.

So you just distrust everyone until proven otherwise. Ok, but that's not an argument against VPN technology.

You're still continuing that red herring, eh? Nobody's arguing against VPN technology. We're arguing against trusting VPN services, which half the time are BARELY or even NOT using VPN technology, and even when they are, are usually spying on you, using tactics like traffic logs, SSL stripping, and DNS logs.

That's also not an argument, because there are many trustworthy services that don't do any of these things.

That's also not an argument, because there are many trustworthy services that don't do any of these things.

Still awaiting definitive proof of that, since your argument is essentially that we shouldn't doubt any of them.

Jaysus, can you stop trolling?

In my experience only 3 VPN providers are OK to trust with normal daily activities: Mullvad, Proton & IVPN. Mullvad and IVPN can be paid for with cash. Mullvad does not require a registration, they only supply an account number. Proton can be used for free* in a limited fashion. Each have pros and cons, but generally I think that they are usable.

• They say that it is not free, but paid for by paying subscribers.

Any valid and based reasons why not to trust them? Not conspiracy theories, or principle VPN dissing.

Jaysus, can you two stop trolling?

In my experience only 3 VPN providers are OK to trust with normal daily activities: Mullvad, Proton & IVPN. Mullvad and IVPN can be paid for with cash. Mullvad does not require a registration, they only supply an account number. Proton can be used for free* in a limited fashion. Each have pros and cons, but generally I think that they are usable.

* They say that it is not free, but paid for by paying subscribers.

Any valid and based reasons why not to trust them? Not conspiracy theories, or principle VPN dissing.

As with anything you cannot verify, trust it as far as you can throw it. They're still a proxy, they're still capable of logging, and in the case of Mullvad and others that you can pay for in cash or monero, that only means they have less to identify you with. Proton has complied to identify a target in the past, so that's probable cause not to use Proton. Mullvad is the only one I'd touch with a 10 foot pole and I still treat it with zero trust. And that's kinda the point here. None of these services can ultimately be trusted to protect your privacy. They could fuck you at any time, and you wouldn't know til it's too late. This is why practicing proper opsec is more important than trusting a service. If you'd... Read the article, you'd know the point of this discussion.

My point in this discussion is that you should doubt anything you cannot verify. Nukeop is arguing that you shouldn't doubt what you can't verify, or at least that's what he appears to be arguing.

They're still a proxy

A VPN is not a proxy and insisting on that so far into the conversation means you are being willfully ignorant. That doesn't make your arguments any better, in fact the opposite.

Proton has complied to identify a target in the past, so that's probable cause not to use Proton.

AFAIK that was an IP and browser fingerprinting for Proton Mail (which can be accessed via TOR) in a case in 2021 and recovery email from Apple given to Proton Mail upon registration (unnecessarily) from last month. There was no ProtonVPN related cases, were they?

Of course, a proper opsec is the most important, but for daily (legal) use, with just privacy in mind, on a public WiFi for example, the three services I mentioned are the only ones I'd use.

I read the article, and there is a bunch of generalizations and consipracy theories in it. It has its merits, but it does not apply to all VPN services equally, at this point in time, in my opinion.

For critical endeavours total distrust is crucial, but for day to day activities some VPN providers may be valid.

Any business will comply with lawful orders if they want to continue operating. It's unreasonable to expect anything else, especially in clearly criminal cases. You just need to think how to limit what information you give them, and they have to think how to limit what information they store. In that case, that person has willingly saved that email, so they dug their own grave.

Any business will comply with lawful orders if they want to continue operating. It's unreasonable to expect anything else, especially in clearly criminal cases. You just need to think how to limit what information you give them, and they have to think how to limit what information they store. In that case, that person has willingly saved that email, so they dug their own grave.

So... Don't trust VPN services. Possibly only use actual VPNs for actual VPN things.
Like the article is about.

read the article, and there is a bunch of generalizations and consipracy theories in it.

What conspiracy theories? Can you give an example?

Any business will comply with lawful orders if they want to continue operating.

That's why the jurisdiction of the VPN provider is important. Yet another thing you could've learned if you had an ability to read the sources provided to you.

You're doing a huge leap, much bigger than warranted. Any business you interact with will comply with legal orders. That doesn't mean they can't be trusted at all, for any purpose. And I prefer to act on actual, real information, not on paranoid delusions thinking everyone's out to get me. If your goal is to deal drugs on the internet, etc. then yeah sure lol you better be careful who you do business with. Doesn't apply to regular VPN users though, for whom no legal orders will be issued and won't be investigated by Interpol.

That's why the jurisdiction of the VPN provider is important. Yet another thing you could've learned if you had an ability to read the sources provided to you.

You linked an SEO content farm. That's about as poor a source as it gets.

What conspiracy theories? Can you give an example?

Two examples below. Also, that "statistically speaking" phrase. Please provide statistics for this claim.

"But how is that any better than a VPN service?

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.
So why do VPN services exist? Surely they must serve some purpose?

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."

You're doing a huge leap, much bigger than warranted. Any business you interact with will comply with legal orders. That doesn't mean they can't be trusted at all, for any purpose. And I prefer to act on actual, real information, not on paranoid delusions thinking everyone's out to get me. If your goal is to deal drugs on the internet, etc. then yeah sure lol you better be careful who you do business with. Doesn't apply to regular VPN users though, for whom no legal orders will be issued and won't be investigated by Interpol.

Yeah cause a protestor exercising their right to protest, something that is internationally recognized these days, not just in the US, is dealing drugs.
Your average VPN service user doesn't need one at all. It doesn't help their privacy at all. They're just being shilled the service by social media ads and sponsor segments. Most of these services are owned by data brokers and nationstates, and many make outlandish promises such as virus protection, which is a huge red flag. They're not just trying to catch people doing something naughty, they're harvesting you for data and making money from that data. They sell it as a solution to hide from ISPs and data brokers only to be the data brokers themselves. They sell it as a way to protect your logins, protect your online accounts, when really you should never login to an account when using one of these services unless you're just skirting Netflix's region blocks.

You linked an SEO content farm. That's about as poor a source as it gets.

Genetic fallacy much? You can't just dismiss an article because of where it's from. If it dissatisfies you, you always have the option to search for articles elsewhere that could confirm or deny its validity. Remember, you're the one saying to trust what you can't verify. You're the one who has a bar to reach. The argument against using these VPN services is simple: You don't need it, and if you do need it, you need a real VPN, not a tunnel to redirect clearnet traffic to a third party. There are reasons not to trust them, based on jurisdiction, affiliation, and simple probable cause.

I would call it speculations. Conspiracy theory is something different. But yeah, I agree they should've provided that statistics.

Because it's easy money. You just set up OpenVPN on a few servers, and essentially start reselling bandwidth with a markup.

When I tried to find a cheap VPS provider for my tiny server I've stumbled upon an actual fraudster from UK. And I've stopped receiving spam from him only recently after more than four years I deleted my account on one of his over9000 sites. There was no way to unsubscribe from it.
You can say it's not the same as selling a VPN service but rather similar.

You linked an SEO content farm. That's about as poor a source as it gets.

You've been leaving comments for quite a while under the article you've never read. Same goes for articles I posted links to.