And if you use one, are you happy with it?
I’m trying to get more into privacy and security and VPN is currently a struggle for me (and it seems also for some people in my social circle). It’s mostly cost, effectiveness, but also connection issues (not being able to connect to servers, not reaching websites, sometimes slower speed.
I don’t use one except for work (to connect to corporate networks).
A VPN mostly changes which entity you have to trust (from your ISP to your VPN provider). I don’t have a reason to distrust my ISP any more than any VPN provider. I don’t have any need to regularly get around any geoblocking.
When I do privacy-sensitive things, I use Tor, which is actually effective at hiding who I am and what I am doing.
Some VPN providers are pretty transparent with how they do things though, and publish annual audit results. Much better than an ISP that is opaque and will definitely snitch on you.
My VPN provider has no legal obligation to work directly with my national law enforcement and if there’s an international warrant for my internet traffic, there’s no logs.
I don’t want ANYBODY knowing what I do on the interwebs even if it’s just personal stuff not a james bond villain crime webring.
And TOR over VPN is so standard several VPN providers have TOR exit nodes, though that negates a lot of the no-trust chain of TOR.