Why I no longer use a VPN (most of the time) and nor should you

In this episode, we explore why I no longer use a VPN (most of the time) and nor should you.

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[kkiwirocks]

Mullvad being raided by Swedish and German intelligence services and them finding absolutely nothing was the best advertising they could've asked for.

[KarlRock]

My dad in New Zealand asked me if he needed one… that’s when I realised their advertising had gone too far. He’s the last person who needs a VPN 😂

[jamindavey]

For Australian users: All ISPs are required by law to track every website you visit, maintain the data for 2 years, and hand that information over to any government agency that requests it without informing users about the request. VPNs are not obliged to do this. Even if they were pressured by the government to hand over data which they say they don’t have, they would not be legally obliged to remain silent about it by Australian law.

Additionally, if an Australian is accessing US servers the additional latency from using a VPN isn’t noticiable compared to the trans Atlantic lag.

[cenewton]

There is no such thing as complete privacy nor is there complete security when connecting to the public network. I use a VPN much of the time with the understanding that I'm trusting my provider to do what they say. I recognize trusts are broken sometimes. Still, for the most part, I'll rate my privacy as being much better with the VPN than without, even if it isn't 100%. I equate it to why we lock our doors at night. Clearly a skilled & determined thief/criminal could make it into someone's house if they are determined enough. At the very least though, it's about keeping honest people honest. Not much we can do about everyone else other than remaining aware, observant & diligent.

[PhaseControlDNB]

Tom Scott did very good video on this topic. The funny thing was that the video was supposed to be a sponsored video by a VPN provider but since it was way too honest, the advertisers kept asking for changes and he ended up refusing to work with them. He then published the entire video without cuts (of course censoring it when he mentions the name of the VPN).

[xntumrfoivrnwf]

Mullvad was recently raided and from memory, the cops basically walked away empty handed because Mullvad really did store nothing

[TheUberKevlar]

This is not why you shouldn't use a VPN but it's why you need to research the VPN that you do use, understand what a VPN actually does and when and how it is useful, what it can and can't do, and use something that is recommended by Infosec and privacy experts. I use Proton because (while it may not be perfect) their companies privacy/security model and ethics are of a lot better than most others out there.

[markk]

Like many others, I was talked into using VPN and still do, but the ridiculously obnoxious scare tactics in VPN marketing is souring me on the whole thing. It's reminiscent of antivirus offerings in the infancy of the consumer-level Internet (1990s), where you'd hear nothing from the AV all year until a week before your renewal, when it would suddenly, but consistently (and loudly), claim to have stopped a serious threat.

[I_Evo]

Lets be honest, VPNs are being sold to us in advertisements as security/privacy applications because the real reason most people I suspect use them, to get around geo restrictions, is probably not seen as a good corporate look for these companies.

[larion]

I don't know what other magic people are expecting VPNs to be able to do, but for me all I want is for them to obscure ISPs I visit, protect me from legal bs when using torrents, and occasionally bypass geo blocks. For that it is very helpful. If you're the average grandma that just gets online to check her emails or something, I'd agree they are useless.

[person]

A major issue with not using a VPN is that your regular IP address narrows you down so close to where you live, and it changes infrequently. Every website you visit knows there are only a handful of people in the world living in that area.
With a VPN, you can have a different IP address in a different location as often as you want, and tons of other people will reuse the IP address you were using, meaning each IP address is useless in any attempt to identify who the user might be.
The VPN company may or may not be trying to use your data against you, but your ISP definitely is using your data against you!

[harikyoki]

I recall being able to use school internet with a vpn. for the past couple of yrs, I can't use it in any fast food joint, library, or school. any money making app will also refuse to work if they detect a vpn. the average joe like me is mostly cornered to only use their home based wifi for everything. is it me or this is occurring to make it that much easier to track what we're doing?
I am looking up how to do certain things now to gain more privacy. I may be getting on in yrs but I'm willing to put in the effort. any advice or suggestions are appreciated. other than that, I'll keep on researching n trying.

[hakonsoreide]

The reason Nord VPN is everywhere is not because they're necessarily the best at being a VPN, but the ones that are the best at marketing and that pays the most influencers to flog their wares.

I don't worry about privacy, but I've needed a VPN to watch Norwegian tv now that I live in the UK. NordVPN actually worked great for this. I had another VPN before, the name of which I can't recall now, that didn't give me enough bandwidth to watch live tv, and I think at some point it also got IP blocked by the streaming service I wanted to use.

I don't have a VPN now, but I might get one again.

[Wolf-lnml]

As much as I love Youtubers being able to get some support from companies, I don't think I've ever seen/heard _one_ ad that didn't at least massively overstate the usefulness of whatever was being advertised (up to being ads for outright scams like that Scottish Lord/Lady title thing...) Frankly, by now, I see such ads as a _warning_ to _at best_ look into other products of the same type, but to stay away from that company...

[lanzer]

Network engineer since 97. I used VPN when I wanted to spoof my IP for pretending to be in another country so I can download some foreign apps. There’s so little security benefits that it doesn’t justify for the performance hit at all. The web is safer than you think, and the best security is to learn about the best practices you can do for yourself rather than to rely on one company to somehow do it all for you. Using a password manager for example. VPN doesn’t handle anything when some company gets hacked and your password is now shared with thousands of hackers.

[rudiservo]

I think the worst threat to security is mobile devices connection to a "free wifi" or 4G, because the router is the phone, hopefully a self hosted full route VPN will protect a mobile device, a lot depends on what you have (IDS/IPS NGFW), but I think it does provide at least some level of protection, hopefully from zero day issues.

[rationalbushcraft]

You don't need cookies to be identifiable. There are browser fingerprinting techniques that looks at other things to identify you.

[deersakamoto]

Tom Scott did a good video (with lots of views) explaining why the messaging around VPN companies (and "influencers" like Mark Rober parroting them) are incorrect/misleading

[jonsmidt]

Hi Sun, what are your thoughts on the Orion browser for MacOS? They make some pretty large promises when it comes to privacy, and the browser runs very well on M1 Macs. Is it too good to be true?

[rycin]

What are your thoughts on a DPN such as Deeper Network’s products? I’m considering the new Deeper Connect Air since I live half of the year outside of Canada and VPN’s don’t solve my issue