Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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Why I no longer use a VPN (most of the time) and nor should you - YouTube (youtu.be)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Alternative https://inv.tux.pizza/watch?v=pp-INfssWBo

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Clickbait YouTuber is clickbait...

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/basics/vpn-overview/

Should I use a VPN?¶

Yes, almost certainly. A VPN has many advantages, including:

Hiding your traffic from only your Internet Service Provider.

Hiding your downloads (such as torrents) from your ISP and anti-piracy organizations.

Hiding your IP from third-party websites and services, helping you blend in and preventing IP based tracking.

Allowing you to bypass geo-restrictions on certain content.

VPNs can provide some of the same benefits Tor provides, such as hiding your IP from the websites you visit and geographically shifting your network traffic, and good VPN providers will not cooperate with e.g. legal authorities from oppressive regimes, especially if you choose a VPN provider outside your own jurisdiction.

VPNs cannot encrypt data outside the connection between your device and the VPN server. VPN providers can also see and modify your traffic the same way your ISP could, so there is still a level of trust you are placing in them. And there is no way to verify a VPN provider's "no logging" policies in any way.

On a personal note, the common argument is VPN providers could be recording your traffic. But if you know for certain your ISP is recording your traffic and selling your data, which is most commercial ISPs in the West, then a VPN provider is a strict improvement. They may not be, but they're not guaranteed to be. And your ISP is guaranteed to be.