I don’t know if those useful features are the main reasons VPNs are used, though. There’s evidence they are used often for bypassing blocked sites (like VPN downloads jumping in Russia recently), most of the other advertised privacy and security benefits are questionable. Most of them don’t advertise torrenting/piracy because that’s a legal gray area.
Comment on You probably don't need a VPN
mateomaui@reddthat.com 10 months ago
Spends most of article telling you why they probably aren’t necessary.
Ends with 4 examples why they’re useful, which are the main reasons they’re used to begin with.
corbin@infosec.pub 10 months ago
mateomaui@reddthat.com 10 months ago
My VPN advertises protected torrenting as a feature. Many do.
And it’s pretty nondebatable that VPNs are advertised for getting around regional blocking for Netflix etc.
adespoton@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
Ironically, almost all the exit VPNs are owned by either China or Israel. With a few exceptions.
mateomaui@reddthat.com 10 months ago
citation needed
My VPN is headquartered in California, and actively removed their presence from Hong Kong once their security policy matched China’s, and removed themselves from Russia since that country was opposed to the zero logs policy.
GammaGames@beehaw.org 10 months ago
The opening sentence explained the reasoning behind the article sufficiently, this was mostly a response to VON marketing tactics:
They’re not the only ones pointing this out, either. Tom Scott released a video on the topic a few years ago
mateomaui@reddthat.com 10 months ago
Your comment in no way negates my observation.
GammaGames@beehaw.org 10 months ago
I was simply adding information your comment had left out, it wasn’t negating information at all. So congrats on getting the point, not everyone is trying to argue 🎉
mateomaui@reddthat.com 10 months ago
You may want to reconsider your phrasing then if you don’t want it to appear to be argumentative.
adespoton@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
…and since then, Tom Scott took a NordVPN sponsorship. And possibly SurfShark too?
He found that it was actually useful while in countries with questionable Internet access.
Personally, I just host my own VPN, so no matter where I am, all my traffic exits from my home ISP. I figure they’re at least accountable to the same laws I am.
_MusicJunkie@beehaw.org 10 months ago
But that’s the thing. When that Video was made, almost all of the advertising was focused on the same BS the article is disagreeing with.
I remember lots of NordVPN ads by uninformed nontechnical creators just reading the provided script. Saying that Balaklava wearing hackers will steal your credit card data just by being in the same cafe as you, and only an expensive VPN subscription can protect you from that.
This sort of advertising is what Tom Scott critizied back then. IIRC he even said that there are real use cases, but that you shouldn’t believe the fearmongering. Same as the article.
The fearmongering advertising was the problem, not advertising the service itself.
otter@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
Yep, articles have different audiences.
Sure one group might understand why a tool exists and use it effectively, but there are also companies over-selling their capabilities and people are using it for things it doesn’t help with.
This article is for them, simple as that
helenslunch@feddit.nl 9 months ago
The opening scene of that video is from a VPN sponsorship he did.
rallatsc@slrpnk.net 9 months ago
This is inaccurate, read the pinned comment on the video where he points out that the opening scene is entirely made up and isn’t about a real person.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 9 months ago
I don’t understand. Of course it’s not about a real person, it’s about a VPN…