Exposing the billion dollar secret most VPN companies don't want you to know

Comments

• AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Tl;dw: Most (not all) vpn companies come from ad brokers that spy on you. If you see a vpn being sponsorized by streamers with discount codes: they are selling your data.

  Mullvad and proton are safe to use.

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  • purplemonkeymad@programming.dev ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Well that was a predictable outcome of commercial vpns. The “protect your data from isps” line never really answered the “what about the VPN provider” question.

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    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      The idea SHOULD be that the VPN provider knows less about you.

      Then we give them our address and credit card. Ah well.

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    • Valmond@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      What about Facebook’s VPN?

      /s

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  • SektorC@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    That’s exactly what an ad broker would say.

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  • otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Wasn’t there some recent BS w/ Proton, though? (It’s been a rough week, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a fever dream? …Pretty sure.)

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    • AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Yeah, but i t was related to their CEO’s political views, not the VPN’s quality.

      Afaik (and also according to the video itself), proton remains, together with iVPN and mullvad, one of the vpn’s that you can still trust. At least for now.

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  • thermal_shock@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Torguard also. Using them 8 years with hundreds of terabytes of data sent/received.

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• tias@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I don’t understand the purpose of these services. I don’t use VPN to access someone else’s network. I use it to access my own. They’re doing the exact opposite of what you’d want.

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  • AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    You use a vpn to (hopefully) keep some privacy. To bypass geoblocks, to not let a state spy on you, to access webpages that are blocked in your country, to screw an ISP that is throttling your connection…:

    In general, there are lots of use cases for a trusted vpn that are not illegal. The problem with many vpn’s is that they offer “privacy” when they are spying on you.

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    • CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Any commercial entity will allow the state to spy users.

      Using somebody else’s vpn is only useful for getting geoblocked content. If you want actual protection from the government you need it running on your own hardware and configured with a dead man’s switch.

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  • Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    The only use I see of these VPN's are for pretending you're in a different country.
    Like if you're in the UK and want to visit some spicy websites without sending them a picture of your face.

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    • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Or simply for hiding your IP when torrenting. Bouncing things off of your home network is fine for hiding your activity when using public WiFi… But it won’t do a goddamned thing to protect you when you’re torrenting at home. Plenty of people have ISPs and/or governments that care a lot about what they torrent, so using a VPN is a very easy way to avoid those bright red “we’re going to shut off your service if you keep torrenting. Also, we gave your IP to the authorities and you’re being sued” letters.

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  • Azzu@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    You’re in Germany. If you do something illegal like downloading a movie and the police gets your IP during it, they can request your ISP to reveal your identity.

    If you use a VPN, your IP is the IP of the VPN company, and they’ll say “we have no idea which of our users did that request, they all use the same IP”.

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    • tias@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Aren’t VPN:s subject to exactly the same laws as ISP:s? My ISP only records precisely as much as the law requires and throws it away as soon as permitted.

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  • real_squids@sopuli.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    It’s almost like a way to sell a proxy service to a new audience, so many people only use it for geoblocking and think it’s all there is to it, kinda sad

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  • thermal_shock@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    It’s to hide your location, access more grey areas your ISP may not like.

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• PmMeFrogMemes@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  boo clickbait garbage

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• bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I think the only choices left are mullvad and njalla.

  Not a concern troll, but I saw some images of advertising of mullvad recently, as in IRL ads. I kinda remember NordVPN spiralling down after that. I don’t think that’s a good sign.

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  • ohshit604@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    iVPN miraculously dodged every major headline, shout out to these folks.

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