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

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

65 comments

Do ISP's monitor or sell or pass on your data? Yes.
Do VPN's? Depends on the VPN. Find one that doesn't and can back that up with 3rd party audits and legal encounters.
So can a good VPN protect your privacy? No, not by themselves. A VPN is part of an overall toolkit to be as private as you personally would like to be. It can help protect your privacy, that's all.
It's really that simple.
- 3rd party audits and legal encounters
  The problem I have with this is that audits or court cases do not prove that the server is only using that same exact code at the instant you are using it... changes to software are constantly made all the time, and they could all invalidate previous audits or presumptions of privacy or security.
  
  That's true, there's always going to have to be some trust, but a provider that takes the time and expense to invest in a privacy audit or defend their clients by not logging and establishing that in court certainly indicates they're worth having that trust in.

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.

A) as others have pointed out this is a rather shit video
B) I fucking hate the "and nor should you" trend. Fuck off with what I should or shouldn't do, just give me the facts and I'll decide for myself.

I would encourage people to watch the video and form a conclusion based on that. The title is quite clickbaity (which you would expect from YouTube) and at least half of the video is solely a critique of NordVPN, often followed up with "but Mullvad is better". He does make some worthwhile points but they are not universally applicable. Every country has different governments and laws; do not blindly trust the word of Americans because they likely do not know shit about your specific situation. For example, nothing in his video addressed Australia's mandatory data collection and retention laws, or the multiple high profile data breaches that have occurred here in recent years.
- half of the video is solely a critique of NordVPN
  I don't know how good or bad NordVPN is. I have never used it. But I never will. EVER.
  You know why?
  Because they paid so many interesting Youtubers to shill their stupid VPN service, ruined so many otherwise interesting Youtube videos and wasted so much of my time that I swore I would never give them a single dollar of my money.
  I can't stand advertisement and advertisers, and NordVPN has been truly heavy-handed. They're not the only ones: Brilliant comes to mind too. They can all fuck off. They've achieved the exact opposite of what their ads was supposed to achieve with me: I'll never patronize them.
  
  uBlock Origin + SponsorBlock + third party mobile client is the solution.

What was the reason?
- VPNs are centralized entities that can monitor traffic in bulk
  
  My ISP, who I pay $100/mo for internet, tells me straight up that it monetizes my browsing data. I pay $5 a month to a VPN that 'promises' it doesn't do that. Safer bet is the VPN. Even if they (VPN) sell my data, I prefer to spite the ISP anyway.
  
  I see. Sure. There's a risk of course.
  But VPN companies are not legally obligated to collect and save your Internet usage data like your ISP is.
  So select a provider that doesn't, like Mullvad.

many ISPs over here offer a ~5-10% discount on monthly bills if you agree to have your traffic analysed for marketing purposes. the last time I signed a contract I had to explicitly opt out of that. the ISP providing internet to all of my landlord's flats offers a similar deal when signing a contract, and 1. I'm willing to bet that my landlord has opted in, and 2. I have no way of opting out of that for my flat. I think I'll stick with a VPN for the foreseeable future.
- With a VPN you are just shifting the attack surface
  
  from the ISP likely to analyze my traffic to a VPN provider who didn't provide any data after being raided by the police because they didn't store any

(The NSA think they're slick)

, said the glowing figure confidently, while blinking hard and rubbing his nose

Nice try NSA

Firstly, using a VPN ultimately consists in trusting the company providing the VPN service that it won't be fucking around with your privacy. Considering that all your traffic goes through it, that's a lot of trust to place in one company. And I generally don't trust any tech company to resist the lure of selling your data for profit for very long in 2024 - even those that profess to be privacy-friendly.
Secondly, modern corporate surveillance doesn't rely on IP addresses anymore. So if you think a VPN protects your privacy, it really doesn't. All it does is tell Google et al. which VPN provider you're a customer of - i.e. you're giving them even more data that they don't need to have.
That's why I don't even bother with a VPN. I only use one to evade geo-blocking every once in a while.
- using a VPN ultimately consists in trusting the company providing the VPN service that it won't be fucking around with your privacy. Considering that all your traffic goes through it, that's a lot of trust to place in one company.
  Is that any different than the trust we place in our ISPs?
  I agree with you. I fully expect my ISP/VPN provider to sell my traffic data, but I don't see the value in paying a VPN do to it.
  
  Is that any different than the trust we place in our ISPs?
  It's not. Your ISP is probably selling your data, and your VPN may or may not do that too. Just assume everybody sells your data.
  The difference is, when you leave home and you connect to a wifi, you start using another ISP. If you then lose the wifi and connect using 4G, you're using yet another ISP. If you use a VPN, you funnel all your traffic to a single provider all the time. In other words, instead of distributing the risk over several potentially bad actors, you concentrate it on a single one.
  Like I said, that's a lot more trust that I'm willing to place in a single company that only essentially pinky-swears won't put me under surveillance.

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/pp-INfssWBo
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

65 comments

Should I use a VPN?¶