
Don't use VPN services - sarciszewski
https://gist.github.com/joepie91/5a9909939e6ce7d09e29
======
api
Better title: VPN services only provide weak privacy, and can see your traffic
as much as any other ISP.

They are good for escaping an ISP that messes with your traffic and injects
things or a country with soft Internet censorship (where soft means they won't
arrest you, they just block stuff arbitrarily). They're not anywhere near what
Tor or a similar system will give you -- but that comes at a cost of speed and
complexity.

I also agree that the best VPN is one you set up yourself on a VPS that you
control. Not everyone knows how to (or wants to) do that, but if you can it's
great. One of the cheap tiny VPS offerings from Digital Ocean or Vultr.com is
great as a personal VPN endpoint and can also double as a personal web server,
backup repo, etc.

~~~
yaegers
>I also agree that the best VPN is one you set up yourself on a VPS that you
control.

But aren't you "just" renting the VPS from companys like Digital Ocean just as
you would rent the VPN access from somewhere else?

So if the VPN seller has means and probably does log your traffic and will
give you up, how would a VPS seller like Digital Ocean be different? Surely
they log your traffic as well? I mean, they have to if they offer dynamic
pricing by usage and by offering packages like 1TB or 2TB traffic.

------
Casseres
I use a VPN service so that my IP address appears to be the same as many other
people's IP addresses to advertisers and trackers (another layer on top of
using browser plugins). I'm not trying to hide from the government or do
anything illegal; I just don't want companies that I've never heard of knowing
more about me than my own family.

It seems to me like this would be an applicable usage of a shared VPN service.
Of course I am trusting that the VPN service isn't selling my traffic to some
other tracking company. I am I wrong in using a VPN for this function, is
there a better way?

~~~
angry-hacker
But what makes you think a random VPN service provider doesn't sell you out,
if not now, then in the future, for advertisers? Or hackers?

As you said, you don't want companies to know about you, but you give your
whole life to them. Unless you trust them, but why would you?

~~~
Casseres
I might have edited my comment as you submitted yours.

I do recognize that is a point of failure. The only companies that know me in
such a manner are Amazon, Facebook, and Google (Gmail and calendar, and I'm
going to be changing that). Third parties could otherwise piece together what
websites I visit to get a more in-depth picture of who I am more so that what
Amazon can figure out from my purchase habits; Facebook can figure out from
who my friends are, what I like, pictures I'm in, etc; and from what Google
could by reading my e-mails or seeing the events in my calendar.

