VPNs are often considered an essential part of your toolkit if you want to live a modern, privacy-conscious lifestyle... but most computer security experts will tell you that they’re not tools for privacy AT ALL!
When you use a consumer VPN, the VPN company is able to see everything you’re doing. Many log and even sell all of your data. And even if they promise not to, it’s difficult to verify. But that doesn’t mean we need to avoid commercial VPNs altogether -- there can be good reasons to use one.
For example, if you’re on public wifi at an airport or coffee shop, or if you want to spoof your location. But not all VPNs are created equally, and a big piece of evaluating a VPN provider is understanding how they make their money and how responsibly they handle data.
In this video, I go over how VPNs work, when to use them, and criteria for choosing a good one.
00:00 - Intro
01:04 - How VPNs Work
01:14 - Why use a VPN?
03:10 - Criteria for a VPN
08:04 - Recommended VPNs
VPNs do have their place in your privacy toolkit - just make sure you are using them correctly!
Brought to you by NBTV members: Lee Rennie, Will Sandoval, and Naomi Brockwell
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For more information about VPNs, read this in depth guide from Freedom of the Press Foundation: https://freedom.press/training/choosing-a-vpn/
Just an observation for future reference:
even if you do set up your own VPN
you can be logged by whatever ISP the server is set up under.
Some lessons you learn from experience are 'uncomfortable'.