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100% this. VPN marketing appears to have really gotten to people, everyone's always asking about it. Real reasons I can see to use a VPN service 1) You want

100% this. VPN marketing appears to have really gotten to people, everyone's always asking about it. Real reasons I can see to use a VPN service 1) You want your traffic to reliably egress in that country. i.e. I live in New Zealand but to access some Australian TV on demand, I need to "appear" in Australia. 2) Errr, I can't think of any others. If you are really trying to hide your traffic from your ISP: 1) Change ISP 2) If that's not possible, buy a cheap VPS and run OpenVPN/Wireguard on it and egress your traffic via it. Disable all logging etc. i.e. Unless you need traffic to egress via a particular place and you don't care about someone you don't know seeing your traffic, buy a VPN service. If you DO care about your privacy really, buy a VPS service in the country you want it to egress.

bigiain 8y ago
For some of us, we live in jurisdictions where all ISPs are legally required to keep all metadata for all connections. (In tinpot pseudo democracies with governments who fail to understand technology but pass intrusive laws governing it anyway, then declare "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia.") In that case, a few bucks per month is a pretty good deal - it won't protect me if the NSA or any of their FVEYs friends get curious about me specifically, but it _will_ protect me against all my internet metadata getting bulk collected by my ISP and handed over to "national security" relevant agencies, such as local councils, dog catchers, and the taxi commission (yes, those agencies really do request and gain access to ISP metadata!) I can and have run my own VPN (and VPN-like) endpoints on cheapo vpses, but it's worth my while/time to pay FSecure/Freedome, to do that for me.
- spindle 8y ago
  Well said.
- muppetman 8y ago
  So to me this filters down to: You care about your privacy and not have your (meta) data gathered up, but you don't care enough about it ensure that you're really protected, you just hope you are by piping your data off somewhere else, even though the place you're piping it to might also be doing the dirty you. I do understand your point, which is (correct me if i'm wrong) that you trust FSecure/Freedome to be taking care of your privacy correctly and not just reselling your metadata back to your country of origin etc. Perhaps I am being a pedantic, grumpy old man though. Because now I think about it, even if we all run our own VPSes there's no way to vet the VPS provider doesn't just tap your egress traffic too.
  - llukas 8y ago
    I'd say you are grumpy ;) There is no comparison for ISP with TOS saying they can and will sell your data and VPN company which explicitly advertises privacy. First it is false advertising and second with GDPR such company would be wiped out after somebody figures it out.
    - throwawaymath 8y ago
      Be careful with that assumption. Many, many VPN vendors actually sell their user data even if they advertise otherwise. They can also be far harder to penalize than ISPs, especially if they're outside the US/EU.
      - bigiain 8y ago
        Part of me thinks "I don't care. If Facebook or Google or Experian or Equifax or whoever it's work a buck to wants to pay my VPN provider for my metadata - that's kinda bad, but possibly not as bad as being part of a great big juicy pile of government compelled metadata retention records at my ISP which can be easily accessed by random government agencies or evil actors working in government agencies with very little oversight." I suspect my data leaking through profit motive from a VPN company specifically selected to be in a far away country is much less likely to fall into the hands of an internet troll or griefer, a disgruntled ex employee or partner, or a vindictive neighbour - than the trove of ISP metadata that can quite likely be readily accessed by bribing or blackmailing some random low-level government employee locally...
      - llukas 8y ago
        I can round robin several different VPN. Feels good that somebody would have job doing data integration.
    - viraptor 8y ago
      Why do you think it would be discovered at all? Unless the downstream customer buying the data makes it public, nobody will know. And by operating outside of the EU, you can't really be checked. So nobody who knows what's going on has any incentive to make the arrangement known.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- lostlogin 8y ago
  Did you just describe Australia as a ‘tinpot pseudo democracy’? Not that this is a high point in Australian politics with the game of musical chairs that is going on. I’ve just never heard someone living there be so down on it.
  - bigiain 8y ago
    Yes. Yes I did. :sigh:
frio 8y ago
Travel is the other use case; if I know I'll be at a backpackers with free (but open) wifi, then having a VPN is very handy.
ACow_Adonis 8y ago
As an Australian: 1) Protect against logging and data retention laws 2) Avoid ISP legal universal blocking regimes 3) Shop for and compare cheaper prices: many places implement what we call the 'australia' tax, artificially inflate the prices when they see we're shopping from an Australian location. This is independent of actual tax collection issues. 4) Torrent: Australian's frequently access shows via torrenting still because our licensing/supply regime gives us a vastly sub-standard catalogue, and you can't access individual shows without signing up to full carrier packages, and we can't sign up to the international carrier's catalogue 5) Avoid data-shaping/non-net-neutral policies 6) Easy International and Geo-IP Testing 7) Logging onto services in public places via public wifi or access points 8) Accessing services during international travel 9) Accessing media explicitly geo-blocked in our country Your solution (i believe) additionally doesn't meet the criteria of being able to egress from multiple countries/sources, nor does it cover the users who don't want the extra step of setting up the VPS. I haven't checked, but i'm guessing a VPS comes at a far higher price for less (out of the box VPN specific features) than a specialised VPN provider.
- muppetman 8y ago
  True, if you want to egress multiple countries a VPN provider that lets you do that is a good solution. It's too late to update my original post, sadly.
alasdair_ 8y ago
>1) Change ISP 2) If that's not possible, buy a cheap VPS and run OpenVPN/Wireguard on it and egress your traffic via it. Disable all logging etc. Streisand (https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand) is another option. It has the benefit of running on your own VPS (or bare metal if you want) and it is extremely user-friendly to set up and use.
posedge 8y ago
It would be naive not to expect VPS providers to keep logs themselves.
t0astbread 8y ago
What about traffic aggregation? Correct me if I'm wrong on this but as far as I understood it, VPN services forward multiple users' requests from a single IP address, disabling website owners to track you using your address.
Gys 8y ago
It should be mandatory for public wifi access. So anywhere outside your house.
sumedh 8y ago
> buy a cheap VPS and run OpenVPN/Wireguard on it Or if you want to keep your life simple just use a VPN service.
danielsamuels 8y ago
> Errr, I can't think of any others. My home network is not exposed to the internet, but can be accessed remotely when VPN'd in.
tim333 8y ago
If you are not too worried about privacy and just want to appear in another country or get around your cafe's system blocking some pages, I use hotspotshield.com or occasionally hideme.com in their free forms. Hotspotshield is actually quite handy. I just had to use it to access https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ as Pret a Manger had decided that deserve blocking for some reason. Hideme seems kinda unreliable but works sometimes. I don't know if I get the whole privacy thing - if you're just browsing HN etc like me why bother and if you want to do criminal stuff I gather it's better to use a completely separate machine with no personal info on. Or someone said Tails OS.
- bitdivision 8y ago
  Regarding the whole privacy thing - this is the "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" argument. There's plenty of information around on the arguments for and against [0]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument
_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
"If you DO care about your privacy really, buy a VPS service in the country you want it to egress." Please stop propagating this VPS nonsense. If a VPN provider is not save, neither is your VPS.
_bashskids 8y ago
*access blocked sites

bigiain 8y ago

For some of us, we live in jurisdictions where all ISPs are legally required to keep all metadata for all connections. (In tinpot pseudo democracies with governments who fail to understand technology but pass intrusive laws governing it anyway, then declare "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia.") In that case, a few bucks per month is a pretty good deal - it won't protect me if the NSA or any of their FVEYs friends get curious about me specifically, but it _will_ protect me against all my internet metadata getting bulk collected by my ISP and handed over to "national security" relevant agencies, such as local councils, dog catchers, and the taxi commission (yes, those agencies really do request and gain access to ISP metadata!) I can and have run my own VPN (and VPN-like) endpoints on cheapo vpses, but it's worth my while/time to pay FSecure/Freedome, to do that for me.

spindle 8y ago
Well said.
muppetman 8y ago
So to me this filters down to: You care about your privacy and not have your (meta) data gathered up, but you don't care enough about it ensure that you're really protected, you just hope you are by piping your data off somewhere else, even though the place you're piping it to might also be doing the dirty you. I do understand your point, which is (correct me if i'm wrong) that you trust FSecure/Freedome to be taking care of your privacy correctly and not just reselling your metadata back to your country of origin etc. Perhaps I am being a pedantic, grumpy old man though. Because now I think about it, even if we all run our own VPSes there's no way to vet the VPS provider doesn't just tap your egress traffic too.
- llukas 8y ago
  I'd say you are grumpy ;) There is no comparison for ISP with TOS saying they can and will sell your data and VPN company which explicitly advertises privacy. First it is false advertising and second with GDPR such company would be wiped out after somebody figures it out.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    Be careful with that assumption. Many, many VPN vendors actually sell their user data even if they advertise otherwise. They can also be far harder to penalize than ISPs, especially if they're outside the US/EU.
    - bigiain 8y ago
      Part of me thinks "I don't care. If Facebook or Google or Experian or Equifax or whoever it's work a buck to wants to pay my VPN provider for my metadata - that's kinda bad, but possibly not as bad as being part of a great big juicy pile of government compelled metadata retention records at my ISP which can be easily accessed by random government agencies or evil actors working in government agencies with very little oversight." I suspect my data leaking through profit motive from a VPN company specifically selected to be in a far away country is much less likely to fall into the hands of an internet troll or griefer, a disgruntled ex employee or partner, or a vindictive neighbour - than the trove of ISP metadata that can quite likely be readily accessed by bribing or blackmailing some random low-level government employee locally...
    - llukas 8y ago
      I can round robin several different VPN. Feels good that somebody would have job doing data integration.
  - viraptor 8y ago
    Why do you think it would be discovered at all? Unless the downstream customer buying the data makes it public, nobody will know. And by operating outside of the EU, you can't really be checked. So nobody who knows what's going on has any incentive to make the arrangement known.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lostlogin 8y ago
Did you just describe Australia as a ‘tinpot pseudo democracy’? Not that this is a high point in Australian politics with the game of musical chairs that is going on. I’ve just never heard someone living there be so down on it.
- bigiain 8y ago
  Yes. Yes I did. :sigh:

frio 8y ago

Travel is the other use case; if I know I'll be at a backpackers with free (but open) wifi, then having a VPN is very handy.

ACow_Adonis 8y ago

As an Australian: 1) Protect against logging and data retention laws 2) Avoid ISP legal universal blocking regimes 3) Shop for and compare cheaper prices: many places implement what we call the 'australia' tax, artificially inflate the prices when they see we're shopping from an Australian location. This is independent of actual tax collection issues. 4) Torrent: Australian's frequently access shows via torrenting still because our licensing/supply regime gives us a vastly sub-standard catalogue, and you can't access individual shows without signing up to full carrier packages, and we can't sign up to the international carrier's catalogue 5) Avoid data-shaping/non-net-neutral policies 6) Easy International and Geo-IP Testing 7) Logging onto services in public places via public wifi or access points 8) Accessing services during international travel 9) Accessing media explicitly geo-blocked in our country Your solution (i believe) additionally doesn't meet the criteria of being able to egress from multiple countries/sources, nor does it cover the users who don't want the extra step of setting up the VPS. I haven't checked, but i'm guessing a VPS comes at a far higher price for less (out of the box VPN specific features) than a specialised VPN provider.

muppetman 8y ago
True, if you want to egress multiple countries a VPN provider that lets you do that is a good solution. It's too late to update my original post, sadly.

alasdair_ 8y ago

>1) Change ISP 2) If that's not possible, buy a cheap VPS and run OpenVPN/Wireguard on it and egress your traffic via it. Disable all logging etc. Streisand (https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand https://github.com/StreisandEffect/streisand) is another option. It has the benefit of running on your own VPS (or bare metal if you want) and it is extremely user-friendly to set up and use.

posedge 8y ago

It would be naive not to expect VPS providers to keep logs themselves.

t0astbread 8y ago

What about traffic aggregation? Correct me if I'm wrong on this but as far as I understood it, VPN services forward multiple users' requests from a single IP address, disabling website owners to track you using your address.

Gys 8y ago

It should be mandatory for public wifi access. So anywhere outside your house.

sumedh 8y ago

> buy a cheap VPS and run OpenVPN/Wireguard on it Or if you want to keep your life simple just use a VPN service.

danielsamuels 8y ago

> Errr, I can't think of any others. My home network is not exposed to the internet, but can be accessed remotely when VPN'd in.

tim333 8y ago

If you are not too worried about privacy and just want to appear in another country or get around your cafe's system blocking some pages, I use hotspotshield.com or occasionally hideme.com in their free forms. Hotspotshield is actually quite handy. I just had to use it to access https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ as Pret a Manger had decided that deserve blocking for some reason. Hideme seems kinda unreliable but works sometimes. I don't know if I get the whole privacy thing - if you're just browsing HN etc like me why bother and if you want to do criminal stuff I gather it's better to use a completely separate machine with no personal info on. Or someone said Tails OS.

bitdivision 8y ago
Regarding the whole privacy thing - this is the "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" argument. There's plenty of information around on the arguments for and against [0]. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_hide_argument

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago

"If you DO care about your privacy really, buy a VPS service in the country you want it to egress." Please stop propagating this VPS nonsense. If a VPN provider is not save, neither is your VPS.

_bashskids 8y ago

*access blocked sites