Are VPNs Just A Scam?
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Do VPNs actually keep you as private as they claim?
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_"Please don't commit crimes."_
Well since you asked nicely Reilly, I won't.
Idk I'm skeptical ..
... anymore.
Remember, yes Russian
piracy dropped by 100%
im crimes
I've been saying for years that if there was a government agency that wanted to narrow down people doing nefarious things online that all they would have to do is create a VPN and start marketing it on TH-cam.
U ain't stupid
@@elextroblaze Other countries don't have to fallow laws of other countries. They can sell the data to governments and corps without any risk of litigation.
@@elextroblaze Unless, like my country Australia you are part of the Five Eyes intelligence network and simply give each otehr country in the group the legal right to access data about their own nationals. The US can't legally spy on US citizens, but it can let Australia spy on them and then give the data to the US.
You mean like Tor was created by the government?
Or like how the government used an exploit in Tor to figure out users identities?
Yeah.
Yeah, like Palantir.
You forgot about the biggest reason people use VPNs: students using VPNs to get around the restrictions on the school WiFi.
While I was in training I always used my business computer to VPN into the corporate network, because they didn't block Twitch like my vocational school did.
Hah.
that is literally the case for every school kid who has ever been born
>biggest reason
ye sure
Private dns bypasses website filter
YES THIS
Every VPN's sales pitch: Don't trust your ISP/Goverment with your data! Trust us intead! A company you just heard about now and didn't even exist few years ago.
Seems legit, shut up and take my money.
We totally won't give away your data we collect covertly to other ßhitty private companies or government mass-surveillance agencies!!11!
Vpn: maybe they will use your data, maybe they won't. Government: guaranteed to log every single thing you do and retain it forever. That's an easy choice for me.
@@UserNameAnonymous VLN: will Totally hand over the Data to any government that asks nicely enough.
@@UserNameAnonymous "maybe"? Data = money and I never heard of a company that doesnt want money. Government is only interested in illegal activity, they won't sell your data to advertisers...
@@legrinu - that's why they don't log it. You can't turn over something you don't have.
~~This Video was sponsored by Private Internet Access~~
Was and never will sponsor again!
XD
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
4:35 you got it right bro😁😁
Oh I thought Tunnel Bear 🐻
Riley: "So be very careful about whom you trust"
Hey Riley, I'm still waiting on my vacuum cleaner
Who spells about like that?
@@SDrtheone abot
You must be the first person to be stood up by a vacuum cleaner.
I once went to a vacuum store, ended up in Minnesota in a cabin 50 miles away from the closest village.
Now I have this weird romanian name I've no idea how to spell...
@@Gatherel I see what you did there…
All of the reputable TH-camrs only seem to be talking about all the extra netflix I can get to these days...curious, very curious.Tom Scott was miles ahead of the curve as usual :)
Tom Scott: the man who is too reddit for Reddit.
Gay pirate assassin?
@@mcplayer152 😉
Netflix is starting to block/restrict VPNs by showing only what's available globally, I'm sure VPN services advertising the fact that you can change regions to see other content only made Netflix more aggressive with their fight against VPNs.
no not anymore as they aren't working since a few weeks because netflix got a bit of a beef with studios and therefore crack down on VPNs
I bought a vpn 2 year plan yesterday and found it out the hard way(still have 30 days to return it)
the only ones that work are the distributed residential vpns(so for example hola) because it is close to impossible to track those
"Are VPNs a scam?" Not when the school wifi denies access to everything but as soon as you load a VPN up, everything works great... 😁
What we'd also like to know is how profitable are VPNs, seeing how they have apparently taken the sponsorship in pretty much every tech youtuber channel, and also there seem to be so many player entering the VPN market in recent year.
Probably quite profitable, especially those VPNs advertised for big companies and corporations
Given they can sell user data on an enormous scale, it almost doesn't matter that they're paid vs free. Any public "protect your privacy" VPN will track you and send all of it to the highest bidder (or multiple bidders). And given the amount of advertising they have money for, it's quite a profitable business I'd say. Otherwise, if they were to actually not log anything and just provide what's advertised, they would go under instantly due to the cost of bandwidth.
@@Outfrost Never read a more uneducated comment
@@tia8580 Do you just like your NordVPN too much, or do you have arguments to back that up?
@@Outfrost do you have sources to back up yours? Just sayin'
Finally, an authentic quick look at VPNs. I often see ads play up the security risks in a misleading way.
Yes and they all use the same arguments in their ads which I think is a shame as people will think they have more protection than they actually do.
Check out Mental Outlaw, he shows you the best VPNs and tells you that all of them keep logs.
Don't pay too much attention to his thumbnails lol, he's pretty into privacy, security and Linux stuff.
Eh. This video is shallow and half assed. It didn’t analyse particular VPN’s and their policies or track records. Pretty useless
I myself have a video on NordVPN specifically that also discusses the actual advantages and disadvantages of VPNs, Tom Scott also has a video on VPNs.
They didn't mention TOR though, why do these things never mention TOR?
I remember Tom Scott's video about VPNs 😅 "that's a lot of money left on the table. A LOT of money." And "if you're gay, a pirate, an assassin, or a gay pirate assassin"
I indeed watched that exact same video a few hours ago before I watched this, lol
Decentralized VPN can be a much better alternative, in terms of stability and security.
@hye quin Try deeper network. Mini is good for house wifi, pico for traveling
There is one, it's called Tor.
@@swomplode and yet, you leaving this comment in TH-cam, whose parent company is a US government contractor, using HTTP over TLS, which was developed in collaboration with the US government, which is encrypted using AES, a standard requested and published by the US government, with the handshake being made using ECDH, which was developed by the US government, and all of this was done over the internet, which, you guessed it, was developed by the US government.
Listen, I don't trust the US government myself. But that's what open source is for - so you don't need to trust anything. And tor is just that, open source, so we know for sure it is one of the most secure ways to anonymise yourself online.
Also gotta watch out for those pay once "Lifetime" VPN's that pop up just before Black Friday and claim bankruptcy in January.
Yup those are a definite red flag.
"So, what's your long term plan for revenue?"
"Long ..... Term ..... ? oh ah yeah well"
It's also sad that "VPN" has become synonymous with "Proxy".
The original goals of VPN's was to access private resources like a NAS and a properly configured VPN does not proxy general internet traffic.
I assume it's just that modern mobile platforms allow to easily configure a VPN but not Proxies so it just got abused as proxy and we got stuck with the name.
Yeah, VPN technology is more advanced than say socks5 proxy, expecially given the fact that a vpn can easily be configured with a operating system to not "leak" dns or other data whereas a socks5 proxy doesn't take over your network, and thus often leaks data.
Also VPN can more easily handle non standard network protocals, whereas most proxies "only" handle tcp+http/s
@@deidyomega No doubt that VPN are the better solution to proxy traffic. I think my problem is just the language side. A VPN can act as a Proxy. But the general term VPN has become synonymous with proxy while a VPN is so much more.
How cool would it be if a VPN provider would actually "network" all your devices together though? Just quickly accessing my PC's SMB share on a train from my phone.
@@marcopfeiffer3032 you don't need a vpn provider for that, just create your own vpn server and connect to it. Thats what I do to access my data, although that doesn't keep the angry emails from comcast away if I were to share whats on that SMB
>The original goals of VPN's was to access private resources like a NAS and a properly configured VPN does not proxy general internet traffic.
That's just false. VPNs were meant to proxy network traffic in a secure fashion. Whatever traffic you run over them is irrelevant.
@@marcopfeiffer3032 I do that now. With a rpi, I VPN into my home network all the time. My phone and laptop are always connected to the VPN, for pihole (adblocking) and access to my network shares.
"The Moon is pretty libertarian."
Yeah, but the latency...:(
We can just run fiber out to the moon, no? That would solve it.
@@ButImFeelingMuchBetterNow it wouldn't, light is not fast anymore when compared to such unreal distances, it's actually slow as fuck and unreliable.
I know you were making a joke, but if humanity ever hopes to create legit communication on space-like distances, we'll have to invent something better than light-speed communication
@@saudude2174 which is impossible from our current understanding of physics.
@@baka_geddy of course it isn't, I said better, not faster
@@baka_geddy Quantum entanglement would like a word.
Defending against your ISP is nice, but for the most part, the people selling you out are the websites themselves. They are the ones who are intergrated with advertisers, even when they themselves aren't showing ads.
Yeah part of the reason why i use ublock origin no trackers and adds
@@killertigergaming6762 What do you think about Brave and adguard?
@@prezlamen7906 they work fine lol
@@killertigergaming6762 Awesome. Im using both but have 0 knowledge about any of this so I didn't know if it was good.
@@prezlamen7906 together probably isn't the best idea since they do the same thing but that is still fine
VPNs were never about privacy,
Tor is about privacy,
Use VPN for geo-blocked content,
Use Tor for everything private
This.
so you think
gullible pleb
yes
I’m not sure if he knows that the US government or any hacker can run the third exit node for all your traffic and read it regardless at that point. Renting a dedicated server in a country like Switzerland or Iceland with a DC provider with high privacy standards and running VPN software on that will be more than good enough for whatever your use case might be since the only people you have to end up trusting are your DC provider and yourself, most hackers or the government won’t think to look at a DC provider since almost casual nerds use a commercial VPN like nord or express.
IMO, the question that needs to be answered is "does a VPN give me any privacy or security benefits, and if so, what are they, and in what circumstances do they help?". I'm not sure the average person needs to worry about VPNs logging data and responding to LE requests (though that is an important conversation to have for human rights advocates in hostile countries!)
You're completely wrong
And a VPN is almost 100% useless for the average user
This is right. de-criminalized acts like piracy (which is more likely for your ISP to turn off wifi rather then legal issues) and bypassing geo restrictions is the goal. Along with keeping away from public free wifi, just adding some security to something you cant trust.
@@mephisto-- I think you missed the point of this comment. its not claiming usefulness of VPNs to the average user, just that logging isn't something to worry about.
@@theglassarrow_ I didn't miss anything
@@mephisto-- I'm still using a vpn to this day, and honestly it has had more used to me then not. 100% is being used daily for means that require it, and I'm not above average by any means.
This was a great start into exposing the truth about VPNs.
I really hope in the future there will be a video covering the many lies various VPN providers tell.
Not that long ago, A VPN was an encrypted wormhole through the internet that gave you a LAN connection to a non local network, What do they call that now?
Back then we had these things called proxy servers, what ever happened to them?
Yea, back in the mid-2000s I used to use proxy servers at school to get around the web filters, lol. My friend was part of a group called LUELinks and they had lists of a bunch of free ones that still had decent speeds (were kept semi-private to not get overloaded and slowed down by too many users.) Nowadays I don't know how to find any decent free proxy servers that aren't slow as balls.
I love how I just had a pulseway advertisement with Linus in the shower.
Same here! haha
Thought it was part of the video for a few seconds, until I saw the "Skip Ad" button haha
I've literally got a Linus ad on a linus video like 3 times in a row now. 😂 Two of them hes not wearing a shirt
Wait what linus ads??
@@DarkyBoy basically, u might see some ads of a product that has linus featured, I had once, but it was a pulsway, or glass wire
What's Linus doing in your shower?
Just don't get fooled into paying for a VPN for security and privacy concerns (which likely were born from their very own fearmongering).
Only pay for a VPN for the right reason: to work around the access limitations of your internet.
Or to workaround bugs.
Or to download torrents without ISP knowing about it
It's disappointing that he didn't mention security by design vs security by policy. You can't know that a VPN company's claims that they aren't logging or handing over data to law enforcement are true, but you can know whether it's possible for an open-source, well-reviewed piece of software to do so. That's why TOR is the current gold standard. It's not because they have a good privacy policy, it's because there is no way that any part of the system could link your personal IP with the sites you're visiting, even if they tried.
Unless one of the nodes ur passing thru is ran by the feds. Which they do own some.
Thank you for simplifying this. Best video on vpns I've seen. Thanks again!
Riley : "Two reason you uses VPN"
Me, as Asian people : "There is another"
Im asian and I have no Idea what you're talking about.
Actually it's Still considered Privacy reasons
😉
@@PageAaron You won't kid
In Korea , government banns pㅇrn
@@gen4171 here too that's why vpn is something we can rely on
After advertising VPNs for like 5 years non-stop, "Are VPNs just a scam"?
I also wondered why LTT seems to have switched to increasing ads for non-VPN products like cases or their own company water bottles. I wonder if they'll comment on it.
@@Rovers1783 cuz VPNs are like prepaid phones in the end of the day theyre kinda pointless and just make you look sus. Only reason to have em is to download torrents. If you're an activist go to a library or somewhere with public internet access and use that. If you're into CP I recommend a shotgun to the face.
Or, the main reason for using VPNs - to establish a secure connection to remote networks, usually for work or to link private networks across multiple sites.
I was going to commit some crimes today but after watching this video I have changed my mind. Thank you, Techquickie!
Do it annyway
@@gyrosoft1740 nah
@@gyrosoft1740 they asked nicely
Or use case #3, the little known option, to connect to a remote network for access..... Like working remotely.
That's just a VPN but operated by someone else
For working remotely probably you'll use the company's VPN for access to their network.
Little known, but probably the most used by far.
I was expecting "Thanks to our sponsor Nord VPN"
What about the third use case of VPN, logging into your home network without having every server you run connected openly to the internet?
I know that these VPNs are kinda different to the paid "circumvent country restrictions" VPNs, but they are still VPNs none the less.
Or VPNs used to connect game servers to your buddies PCs, again without exposing the server to the internet.
I don't really like how "VPN" has so many meanings these days. Sure they are all still Virtual Private Networks, but the use cases really differ.
This. This is the original use case of a VPN, encrypted tunnels to private networks, like your work or home LAN if you wanted.
These VPN products aren't giving you LAN-like access to a private network. It would be more accurate to call them proxy services. Its all marketing.
Third? more like the intended use as the guy above pointed out
One of the better techquickie videos in a while, well done
Bottom line: Sooner or later, you have to hand off your traffic to someone you don't know.
Which makes using VPNs for "privacy" absolutely ridiculous. VPNs are collecting your data just as much as your ISP is.
VPNs are still great for getting around geo-locks and bullshit regional pricing, but no-one should ever fall for the obvious marketing gimmick that their data will be "protected" by a VPN.
@@T3DNR3D no they’re not. It’s great for privacy
@@se1824 İt's conditional. But always risky. Which VPN service are u using?
@@T3DNR3D It depends. If you trust your government less than a random company elsewhere, trusting a VPN for "privacy" is very much sensible.
Tor is really what you'd want to use for privacy but it's not a great experience in terms of latency.
Answer: Depends if you're doing a sponsored vid with them or not
2:52 I'd like to celebrate Riley's pronunciation of hola: WHOLA!
Ola
Free trials are sketchy, they have a setting for a firewall to not leak your IP if you lose connection but once your trial free data runs out it leaks your IP, like if you fall asleep during a download and the trial data runs out it will leak your ip all night until you wake up or catch it regardless if you have the killswitch or firewall setting on.
Thats just you being stupid not there fault
You can't truly trust any VPN since they only offer privacy by policy, not privacy by design. For complete trust and anonymity TOR is your only option.
What's TOR
Too bad it's slow as shit. Or at least it used to be, I haven't used it in years.
Just make sure you’re choosing one that runs RAM-only servers.
Tor has *a lot* of design flaws that make that claim worthless.
Any entry or exit node of the Tor network can track you quite easily, not to mention that for most people, fingerprinting is more than enough.
If your problem is that you want to ensure your privacy, roll your own VPN, it’s easy and simple.
@@theondono this. Figure out how the tech works before claiming "100% privacy." Of course TOR can help, but if the nodes are compromised, it might be the reason you get caught.
Or the 3rd use case: the ORIGINAL use case for VPN’s is to have a cheap alternative to MPLS: bridging satellite offices via the internet so they are on the same network. There’s a reason why Windows put their “VPN” section in “Connect to a workplace”.
Bingo. This. I learned this recently during an IT course I am taking. Lecturer told us that a VPN is mostly useful to encrypt connections between remote offices - and today, to remote, work at home users that want to connect and access company resources that are stored in a server at the office - in a secure, encrypted way.
These places usually use a firewall/vpn combo of the likes of Cisco or Checkpoint.
For private users - it’s mostly useful to pass geo restrictions and downloading movies without your ISP knowing about it. That and to hide your dirty and horrible porn habits.
@@GoldenSun5631 And remember, if you use your workplace VPN at home, they can see everything you do, just like they would at work. There have been cases where people forgot to turn off their work VPN and accessed NSFW stuff at home using their company network.
I used to have home VPN server just to connect into my local home network because I wanted familiarity of handling stuffs like I'm in my own home, and VPN is for exact reason as you described.
1:00
Hey, they gave All Things Secured some credit! Great job, Josh. You managed to catch the attention of Techquikie!
Not to mention, for the 2nd use case, you dont even *need* a VPN if you use sites that have HTTPS, and if your browser uses DoH, or DNS over HTTPS, which also encrypts the site addresses you visit, not just their contents.
yes, I want a vacuum with a new dust filter for a Hoover MaxExtract Pressure Pro, Model 60 and also a VPN please.
don't talk about cats?
Could you do a video comparing VPNs, TOR, I2P and HTTPS/SSL/TLS?
edit: and which one does what (eg. HTTPS mean only you and the website can see your info, if you had tor and no https the exit node could see your info)
Love this idea. So many people are looking for a more reliable alternative, and there's so much misinformation about what VPNs do.
https is secure http that uses:
- SSL; the old standard that is obsolete and is at this point only used in advertising and marketing bullshit
- TLS; the one that replaced SSL and is now in use
@gghhkm what are you even talking about?
VPN (the real VPN not the marketing VPN stuff that they're talking about in this vid which is essentially just a proxy) is a great thing for many reasons.
What's the point of the first line in your comment? how is Tor better than https? Like what?
And how is a VPN worse than "https" when you can literally have a VPN server communicate via "https" instead of openvpn or wireguard?
@gghhkm The point about the "vpn" was irrelevant as we're on the same page with that one, sorry.
But the "this better than that" is what I don't agree with because:
- "https" is just http with TLS
- quite a few VPN protocols support TLS in their encryption stack (a major one would be OpenVPN, a major one that does not support it would be Wireguard)
Riley: So be very careful about whom you trust
TechLinked viewers: Tell us about it RILEY where's our cake?
I just started giving vpns a try a few days ago, specifically Nord. The third time I booted it up it connected to a host in Los Angeles. No joke, an isp location scan said it was connected to a Los Angeles police department building.
For me who can't watch youtube without a VPN (Iran moment) they are not completely a scam for me
I gave up on privacy and trusting ISPs a long time ago. Let's be honest, if your data was being stolen by everybody, there isn't a whole lot you can do about it.
Well, to not go online... but not really particle isn’t it!
just run your own vpn, not terribly hard lol
@@bobbybologna3029 I actually do want to give that a try, but not for privacy.
@@bobbybologna3029 and now you still have to think about whether you trust the VPN's ISP, a VPN doesn't magically protect privacy, it is just a way to route your traffic to somewhere else where you trust them more
Completely false thats a terrible mindset
I personally don't use a vpn for "privacy" I use it for accessing website that are not available for my country.
1:52 Normally,there shouldnt be any drunk mechanic there,thanks to the security steps,but overworked mechanic could miss something. My friend was one and told some nice stories about 13 hour works days for a week or two,thanks to the inconpetent higher ups who know nothing and do nothing,exept making making the workers life hell by taking up more work than they actually have workers for. This was at the local Lufthansa repair shop.
Very similar concept to how 4473s work in the USA when you buy a gun at an FFL (federal firearms license ie a gun store). While legally we’re not supposed to have a registry (like the VPN logging your data) some information is required and does have to be stored. Just because it’s not supposed to be logged doesn’t mean it isn’t being logged and can’t be used. Same way with tracking guns found via serial numbers and looking up who they were sold to via a 4473 (the form you fill out when buying a gun at an FFL). Super similar concept at least for those of us in the states. Cool to see a parallel in a different industry.
They subpoena your banking records, bank records show who you pay for ISP and who you VPN through, they subpoena the ISP for your IP records, they notify the VPN that they are investigating activity from your IP and that they are not to destroy records or logs, they get a search warrant for the the VPN to turn over logged activity over a period of time which gets you caught red handed.
Besides that, the VPN can just copy and route your traffic to authority for analysis. This makes their no log claim holds true and they can keep pretending to be innocent and protective of your privacy. If big brother wants to watch on you, not much thing is going to stop that.
If there are no logs to begin with than they cannot view them
That’s in the case you want to investigate a known suspect. Honestly, if the suspect is known, you are better of with a search warrant of the house 😂
"that's fancy"... it felt like you didn't even realize you said that pun!
It's really important that VPN doesn't mean that your ISP can't see what you're doing. If you're using split-tunnel configurations to access, say, a corporate network, your regular 'net accesses and DNS lookups will likely be completely visible. Any VPN used to protect your activity must, before the points on this video, route all traffic through the tunnel.
I dunno, but there was a time, a decade or a half ago, where I thought that VPNs and Proxy-Servers were distinct concepts.
I would really like to see a video about 10-bit color on monitors and how this works with modern games. I know there are a few tech quickie videos that are like 7 years old that touch on the topic of HDR 10, but I would be interested in a gaming-focused take on this in 2021. I.E., is color banding solved in dark games? Maybe some illustrations on how 8-bit plus FRC works, etc.
Also curious if a VA panel is technically a better HDR experience due to the supposedly better contrast ratio, or if a decent IPS is similarly good on a monitor.
----------------------------
Also, I read a few articles recently about why VA panels are best for curved monitors. VA (vertical alignment) panels work best because the pixels don't bunch up as easily (at least that's what I gathered). This explains why it's more difficult to find curved IPS monitors. I'm also interested why it's almost impossible to find curved IPS/VA 4k monitors. Wondering if this is for the same reason.
I vibe with that
as an employee of an ISP, i can tell you that we don't care what you are looking and don't log what you're doing. the compute power and drive space it takes to monitor that useless information is a waste
Did I miss the part about self hosted VPNs ?
Your ISP sees where your going but it is all encrypted.
Now I realize it's pretty easy to look up what encryption protocol is used by each VPN but it seems to me it's a good option if your not doing anything illegal.
To be clear, your ISP can see the domain you access (e.g. TH-cam) but not what exactly you do there. For example, there is no way for you ISP to know you have watched this specific video. That part is already encrypted.
They could probably guess though how much videos you watch by the amount of traffic you cause.
I've been saying for years, VPNs are only good to get around IP restrictions.
No matter what they say in their policy, they can log everything you do and sell it if they want. Just like your ISP.
Just because it might be ilegal do to so, doesn't mean it can't be done.
Yep, and I love when people say "ooh any company that pays taxes on the books have to do things legally" or "the government can only follow the law" are my favorite. They don't realize that corruption is a VERY real thing.
+1
And if you know how https works, you will be very scared. VPN provider can MITM attack you easily. You trust them not to do it.
@@koruspring1519 Proxy server provider is likely gonna attack you than a VPN provider.
@@namelessguy933 uh.. yeah of course.
Maybe a vid on the safety and security of password managers.
Been wondering about that since I saw a Nordpass ad and went; 'Huh, didn't their VPN department leak the data of like 20 million users'
There’s a third use case, for people like me who live in certain countries that block access to most of the internet.
he literally said people use it to avoid geo filters
Leave the country if at all possible.
@@arnox4554 just because you can't watch porn without a VPN? Idk man people usually leave countries for more serious reasons like job opportunities, family, wars, political instability, etc...
@@juch3 If they're blocking access to most of the sites on the internet, that's a LOT MORE serious than just "LOL can't watch porn." It is, in fact, a major breach of freedom of speech.
@@arnox4554 I'm in awe and concomitantly wheezing at how american your reply is.
One is stuck playing the impassioned protagonist in one’s Subjective Narrative of Self. 🎈
OVPN in Sweden has been to court about it's "No logs at all" policy. And they stood up to the test.
Zero logging and open DNS for anyone to use. Love those kids. Doing a great job.
Edit: Mandatory logging is only for ISPs in Sweden. Not "other services".
People nowadays keep the WiFi on their phone turned on all the time and it's constantly looking for a WiFi network. It's ridiculously trivial for someone to just pose as Starbucks WiFi and your phone would connect to the device automatically if you've ever used Starbucks WiFi and not manually unchecked "save network" while doing so. Even if your school/university/residence has WiFi with a publicly or semi-privately available password, it's trivial to get phones to latch to your network. A VPN in this case can at least mask this traffic and prevent snooping (although the network host can still launch phishing attacks).
as always, very straight to the point and interesting video, thanks
"How do you know whom to trust?" Nobody. Set up your own vpn, period. It's the only way if you CARE about privacy.
Yeah, imagine trusting vpn provider that wants you to pay money to use their VPN and get your data stolen
If you're the VPN provider, you can even do cool stuff like saying no to double NAT on your ISP and port forwarding anyway.
Don't you need servers in several different countries to bounce your IP around? thats like paying several different internet bills and having property in several different locations, sounds expensive.
@Central Based Agency You can set it up on a Linux VPS.
Please remember to use an incognito browser if you’re using a VPN. Otherwise you’re just using Google or Facebook’s data harvesting plan from a different IP. They still know it’s you.
Rather something with anti-fingerprint functionality. Just chrome's incognito won't cut it.
Also, like in all things security, first identify what you want to protect against. I am fine with Google having my data and not fine with some KGB agent in ushanka peeking in.
What lol? Incognito does nothing against people tracking you that sounds so stupid
@@OnlyAngelsMayFly chromium based browsers are fine like ungoogled chromium or brave
@@killertigergaming6762 it disables cookies which I guess is something lol. Much better off using browser like Brave if you just want that though.
@@jebril cookies most of the time do nothing especially when you can get fingerprinted
"AND, HEY! YOU WANT A VACUUM!??"
Could you do a video explaining IPFS, what it is for, should you use it, local node VS public gateway, etc etc
Turning on a VPN's encryption doesn't protect you from the VPN seeing your data. It must be decrypted before it leaves the VPN to be sent to the target URL. If that URL doesn't itself have HTTPS (SSL), then all that data is open to the VPN to view.
Exactly, all a VPN does is change your egress point to the interwebs. If the traffic was not secure leaving your network, it won't be secure leaving the VPN.
I don't think either of you know how vpns work
@@killertigergaming6762 what part did I miss or get wrong? A VPN is an encrypted tunnel changing your traffic’s egress point. So if what you put into the tunnel is not secured, such as an ssh or https protocol, it will not be secured when it leaves the VPN and goes on to your bank or broker or credit card company.
Those touting VPNs as making your traffic more secure are hoping you don’t realize the traffic eventually leaves their VPN and is subject to the same threats once it leaves.
I use a VPN daily for work and know quite well what it can and cannot do.
@@killertigergaming6762 you still have not explained what either of us have wrong. If you claim we don't understand, point out the errors.
I think this is a great point. It always boggles my mind that noone ever seems to talk about HTTPS when talking about VPNs. The biggest thing that annoys me in ads is when they say "ISPs can see all your data". No, they really can't, if you're using https, which loads of websites to these days. They can, of course, see all your metadata, which is still not great if you don't trust them but just saying "data" is misleading in my opinion
Could be nerdy and host your own VPN with openvpn if it's security your looking for, probably wouldn't help with geoblocking though
i does help when you travel to a blocked country :) I use my own vpn server at home because i travel a lot and use a lot of different connexion. that way I VPN my phone and laptop at home for security reasons and also entertainement
James and Riley are "those" friends that you do NOT wanna fall asleep around at a party!
I really enjoy Riley's commentary. Honestly the best speaker on Linus's combined youtube channels.
A) Even if you choose to encrypt your data, it is ONLY encrypted till it reaches VPN - where it decrypts it to actually send legible data to server/website
B) Websites are getting smart and are slowly learning how to tell if someone is on a VPN; in which it will enforce geoblocking even if you were in the same country
C) VPN’s provide barely zero privacy, as modern ad ai can determine individual users not by their identifiers but by how they use the Internet and what logins have been used via backend talk between servers (log into Google on any VPN, and your connection has the same privacy as no VPN - even if it has changing ip’s since your login will share those credentials as they change)
D) VPN’s were never designed for privacy; and only protect your data until it hits the VPN server.
@@og_eta0s No. It’s literally basic information you can search up yourself. People with years of cyber security under their belts show how simple it is to show how much non-private vpn’s can be.
@@og_eta0s I have education and years experience in IT- but this is the internet; so even if i say my experience, you people will only trust a third party. If I had originally just said “I have years of experience in cyber security, so trust my words”, you would just blanket response that “Yeah, and I am the queen of England.” So, instead I support you to go out on your own & truly learn what the vpn space is truly like.
Remember folks; to not be tracked and recorded on the internet, make your own internet, or just don't use one.
Be careful though physical wire taps on local nets are still possible.
But seriously privacy is dead, and so many of the youth just use their given names, not even knowing why usernames were ever anything else.
_Feels old man_
I used to use my full name, including my whole middle name, and I'm honestly scared for old me
Ash isn't my actual name, it's the name I go by because I'm trans but I don't plan to change my legal name for that exact reason
Completely false that is a terrible mindset to have
Ok, I don't generally bother with commenting on youtube videos....but I feel the need to do so here.
Mad props, you actually acknowledged one major key point that I have literally never seen any youtube video ever acknowledge. EVER. Log retention requirement LAWS. The US has them. Any and all forms of telecommunication services, be it internet, or phone, or whatever, are required to keep logs for a bare minimum of 2 years. Now, there's more in the fine print, as to what the logs need to contain, but even being optimistic and saying only the most bare bones metadata...that is still incredibly dangerous information to have sitting on a database waiting for a breach.
Everyone that I have ever seen that DOES come forward and talk about the darker side of VPN's and their privacy breaches, always dances around and dodges talking about this detail at all. At first, I thought that was where this video was going with things...but no, you actually acknowledged that issue. (You didn't mention the US doing it, but still, the fact it happens is still important to talk about!)
Long story short, if your doing it for privacy purposes, yes, VPN's are absolutely a scam...if you live in the US.
VPN does not hide your activity at all. You are also tracked by your cookies, which are still used when with a VPN.
So sites you habeas used before are still tracking you with your VPN.
"I hear the moon is pretty libertarian" - cue Neil Armstrong posting "get off my lawn" sign right next to the US flag
(Distant voice) "You betray da lawww.."... *Judge Dredd walks up to lawn
alongside a "DON'T TREAD ON ME" Flag
and reading Wakefield's paper and denying climate change
@@snbeast9545 Climate change happens naturally in cycles.
Remember the Ice Age?
@@thisismagacountry1318 True, but industrial-era and beyond pollution are responsible for a rapidly warming planet. We’re accelerating the process.
The fact that I can stream Xbox games on my mobile phone by using a VPN in a country where the service is not yet available (and will probably not be for the next 10 years) tells me at the very least the VPN does exactly what it says it does. Whether this is a viable solution to keep my data safe, I don't know. I only use the VPN because it comes included with my password manager service.
Which one are you using?
@@Venvaneless Dashlane
there is a third reason for accessing the internet over a vpn. some provide an option of a static public ip. If you need one for running a server or gaming, and your internet is via mobile 4glte it is the only way to get a static ip.
Yes, as Kitboga said something like it closes one door in a system with thousands of other doors, in other words, they are completely useless for anything related to privacy, only good for watching content on streaming services not available in your country
No reference to "ThatOnePrivacyGuy" and the massive collection of data provided on VPN services?
Good one. I used his site as buying guide.
Missed out on an opportunity to tell viewers of alternative methods of security like tor.
It is good not to popularize tor. Tor is used by many activists around the world who actually need privacy. But tor has limited capacity and it is free. So if everybody starts using tor to just casually surf the web, it will be overcrowded and the people who actually need the service won't be able to use it. So, don't spread too much word about tor.
@@TimGautier I've seen high school kids download pirated Justin Bieber music with tor. I don't believe that's the reason tor exists. Also, tor is a pathway towards the worse parts of web. I don't think encouraging regular people to go that way is a good idea.
@@edreis3449 uh no unless you straight up search for stuff like that on tor you won't find it
I work for a social media site where we have definitely reported people to the police and handed over relevant information to the authorities. It's a long legal thing, but it's done and I can definitely tell you, no one reads the fine print which says we will definitely do that if you're committing crimes. Even if your VPN is legit, its definitely worth reading the legal bits, because when it comes to what is or isn't tracked and what can and cannot be sent to say a government who asks for that data...you best know that before you feel secure "not committing crimes online" using your VPN.
You forgot to mention that even if the VPNs server is hosted in a country like australia, it also comes down to the server location, not the country the VPN company is registered in/pays taxes.
If you use a no-log VPN and use a australian server, the australian server is logging while the rest of their servers are not. If they don't, they get a fine and the company and product get banned from being sold in the country.
So yes, the company as a whole isnt logging but the servers in countrys with mandatory logging laws are.
e.g. expressVPN was unable to hand over logs to catch the assasiin as they didnt log but if the assasin was using a australian expressvpn server, they would have logs.
I just wireguard to home for the security on open networks along with a good DNS filter behind wireguard.
If you connect to your home internet using a VPN from public Wi-Fi, anyone sniffing your traffic can see your home IP address, which depending on several factors, could result in an attacker knowing exactly where you live.
@@Minecraft101ToonLink
Not in my country. In the US that's a thing. But here you get a dynamic IP that at most only show the region you live.
And I know about that and my IP only shows the provider not if it's private or corporate.
@@RedmilesShark Okay.
You are telling me that agencies don't have a Room 641A in every VPN building?! Pffff
"Chemistry and thermodynamics of m&ms ", who expected to hear this line in their life?
I only started using a vpn because I don’t want to pay for 80 streaming services a before Netflix I got a very scary letter from my isp about all the movies I was “borrowing”
What did the email say
let me guess, xfinity?
Even if its not them and any other isp then dont worry those letters are harmless and they wont do anything, unless you live in a country with stricter laws and vpn is your only choice.
All I can say is I one time signed up for a well-known VPN. I gave them my phone number and address as required for billing. Not too long after that, I started getting all sorts of spam email and spam phone calls. Could it have been the billing agency and not the VPN, of course. But if the VPN uses a billing agency that would share that info or if the VPN themselves did it, then that is no different and in some ways is worse than Google tracking my browsing data.
What well known vpn you could have prevented that by using a vpn you can sign up anonymously with like mullvad since there the only vpn i can think of that uses monero
@@killertigergaming6762 When I tried a vpn, I had not yet got into crypto.
@@BlenderRookie yeah just remember if your going to use crypto to pay make sure it is monero since bitcoin and most others aren't anonymous
@@killertigergaming6762 Yeah, that's why I laugh whenever I hear the news media talk about anonymous bitcoin transactions.
I hoped you would do the research on VPN providers and rule out all those with scatchy practices
Exactly a lot of countries have mandatory data retention laws and let’s say even if you’re in a country that doesn’t those law-enforcement agents might get a warrant requiring your VPN service to log everything for a given account if they know who you are already and they just wanna get evidence they can definitely get a warrant, requiring them to log all your activity and turn it overeven if it breaks her with the warrant trumps agreement
im jealous of Riley's hair from many many years...
i miss his comedy intros. Do you remember them? Was it on this channel? he would dress up and do funny voices.
With Netflix's crackdown on VPNs I'm really starting to regret getting a 2 year vpn subscription just for international Netflix viewing
If you have a VPN, you don't have to stick with Netflix
What you have a 2 year sub time to go to privacy subreddit
Super annoying because my VPN, PIA is able to view Netflix just fine but my regular internet connection gets blocked.
I even had a separate browser JUST for watching Netflix on my PC because Netflix and PIA don't play nice a lot and now I can't use my regular connection.
Netflix + VPN has never crossed my mind. VPN is all you need if you know what I mean 🏴☠️
@@Rokegle135 wait? Do people in r/privacy really make vpns for themselves and not get ones from company's VPN?
From 0:36 - 0:47 you say "You connect to a VPN which then connects you to the wider internet, your ISP cannot see which sites or services your seeing or using." but the animation shows a computer connecting to the ISP first then the VPN. Does this mean you send information through the ISP first which is then routed through the VPN?
I mainly use a VPN to allow friends to connect to game servers without the issue that I can't port forward on our modem... at least not without changing security options or something.
to me it's
NO and yes,it's why I can see this without paying
Probably, eventually everything gets hacked.
you forget the 3rd use case, becuase I work from home and the company has their own VPN. In fact this is probably the oldest use-case, the other two just came up more recently.
My friend got a VPN to watch blocked Netflix shows, but Netflix knows he is using a VPN, so a message pops up telling him to disable it to access Netflix. LOL.
Even some paid VPNs are untrustworthy, such as NordVPN when they took almost a year to confess they had found rogue servers on their network caused by one of the datacenters where they paid some servers leaving remote control software that was use in a nefarious way.