I'm surprised at how negative HN as a whole is on VPNs. The argument seems to go that VPNs don't really give you much privacy. I disagree. I don't think they give absolutely privacy but there are benefits.

As soon as you use a service in another country, it greatly complicates anyone trying to pierce that veil. A US shield can be pierced by John Doe warrants, FISA warratns, pen registers and so on. Some of these options are open to average citizens who may want to dox you or simply report your activity to government agencies, which is more relevant now than it has been in many years.

We've seen several websites pop up to dox people who don't show sufficient deference to Charlie Kirk's murder. We have an administration who now seeks to deport people, deny entry to visa holders and deny visas to people who criticize Israel.

For so many people in the US, citizens and otherwise, an extra level of privacy has become essentially mandatory.

The US ISP market is dominated by regional monopolies where you have no other option. ISPs monitor your traffic, not only to sell your data to data brokers but to decide if you're doing anything "inappropraite" like using a file-sharing service. How long before that extends to the content of your speech?

I'm glad people are doing things like xposing IPv6 leaks (as in this post) and other weaknesses. Some here will taken this as further evidence that VPNs are of little or no value. I don't. I want to know who the good providers are.

It's because the primary function of VPNs isn't privacy, it's to connect to a remote network and treat it as your LAN. Any privacy or security stuff is completely orthogonal.

As surveillance of social media ramps up, either by the government or by angry mobs, they're rapidly growing to be essential to use any unencrypted platform.