Personal VPN services are snake oil
Personal VPN services are criticized as “snake oil” when marketed as all-purpose security and privacy tools, since they mostly just shift trust from an ISP to a VPN provider and offer limited protection beyond what HTTPS and modern browsers already provide. Commenters note, however, that VPNs still have concrete uses: bypassing geo-blocks and censorship, evading ISP throttling or mandatory data retention, and masking activity such as piracy or region-locked streaming. The core tension is whether their real-world benefits justify the cost and added complexity for typical users, given misleading advertising and the risk that VPN providers may also log, monetize, or expose user data.
Overall View of Personal VPNs
- Many agree commercial VPNs are often mis-marketed as all‑purpose “security/privacy” tools, which is misleading given HTTPS’s ubiquity.
- Others argue calling them “snake oil” is too strong since they clearly solve some real problems, even if not the ones in the ads.
- Core idea repeated: VPNs are a trust shift from ISP/local network to VPN provider, not magic anonymity.
Common Use Cases Highlighted
- Geofence bypass: region‑locked streaming, pricing differences for flights/cars, accessing services blocked in certain countries or U.S. states (e.g., porn, crypto, some media).
- Piracy: torrenting without DMCA notices or landlord/ISP trouble.
- Censorship/blocks: bypassing DNS or IP‑based blocks on campuses, hotels, public Wi‑Fi, national firewalls, and ISP “nanny” filters.
- Throttling/peering: avoiding ISP shaping of YouTube, Plex, streaming, torrents, games; working around bad peering (e.g., specific ISPs vs certain backbones or game servers).
- Misc: safer use of sketchy public Wi‑Fi, remote work/“second jobs,” accessing home/company networks (though the article excluded those).
Privacy, Trust, and Law
- Debate over whether hiding from ISPs is meaningful:
- Pro‑VPN: ISPs in many places log and monetize traffic; VPN market competition and “no logs” claims (sometimes court‑tested) may make some providers preferable.
- Skeptical view: you just add another entity with the same incentives; some prefer regulated ISPs to opaque offshore companies.
- Some jurisdictions mandate ISP metadata retention, pushing users toward VPNs.
- Legality of region bypass is contested in the thread; some claim it’s clearly illicit, others note lack of enforcement and call it “digital jaywalking.”
Free VPNs and Abuses
- Several comments describe free VPNs turning users into exit nodes for residential proxy networks, effectively “botnets for rent” and tools for scalpers/scrapers.
- Other documented abuses: traffic inspection/analytics, possible ad injection.
Technical Points and Alternatives
- DNS over HTTPS/TLS helps against DNS‑only blocking but doesn’t hide IPs or TLS SNI; Encrypted Client Hello is noted as not yet widely deployed.
- Tor is seen as stronger for anonymity but slower, more heavily blocked, and overkill for many.
- Kill switch issues are discussed; some propose OS‑level or network‑hardware “slugs” to enforce “fail closed.”