What is a VPN and The Downsides🌱

'VPN' stands for 'Virtual Private Network'.

It can be used to protect your internet activity and hide your identity online. It does this through hiding your IP Address and Encrypting your internet data packets.

When you use a VPN, all your activity bypasses your ISP and will be redirected to your VPN server.
It encrypts/hides your DNS requests.

Another upside of using a VPN is that can access region locked content, so you can choose a IP in a different country to gain access. This is a good way to combat censorship.

However, VPNs are not something you should use on their own for Anonymity on the internet. They have a lot of flaws and downsides, especially if you are going with a sketchy free VPN.

VPN providers could be keeping logs of their users' activity and there is nothing to keep them accountable even if they say they don't keep those logs. They could hand those logs to the government just like your ISP could.

Using a VPN along with the TOR browser can provide a little bit of extra privacy, but is also quite slow to load things.

Backlinks:

Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-JUOpCgTZc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x1BJCKwqpI

Notes: