So I think I’m going to get a VPN but I’m not sure what sort of information I have to give them as well as what they can do with that information afterwards. How safe is it to use a VPN and can I trust them?
EDIT: Bonus question - I know VPNs change my IP address but shouldn’t my original IP address be my actual address? My IP address says I’m in another state. Solved
Thanks,
A total noob
Reputation matters. There is a certain VPN (probably the best known) that was coerced by authorities to hand over info. They did not; because they claimed they couldn’t. Nothing was logged. This is something to look out for, specifically, when evaluating VPNs.
The other is speed/reliability. Once again, the largest VPN is quite reliable.
Side note: Do not use “free” VPN apps. Remember, in this case, you’re the commodity, not your privacy.
You’re trusting your VPN as much as you’d trust your home ISP, except that: Your home ISP knows your physical/postal address and real name and payment info; you might be able to hide all that from a VPN service.
A downside of VPN is that you know what laws and jurisdiction apply to your ISP, but you may not be familiar with those for your VPN. An ISP in Europe may be more regulated than a VPN in Thailand.
Another advantage of VPN: if someone wants to sue you or DMCA you, they may have to work through two or three jurisdictions (your location, VPN company’s location, VPN server’s location) to trace and sue you.
Think of a VPN provider like your actual Internet Service Provider. It just so happens a VPN encrypts the Internet Service it provides.
The only people who have access to that encryption is your devices and your VPN provider. Most providers ride-or-die on their reputations so they can’t afford to do evil things with the encryption or access to it. In fact, many VPNs are based in countries where they are not required to keep logs about their user’s which pretty much eliminates your encrypted data falling into the hands of anyone you might have an issue with.
That said, there are many fake, malicious, state-sponsored, and honeypot VPN providers out there running. Assuming you sign up with one of these services they could literally see everything you do while connected to their service. At that point, the only defense you have would be browser encryption (HTTPS) and password strength. Somewhat useless if you have someone trying to really come after you.
You can find out a lot of information about VPNs using with a tool I created at https://www.vpn.com. It compares 900 different VPNs providers. Hope that helps.
Thank you so much! This is all great information! So does it matter where where VPN IP is located? As in will it affect my connection? Because I live in Adelaide and have been told before that using VPN IP’s that are closer to me are better because they have better connection. The guy that told me wasn’t very reliable though.
Yeah I know that about free VPN’s because they have to be making money some how. I’ve also heard that the FBI can send a letter to a VPN to tell them to start logging data. This also comes with a gag order so the VPN can’t even let their customers know they’re logging their info. But that’s probably only in extreme cases that the FBI would do that, like if they’re looking for a terrorist or something.
Also - I think it’s important to mention that within the last few months, I read an article about how police went to the data hosting company for a VPN to get someone’s IP… they didn’t have to go to the VPN company, they just went to the company that was hosting that server it was connected to, then got his real IP and info from that. Totally bypassed the mess of trying to go through a VPN.
Post the article.
Within the last few months, I got a DCMA via PIA VPN. It was set to only use the VPN, and had a killswitch enabled. Shouldn’t have been possible, if PIA is as security friendly as it sounds. Just another example of promises being made, and finding out later via test
Screenshot the IP address listed in the complaint.
So I’m guessing a DCMA is a warning due to torrenting? Damn. That’s kind of blown my confidence in doing this now
It compares 900 different VPNs providers. Hope that helps.
And… We’re not on there 
I browsed your tool for 30 seconds now and found a ton of wrong information. Mostly websites from the providers… pretty shitty for such a cool domain.
Also, I wonder how much you get from Express for auto-filtering to only them.
I think that’s true, so a lot of people prefer VPNs that are owned and operated outside of the US and EU.
FBI can’t enforce an order on a non-American company effectively nor quickly.
How do you browse it for 30 seconds and find a ton of wrong info? There is 188,000 pieces of data…
Constructive feedback is welcome, being a tool is not and blindly insulting thousands of hard word is not.
That said it is very difficult to keep every provider 100% up to date. We are updating the providers every three months or based on feedback of our visitors.
And ExpressVPN didn’t pay us a dime. If you took the time to look you’d notice we don’t actually have affiliate links anywhere on the site.
Please message me whatever inaccuracies you see and I’ll get them corrected, if necessary.
You have been so helpful in helping me make this decision so thank you very much. I couldn’t find anything near this helpful by searching online so you have been a huge help.
Laws also apply in other areas of the world. Geography doesn’t change that.
Intelligence agencies have no jurisdiction.
FBI can’t enforce an order on a non-American company effectively nor quickly.
Sure they can. They have treaties signed specifically for this, called mutual legal assistance treaties. So if you’re really hellbent on thinking geography will save you, you will want a company incorporated in a country without a signed MLAT treaty with the United States. Good luck with that.