If you use a VPN that also provides DNS servers (e.g., Mullvad), you can prevent your ISP from snooping on your internet traffic and selling that information or having it hoovered up by government agencies and immediately tied back to you. HTTPS encrypts your internet traffic, but the metadata of what sites you are visiting and the frequency is typically enough to make some decent assumptions about what you are doing. No matter the legality of what you are doing, your data shouldn’t be for sale and shouldn’t be collected for government surveillance. Using a VPN cuts down on your information being available. There are still other ways it is collected, but there are other tools to mitigate that. The uBlock origin browser extension is a great first step.
In short, a VPN will help make your internet traffic a bit more secure and more private, but it won’t grant you complete anonymity or necessarily protect you from sophisticated surveillance.
Disclaimer: I am just a lay person with self-taught experience. I am not an IT professional.
If you use a VPN that also provides DNS servers (e.g., Mullvad), you can prevent your ISP from snooping on your internet traffic and selling that information or having it hoovered up by government agencies and immediately tied back to you. HTTPS encrypts your internet traffic, but the metadata of what sites you are visiting and the frequency is typically enough to make some decent assumptions about what you are doing. No matter the legality of what you are doing, your data shouldn’t be for sale and shouldn’t be collected for government surveillance. Using a VPN cuts down on your information being available. There are still other ways it is collected, but there are other tools to mitigate that. The uBlock origin browser extension is a great first step.
In short, a VPN will help make your internet traffic a bit more secure and more private, but it won’t grant you complete anonymity or necessarily protect you from sophisticated surveillance.
Disclaimer: I am just a lay person with self-taught experience. I am not an IT professional.
Shorter: You are used as a product for someone else’s profit. If you’re okay with that, don’t worry about privacy and security.