Q: Should I use a VPN and if so which one actually respects your privacy - genuine question

[Cole_25]

Q: Do I need a VPN?

A: Depends on your threat model. A VPN hides your traffic from your ISP and from the network you are connected to. It does not make you anonymous. It shifts trust from your ISP to your VPN provider. If your ISP is less trustworthy than your VPN provider it helps. If you are on public WiFi it helps. If you are trying to hide activity from a determined adversary it does not help enough to matter.

Q: Which VPN providers are actually trustworthy?

A: Mullvad is the one the privacy community consistently points to. They accept cash and Monero, have a no log policy that has been verified by independent audits, do not require an email address to sign up, and recently removed port forwarding to prevent certain abuse. ProtonVPN is the runner up with a strong no log track record and free tier

[MiniElliot]

Mullvad recommendation is correct. The fact that they killed port forwarding rather than tolerate abuse is the kind of decision that tells you about a company's actual values

[Arty Leah]

Most people asking this question do not need a VPN, they need HTTPS everywhere and a browser that does not leak their fingerprint

[DQ Eric]

The shift trust to your VPN provider point is the one most VPN marketing glosses over. You are not removing a point of trust, you are moving it

[Sharp Shannon]

For streaming geo-unblocking specifically almost any VPN works and Mullvad may be overkill. For genuine privacy the no log audited providers are the only credible choice

[Seb51]

NordVPN and ExpressVPN spend enormous amounts on marketing and comparatively little on transparency. The inverse is what to look for

[Cole75]

The DNS leak test at dnsleaktest.com is worth running on any VPN setup. Many VPNs fail it and the providers do not advertise this

[Hitman04]

Tailscale for private networking between your own devices is a different use case but worth mentioning. Not a privacy VPN but an excellent self hosted mesh network

[Ann]

Wireguard as the underlying protocol is now the standard and any VPN still running OpenVPN only is behind the times

[RomoneyWalters]

I use Mullvad on public networks and nothing at home. That is the sensible middle ground for most people without a specific threat model