this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2024
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[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 14 points 9 months ago

Exactly.

Yes, it hides your IP, but that's not all that important if you have a competent ISP or firewall on your router in terms of security (it's more important for privacy). Yes, it (usually) encrypts your traffic, but so does pretty much every website, and adding a second layer doesn't meaningfully improve things.

VPNs are important for privacy, that's it. They change where your traffic appears to come from so people (attackers and servers alike) can't tell where you're accessing it from. That's it, and that's a pretty important thing, especially in this day and age with swatting and whatnot.