Comment by linkregister
10 hours ago
Marcus Hitchens (security researcher who blackholed the WannaCry ransomware domain) made a post on LinkedIn today comparing VPNs to snake oil. With regard to the way they're advertised in internet ads, they are. VPNs will not protect ordinary users from ad tracking or commercial data mining. They're marketed as a privacy tool when their privacy value is very limited.
VPNs are useful for the reasons you mentioned.
It can be a factual statement about the commercial VPN landscape at large, but an incorrect statement about many individual VPN providers. It lacks nuance as a statement.