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this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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I worked for a VPN company a decade ago that advertised no logging. It was all BS. They absolutely logged. Maybe they only kept the logs for something like 48 hours, but I'm pretty sure all VPNs have some kind of logging going on. Anyway, a VPN by itself does not give you any privacy. Websites have a billion ways to fingerprint you, and they don't even need cookies to do it.
VPNs are to protect you against your ISP, that is about it. I guess sailing the high seas also since fingerprinting doesn't apply as much. Also getting around authoritarian government blocks.
It is a small piece of the puzzle.
privacy implies vpn (or some mix-net), but not the opposite... so if you want privacy, you need a vpn, but a vpn by itself doesn't give you privacy
It's a small step out of many. And there's enough steps now that an average person is pretty much never going to have it, unfortunately. But there is more and less exposed. There's untraceable, and there's traceable with more effort than anyone will likely bother. Considering countries like russia have tried and failed to block VPNs, they're certainly worth something.
I'd argue that VPNs remain one of the highest return-on-investment (time and money) steps towards online security, as many gaps as they do have in the big picture.
It's not going to make you untraceable. But it'll make you difficult enough to trace that nobody's gonna put forth the effort to target you specifically unless you've attracted like, nation-state attention. (Targeting you as a member of some demographic a la advertisers, yeah not much effect).
Pretty sure even a VPN does nothing if you're on a cellphone as well isn't it?
Like all cellphones carry a unique identifier, that's how, say, reddit can keep you banned even if you start a new account under new email and a vpn.
I don't think Reddit would have that. They likely just use your browser fingerprint. Check this out: https://amiunique.org/fingerprint
Between just my uncommon device, my languages spoken, and rough location (timezone), I'm actually crazy identifiable, yikes.