Thoughts about VPN services

I have never been a big fan of VPN services. I think that many users have a wrong expectation about it, they think the VPN service would provide them anonymity and protect their data.

But a VPN does not provide anonymity. You never know if the service, despite promises of the contrary, keeps logs and then can assign users accordingly.

Tor offers anonymity when used correctly.

And privacy seems to be a big priority for most services only in advertising, when they include trackers on their websites or in their apps.

One service that is perhaps the least unserious of all these is Mullvad. It is not necessary to provide any personal information when registering, not even an email address. It also supports OpenVPN and Wireguard directly using configuration files. And also the pricing structure and ethics seems more serious, so I actually trust this service for basic internet browsing.

Mullvad VPN actually offers an advantage: My Internet provider doesn’t seem to have good peering with some networks, so despite a 100Mbits connection (that’s high-speed in Germany! – and is honestly sufficient for me), it leads to slow downloads sometimes. Mullvad, however, seems to have much better peering, so that I can take full advantage of the full speed.

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