Please keep in mind that I am not an IT specialist (maybe just a little experienced) and I write philosophical stuff on this topic.

Something Like an Introduction

Lately, VPNs have become increasingly popular. It’s becoming more “trendy” and youthful to think about your privacy online. Especially after it was revealed that the NSA could secretly turn on users’ webcams. But is VPN really as great as it seems?

VPN is Not a Panacea

Yes, a VPN can provide partial privacy. But where’s the guarantee that the service providing it isn’t collecting your data, even if it claims not to? It might even turn out that your privacy is compromised and your browsing data leaks online or gets sold somewhere. If you’ve read that our ISPs and others are monitoring us—forget it, it won’t get any better. You might as well switch to pagers and stop using Google and its maps.

VPN on the Blockchain

Blockchain—another trendy thing for hipsters. People are now trying to use it for everything, even for things where it’s not needed. But what can you say—it’s fashionable. A good attempt at creating a decentralized VPN was made by Mysterium Network (unfortunately, I couldn’t make the link a referral). It all started off pretty well; no registration was required, and only private Node Runners (people running VPN servers in their homes) were used as nodes. Not too long ago (in 2023), these guys introduced account registration (in the same year, the Ledger crypto wallet started offering users the option to recover their private keys through passports—how creepy is that?), and the price of their native token, MYST, began to drop. As of the same 2023, dark VPN without registration is still available and can be paid for with cryptocurrency.

Accessing Resources Abroad

Probably the only useful application of VPN is accessing resources abroad or purchasing subscriptions at prices available in other countries (where it’s cheaper). For example, a Spotify subscription in Turkey might be significantly cheaper (several times less expensive) compared to other countries. I’ve also heard that some people buy inexpensive games on Steam this way.

Accessing Your “Smart” Stuff at Home

Probably each of us has a couple of servers at home, like NextCloud, right? If not, then no, but if yes—this is quite a convenient way to give hackers a chance to break into your network access your home resources when you’re not at home. There’s not much to say here—set up a Wireguard server at home (the trend of 2023) or OpenVPN, and enjoy.