Which VPN Providers Really Take Privacy Seriously in 2023? * TorrentFreak

equalszero@lemmy.dbzer0.com to Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ@lemmy.dbzer0.com – 178 points –
torrentfreak.com

There's way too much hype over VPN Providers, but do not forget, you are routing all your traffic through their servers

As a general advice, if a VPN provider keeps logs of your activity, does not allow you to pay with crypto, and generally spends way too much on youtube ads is probably not an ideal choice.

Do not follow any advice/recommendation blindly, do your own research on which one offers the best service for your own needs.

TorrentFreak Q&A with VPN Providers

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Paying with credit cards etc deanonymizes you

I'm not a fan of using crypto as an investment tool, but since I cant pay with cash via the internet crypto is the next best option.

Eh your bank just knows you pay for a VPN.

I would like to be able to send a mail with the exact money in cash... But that remains a dream...

Eh your bank just knows you pay for a VPN.

Some of them log your payment credentials, why would you want your VPN provider to have access to your real name and banking details? Even if you are not pirating content, its just creepy allowing them to do that to you.

Unless you have somekind of a weird fetish that you enjoy knowing that when you browse the web you are not alone and being watched lol

If i don't trust my VPN provider i don't use it at all...

Personally i use Proton Enterprise (yes i need it all for myself, don't ask why) so they already know wo i am, the important part is that they don't give my data to others and don't store stuff that isn't necessary. They take crypto, but thats not exactly a necessity for most people, my bank and Proton are the only parts knowing i pay for a Proton account, if my government knows, wich it only could in a serious investigation against me, well, they don't know what im doing there, they also just know i pay for Proton, wich also provides cloud storage and Email service among others its not illegal or Problematic to have that at all. (also i kinda work for the government so they wouldn't give a fuck anyway...)

Even if you trust them, the VPN provider is the single most important provider you don't want to know details about you. That is because they are the ones who will also know about your real IP address.

Proton is a solid choice, they have awesome plans to bundle it with their email services afaik.

But when it comes to "trust" I also trust my grocery store service, but I like to have the ability to just pay with cash and not have them log me by name each time I enter their store and what I'm looking at while in there, its creepy and unethical and we should not support those services.

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I don't understand the downvotes. Crypto is ideal way of paying if you want to stay anonymous. Even Mullvad says that if you pay with Paypal that there's some data they are required to keep on file.

Crypto isn't anonymous though from my understanding. Since every transaction gets recorded, you can be identified through your transaction history.

It's true and not true. If you're not careful, you can get identified even while using cryptocurrency because the ledgers are all public. If anyone can figure out that you're tied to a single one of your historical transactions, they can trace everything your "wallet" has ever done. But if you use single-use wallets, crypto shufflers, whatever else the kids have going these days, you can be untraceable. The easiest way to do private crypto is to use Monero, which automatically handles most privacy concerns.

Edit: A small vid on monero: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7sLnmlZ-kU

I'm not immersed in the cryptocurrency world day-to-day so if anything has changed lmk

You can also pay for mullvad by mailing them cash with a note saying which account to apply it to. I did it once just for fun.

The have voucher codes you can buy. Not quite sure if you will find them anywhere to buy in cash tho. Personally don't care too much. Using a VPN isn't illegal where I live.

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