Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, are popular services for (supposedly) increasing your security and privacy on the internet. They are often marketed as all-encompassing security tools, and something that you absolutely need to keep hackers at bay. However, many of the selling points for VPNs are exaggerated or just outright
VPNs don’t really protect your privacy though, except in cases where you’ve already eliminated other means of tracking (e.g. fresh incognito browser tab + VPN). Every website and service I use still has a record of my activity if I’m logged in, advertiser networks have other means of tracking you, etc.
The issue is buying a VPN and thinking that’s the end of it.
It protects your ip address, and your ISP from knowing what you’re doing. It also protects you on public wifi from nefarious actors. VPN’s aren’t meant to protect you from Google advertising while checking your Gmail account…
Are there attack vectors through public Wi-Fi in recent history? Now that most sites and services are HTTPS there’s nothing they can do except do network-level blocks.
They certainly increase your privacy.
Nothing “protects”, that’s an absolute. Everything we do are steps toward increasing privacy.