Can we really trust paid VPN services?

[filesharingkiddie]

Can we really trust paid VPN services for us not being watched by Governments and Copyright trolls?

[Sid]

It depends on what you mean by "trust"?

Will a VPN protect you from you copyright infringement notices when downloading torrents? Yes, it will, even a free one will. Assuming of course that you set it up properly and use it religiously.

Will a VPN enable you to download terrorist propaganda and child porn, and to hack government websites with impunity? No, it won't.

[joew771]

It depends on what you mean by "trust"?

Will a VPN protect you from you copyright infringement notices when downloading torrents? Yes, it will, even a free one will. Assuming of course that you set it up properly and use it religiously.

Will a VPN enable you to download terrorist propaganda and child porn, and to hack government websites with impunity? No, it won't.

A VPN is run by people. And people with contracts. And people who keep track of everything you do.

Most of them will say they won't tell on you unless you do something really bad. Like Sid said, CP or terrorism or something else terrible.

But they can lie. They can obfuscate, or mislead. So no VPN is truly safe.

But for the most part, for what you are doing (I hope), they will be ok.

[EveOfDarkness]

While on the topic on VPN, is it worth using a service if you only download files occasionally? For instance, if someone downloaded only 1 movie (program, song, etc.) per week, is it really worth spending the money for the service and also dealing with the slower Internet speed?

Also, for uploading files to ThePirateBay, do you need a VPN or does that not matter?

[Sid]

It depends on which country you live in: laws, and the presence of copyright trolls, vary.

On what you download: Movies are trolled more heavily than software.

And on how confident you feel wiping your ass with letters which are painstakingly crafted by teams of lawyers to sound very very scary (but which are actually almost always totally toothless).

Same goes for uploading (unless you achieve or are planning to achieve aXXo or Yify levels of productivity and renown).

[fscrp]

I use a seedbox and retrieve files by secure (encrypted) ftp

[ill88eagle]

I live in a third world country so IDGAF, but while I was still living in denmark I used both VPN and Seedbox. 20$ a month total is cheap for a peace of mind. Thats what I paid back then anyway.

[Tech]

Can we really trust paid VPN services for us not being watched by Governments and Copyright trolls?

I'd rather trust a paid one, then a free shoddy one with bandwidth caps or slow speeds.

You pay for a reason, (and its not because they wanna profit on the side.) Although i won't give them any ideas.

[contrail]

In a paranoid sense no we can't trust VPN providers and services. We can trust VPN to shield us from copyright trolls and some tracking.

[Tech]

In a paranoid sense no we can't trust VPN providers and services. We can trust VPN to shield us from copyright trolls and some tracking.

In a paranoid world we also wouldn't be on the internet either

I would also say u can't slice what people think as paranoid or not....... there should be no exceptions, as the same i al with privacy and security.

Its all black & white,, either u do, or u don't..

If you allow exceptions to say "What we choose to trust" then people are only fooling themselves as having 100% privacy still because u do not as you are trusting "some service" regardless of the reason.

We can all go through life bent on mayhem if we like and say "If i keep allowing exceptions, then i can keep making rules" Times were better before all that changed. and thankful i still live in this space today

Sorry, doesn't work that way if you REALLY are keen on something...For instance, my privacy comes first...  that means flat out, no will force me EVER to give up anything i don't want to..

So you may as well kill me and stop wasting both our times

See?  not hard..  What I don't get is why people think they can escape by  providing exceptions for everything Sorry.... I don't do BS here.