Someone needs to demystify VPNs...
VPN services nowadays mostly are a revenue share model for piracy.
Piracy websites tell you to get one. Then also offer you up VPN ads, and get revenue, when you buy a subscription.
If you know you need a VPN, pay for one. If you aren't sure, you probably dont need one.
The idea behind a VPN is, that your internet service provider, and the website owner you surf to, dont get your real IP address.
For the most part the first part can be had for free by changing your DNS provider (google cloudflare DNS for one that is marketing spending to the nines atm, dont know why, or google google DNS to to know how to set up googles DNS servers).
For the most part the second part isn't needed. If you are a piracy service provider. You don't keep customer logs. For more than an operating period for usually not more than 24h.
So - when you are not torrenting (if you use torrent for piracy reasons, using a VPN is/can be justified), the scenario goes as follows. Lets pick Nintendo as the rightsholder in the current example.
Nintendo sees piracy links. Argues that the whole website that serves links, or the downloadprovider (think mega) are piracy, get them offline through litigation, get their hands on those guys server logs (which none of them should keep), and find you in them for downloading a thing once (because 24 hours). Now repeat with every possible piracy source individually.
The idea that this is dangerous beyond 'dont go outside when it rains, you could be hit by lightning levels' is so silly, it get a migrane.
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Moreover in Europe until a few years ago, downloading - whatever - was basically a misdemeanor, if illegal - that didn't warrent your ISP to give our personal information. Only uploading (sharing, engaging in the act of illegally distributing) was. That changed. Now the law of the land in the EU is 'if the person, as an everyman, could justifiably know, that this was pirated content'.
So downloading and streaming has become more problematic in terms of actual law, but not in practice.
Since what I described above - basically doesn't scale. No one piracy site ever gets so big, and so stupid (keeping logs), that suing its customers would be a viable effort - even for deterrence reasons.
Until that happens for the first time - dont ever think, that you need a VPN for downloading stuff. You don't
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If you still live in a region where something like the 'three strikes' rule is in practice, you have my sympathies - but for those to get enacted our rightsholder (f.e. Nintendo) has to get hold of your IP in connection with a possible crime - and if you dont broadcast 'I'm stealing, I'm stealing, I'm stealing' to the entire world, using torrent (Nintendo could hire lawyers that collect torrents, access them, and collect IPs, from you boradcasting - hey I want to share), EVERYONE in the entire chain, your ISP, your Piracy site owner, and your Filehost - have an active interest in keeping you as a customer - over giving Nintendo what they want, and that includes protecting you privacy, in connection to what you are doing on their shady side. (Basically - piracy providers should delete logs.)
The scenario, where a rightsholder asks facebook to triangulate your web activities and then filters out bossible rights violations - also isnt happening.
So in short - you dont need to care about protecting your privacy in most scenarios here.
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Read torrentfreak for a while to get an idea how many piracy users get sued these days, and for what.
Also - in addition. Courts, more often than not, will through out piracy cases if you were - 'just a user', because sifting through all of them isn't economical and would bring down the entire legal system (by shere amount). ALL cases, that were ever filed, on the torrent front, against 'mom and pa' type endusers, where litigated for deterrence purposes. So that you get imprinted in your head, that people get punished for it.
My condolences to those who got caught.
Then there is also the strange interaction, that people who pirate more get into the base culture more, and also usually buy more the legit way (which sucks for smaller studios or publishers, because they usually are the ones most hurt) - which study after study has shown - and you a end up with a world, where even Amazon, that sees what books you read on their devices, and protocols if you have bought them from them or not - doesnt engage in trying to litigate end users.
The entire game nowadays revolves around increasing opportunity cost - so making it harder for you to pirate in the first place. Or making it less easy for you. If you already got around that - congratulations?!?
But still - a VPN is probabably still not a thing you need.
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What VPN is 'best'.
PIA was liked by many people for a long time, then it got liked so much, that effing McAffee (the company, not the person) bought it.
They still have an interest in protecting their irrational piracy users, because thats pretty much all of their business.
So now people have a new favourite, and than that game repeates?
I personally pay for PIA (subscription hasnt run out) - but I dont care the least about using it for streaming or downloading 'grey stuff'.
But then I never pay for piracy.
If you give your credit card info to a piracy vendor... The rightsholder gets your identity much easier. And can prove much easier that you consumed piracy.
But even then, with the filehosting model, filehoster says 'im just a space provider' - and youd have to go through the insane efforts to take one such provider (think mega) down - and in the end, all payed users, in all of those efforts in the past also have walked free. Because as such a provider you dont keep logs that connect your customers to piracy. You loose them.
If your ISP, your piracy side provider, your filehost, your friendly ad network (think facebook) and the legal system have an interest in doing everything NOT to litigate you. And no such case has ever (?) become public (litigation for only downloading, and not uploading a thing). You're probably fine?
Case in point, you are much more likely just too stupid not to fall for insurance fraud - because you know that you do something illegal, and would want to ensure against it. Now - there is an ad based business model there, that sells people subscriptions.