Privacy Reality Check
VPN Reality Check
What they actually protect you from. What they don't. Who owns them. The three that are legitimately trustworthy. All sourced.
1 / 14
What a VPN Actually Does
The honest technical explanation — not the one in the ad.
What a VPN Actually Does — 1/3
It Encrypts Traffic Between You and the VPN Server
“That's it. That's the whole thing. The rest is marketing.”
A VPN creates an encrypted tunnel between your device and a server operated by the VPN company. All traffic that passes through that tunnel is encrypted — your ISP, your router, and anyone between you and the VPN server cannot read the contents. This is the core function. It's real. It's useful in specific situations. The industry has then taken this one genuine function and surrounded it with claims that range from exaggerated to outright false.
Data Point:
AES-256 encryption — used by most reputable VPNs — is the same standard used by the US military and financial institutions. In this specific sense, 'military-grade' is actually accurate.
// RELATED_READS.sys
The Dark Web & Tor Network
What the dark web actually is, how Tor routing works, who uses it, and what every news story gets wrong. 4 parts. All sourced.
The Search Engine Graveyard
AltaVista, Excite, Lycos, Ask Jeeves — who killed them and why. Then: the search engines still fighting, and a concrete recommendation for what to use instead of Google.
The People vs. Google LLC
A comprehensive indictment of Google's monopoly, surveillance machine, and dark pattern empire. 7 counts. All sourced.