I saw a YouTube ad yesterday that claimed a VPN would protect me from ‘hackers, data thieves, and the dark web.’ The actor looked concerned while typing on a laptop in a coffee shop. Very dramatic. Very misleading.
A VPN is an encrypted tunnel between your device and a server somewhere else. That’s it. It changes your apparent IP address and encrypts your traffic in transit. It does not make you anonymous. It does not make you unhackable. It does not protect you from phishing emails, malware, or your own terrible passwords.
The marketing for VPNs has become so aggressively dishonest that people genuinely believe they’re invisible the moment they click ‘Connect.’
You’re not.
The biggest myth is anonymity. Yes, a VPN hides your IP from the websites you visit. That’s useful for bypassing geo-restrictions—hello, Netflix Japan—or preventing your ISP from logging your browsing history. But your VPN provider can see everything. You’re just moving your trust from one company to another. If your VPN provider is based in a jurisdiction with no privacy laws, or if they’re quietly logging your activity and selling it to data brokers, you haven’t gained privacy. You’ve relocated it.
A friend of mine thought he was ‘totally anonymous’ with his VPN running. He was logged into Facebook, Gmail, and Amazon—all simultaneously. I had to explain that these services know exactly who he is because he’s authenticated. The VPN hides your location, not your identity. Facebook doesn’t need your IP address to know who you are. It has your face, your friends list, and 15 years of behavioral data.
Where VPNs actually shine: public Wi-Fi. Coffee shops, airports, hotels—any network you don’t control. On these networks, a man-in-the-middle attack is trivially easy. A VPN encrypts your traffic so that even if someone is sniffing the network, they get gibberish. This is the real, legitimate, practical use case.
The best security tool isn’t a $10/month subscription. It’s your own common sense. Use a password manager. Enable two-factor authentication. Don’t click on ‘You won a free iPhone!’ popups. These basics protect you more than any VPN ever will.
Keep your VPN for public networks and geo-unblocking. But stop believing it’s a magic invisibility cloak. It’s a tool. Use it like one.