They don’t give you complete privacy, no. On the other hand, if what you’re concerned about is your workplace seeing that you’re fucking off at work, or a Hollywood studio suing you for pirating a 20 year old television show that isn’t available to buy or stream, well, a VPN is just fine. In regards to piracy, it obfuscates a lot of your internet behavior from your ISP, so they aren’t able to easily track what you’re doing either.
If I was worried about gov’t level threats, Tails, Tor, and public, unsecured WiFi would be the only thing I’d be using.
They don’t give you complete privacy, no. On the other hand, if what you’re concerned about is your workplace seeing that you’re fucking off at work, or a Hollywood studio suing you for pirating a 20 year old television show that isn’t available to buy or stream, well, a VPN is just fine. In regards to piracy, it obfuscates a lot of your internet behavior from your ISP, so they aren’t able to easily track what you’re doing either.
If I was worried about gov’t level threats, Tails, Tor, and public, unsecured WiFi would be the only thing I’d be using.