[m3ta]

TOR is free and is specifically for the purpose of anonymizing your connection to the website you're visiting. This article isn't about authenticity of your identity, it's about confidentiality of your browsing history.

Using a simple free VPN to encrypt your traffic is enough. This does not cost time or money. Neither does TOR.

You shouldn't trust your ISP to not be collecting your information in either case. Even if they say they aren't spying on you that does not mean they should be trusted with any of your plaintext data.

[bluehazed]

Please don't use free VPNs. Good VPNs that don't keep logs are not expensive, usually a few bucks a month.

[CaptSpify]

What guarantee do you have that a paid VPN doesn't do that?

[m3ta]

Of course you shouldn't use a free VPN for anything sensitive, but to obscure your browsing data (like what you search for or what media you consume) it's completely fine.

[bluehazed]

No, it's really not. Free VPNs aren't free for the sake of it; as the old adage goes "if you're not the customer you're the product".

[btrask]

Even if you're paying you're still an additional revenue stream, as this article about paid ISPs demonstrates.

[JumpCrisscross]

> to obscure your browsing data...it's completely fine

You prefer taking your logs away from the potentially-prying eyes of regulated ISPs and giving them to an unknown, unregulated person? Free VPNs are a medicine that's--at best--only as bad as the malady.

[icebraining]

The argument applies just as well to paid VPNs, though.