[CyberRage]

There are definitely lots of miss-conceptions about VPNs and some ridiculous claims by VPN providers for things like security or malware protection.

Still VPNs can be useful to access content\networks that otherwise you can't.

As for privacy, it comes down to trust. You mentioned HideMyAss but other services have good track record, far better than most ISPs that publicly state they share information with 3rd parties.