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Comment by kryogen1c | Hacker News Reader

>Because a VPN in this sense is just a glorified proxy. The VPN provider can see all your traffic, and do with it what they want - including logging.

This is a tautology. If you use it as a proxy, then its a proxy. VPNs arent for this, and so are bad at it.

VPN use case is either to securely leave a network (hotel Wi-Fi, airport wifi) or to securely get to a network (home resources, corporate resources). If you want a proxy, find a proxy.

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I think the crux is you consider "VPN use case is either to securely leave a network (hotel Wi-Fi, airport wifi)" a core VPN use case when the author considers that a proxy use case.

I side with the author on this one, a virtual private network is meant to mean multiple private devices on a single network segment virtualized over some transport. Using it as the place you connect to to shove your internet traffic through a relay definitely fits the secure proxy use case/definition way better.

Proxy is securely leaving the network. There is no real difference in the principle of operation besides the protocol(SOCKS vs OpenVPN, etc.)

Can't easily configure a proxy for a mobile (ATT, VZ, et al) network connection (on iOS, at least), VPNs are easy-peasy to connect, so I use a personal, private VPN as proxy -- it obscures my traffic, blocks ads and malware...and I wouldn't say it was "bad at it" at all...

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