I can't fathom this addiction for VPN for "security". Nowadays almost every website uses HTTPS and browsers block HTTP downgrades most of the times. Yes VPNs are still useful for the occasional HTTP website, however most people will use some form of free VPN that could totally do the same.

But yes, VPNs did solve this issue at the time of writing, and I even used one for quite long as my mobile carrier used to proxy all images through their own servers, as well as intercepting port 21. They stopped doing the former with the advent of HTTPS. To my knowledge they did not use this for nefarious purposes (they served downscaled images for lighter browsing at a time where 3G was frugal and websites not optimized yet for mobile).