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Comment by Arshad-Talpur | Hacker News Reader

First question that need to asked from everyone including ownself , why you need VPN?

You must be blessed to live in a country that has no website blocks.

My ISP Comcast (rebranded to Xfinity to avoid all the negative associations with it's actual name) does man in the middle attacks on HTTP connections and injects javascript code into webpages. I actually had this happen to the steam browser back in ~2013 and I had to restart it. But they still do it today in 2026. I don't use a commercial VPN because I host from home. But I do tunnel my HTTP browsing to a remote VPS I rent.

They also block 3rd-party DNS in many cases, forcing you to use theirs so they can sell your activity more completely.

Primary use I have for it is hosting internal services that I don't want on the public internet - do the same at work, it reduces the attack surface hugely

I know what you mean, but I think most people are not thinking of it in this way. They are thinking of VPN as a service provided by companies such as Nord VPN, and mostly used to get around region locked content or keep your ISP from being aware you are downloading things you shouldn't be.

That is the exact thing , I asked that because its primary a personal choice, and I support EU regulator decision on it, If you need VPN for usage like keeping your personal information intact its perfect but if someone else is using for other purpose then again it should personal choice rather than government regulation ( this might not sound good to some).

Why do online services need to know where I am? Why does my ISP need to know who I'm communicating with? For me, VPNs are about reducing privacy leakage. Most of the internet collects, aggregates, and sells knowledge about their users, and VPNs are an important tool for withholding that.

Bypassing censorship is the biggest one. No, they don't work on Netflix. But they work on many things.

They do work on Netflix, just not the large commercial VPNs.

If you setup your own VPN with an exit at a residential address, it will work fine. There are some commercial offerings around this. Just as soon as you start needing exits that aren't in data-centres the cost skyrockets.

It is a sort of LAN network over the Internet. That way, you can connect to devices as if you were in the local network, but having them exposed to the internet.

Traffic is encrypted so there is noone knowing what you are sending, they can still trace that is coming to/from a specific node.

I just loaded up Bluesky this morning to discover it demanding proof of my age bc I live in Texas. First thing I did was turn on my out-of-state vpn and try again. not today, satan!

FYI, this recently changed to only apply to the mobile app. Browser access and 3rd party apps are not restricted.

That explains why I only discovered it now. I usually use my laptop wth a browser, not an app.

Instead of an out-of-state vpn, why not an out-of-state home? Why do people put up with the lack of freedom there? People complain about European countries but then praise states like Texas.

(Realistically, moving is easier said than done, of course.)

A VPN is 5 dollars. People are not as privileged as you assume and very few chose their location based on age verification laws.

European countries have restrictions on freedom of speech which is a strongly held value in America.

I'm not sure what to say that doesn't repeat myself. I can add to my prior comment that many Republican-run states, including Texas, restrict freedom of speech and other freedoms in many ways.

Rich people aren't restricted, middle class people want those restrictions, and poor people can't leave.

I assume you're not America, because people outside the USA think literally the exact same thing about Americans.

I know it's hard to move for most people. People just love to lecture, even when I already addressed that in my first comment.

People with my HHI level don't experience any of the negative effects of Republican policies except for the ones externalized to the entire USA.

And people without my HHI can't afford to leave.

You might as well wonder why people still live in Hungary when it's part of the EU and they could all move to Germany or Sweden.

What is HHI level?

What you say isn't entirely true. Lot's of people are moving to Texas (and Florida), thus they are able to move. Lots of wealthy people go out of their way to praise Texas.

The answer is really politics, I think. The most important states economically and culturally, NY and California, are liberal. Conservatives are looking for a flag-bearer.

HHI is "household income" which fits perfectly with your observation that wealthy people go out of their way to praise Texas: because Texas is probably the best state to efficiently make money if you're rich. Property taxes are regressive tax, so they hit the poor more than the rich. Sales tax is the same way. And state income tax is literally forbidden by the Texas Constitution as of a couple years ago.

So you just keep making craploads of money and all you have to do is pay the same federal income tax you'd be paying in any state.

That doesn't explain all the lower-HHI people moving to and praising Texas.

I'm not aware of lower HHI people moving to and praising Texas, nor have I witnessed it. What is happening is wealthy Californians moving to Texas, driving prices of homes up, and pricing out locals.

I don't even know how you have heard the voices of lower HHI people. They're hardly ever interviewed, and they don't write think pieces for media outlets. They're just...poor.

> I don't even know how you have heard the voices of lower HHI people.

Talk to them, like everyone else.

> What is happening is wealthy Californians moving to Texas

Maybe that's who you talk to. :)

Seriously, wealthy Californians can't account for the population growth, nor in Florida. I hear about low to mid-HHI people going to TX; I think I've read about it, but no time now ...

Privacy from ISP

Bypass censorship

Get treated the same by websites when traveling

Avoid bad laws

Gain good laws

Answers are there ! that was the whole point of my question, using or not using should be Personal choice not government Ban , everything on internet has pros and cons.

Is that really a question that needs to be asked in 2026?

To bypass geo-locked content and age restrictions of course. What else???

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