It gets my goat that people think it’s a good option. There are plenty of articles explaining some of the many issues with it, but a few are:
- It’s run by anti-LGBTQ+ crypto bros.
- It has ads right out of the box.
- It collected donations towards people who never signed up for them - then held them to ransom in exchange for the kind of information you should never share on the Internet.
- They’re a for-profit advertising company. “Privacy-centric” my elbow.
Any free vpn is good enough to shield from dmca consequences on your own network, and takes the place of the brave shield in your stack. This doesn’t apply if you’re collecting huge amounts, or doing something besides just consuming media, something that activates the deeper tentacles of the fed. But the days of individuals being prosecuted under dmca for personal piracy are pretty much long past.
Edit: try to make sure said vpn isn’t also running a cryptominer, and you can safely assume they’re selling your info. So be aware of what you give them.
I don’t know how it is in your region, but where I live (the US), streaming pirated content is perfectly legal. As long as you aren’t distributing it, you’re not actually violating any laws. The only thing a free VPN is good for is masking your location so that you can get around porn bans and region locks