Warning: I tried a free VPN vs paid one for 3 months and got hacked anyway

Honestly I thought a free VPN was fine for basic stuff like checking email on public wifi. Ngl the free one slowed my connection to a crawl and the paid one from ExpressVPN seemed solid. But after 3 months I still got a phishing email that grabbed my login for a gaming site in Ohio. Tbh I learned that VPNs don't protect you from everything and I should've focused on 2FA instead. Anyone else find that their VPN gave a false sense of safety?

3 comments

3 Comments

uma_ellis11d ago

Turning on two factor authentication blocked every single one of those scam attempts for me.

ray13611d ago

Did a buddy of yours end up falling for the same kind of scam? One of my friends used a VPN for years thinking he was totally safe. He clicked a link in what looked like a Netflix email asking him to update his payment info. It was a total fake and they drained his PayPal account in about 10 minutes. The VPN was on the whole time and it didn't do a thing to stop it because the scam was in the email, not the wifi. He felt real stupid after that, but honestly it's a lesson a lot of us have to learn the hard way.

dianahayes12d ago

Tbh I think this is part of a bigger thing where we all treat tech like it's magic instead of just tools. I see it with people who buy a password manager and then reuse the same lame password for everything, or folks who get a smart lock but leave their front window open. VPNs are just one piece of the puzzle, they stop someone from snooping on your wifi but they don't help if you click a fake email or use the same login everywhere. It's like buying a really good lock for your front door but leaving the back door wide open and then being surprised when stuff goes missing.