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This Video Is Sponsored By ███ VPN

6.7M subscribers • 29 videos on Hallway

Recommended by 9 people: 9 on Hacker News.
A classic. People kept recommending it from 2019 to 2024.
Presented by Tom Scott, educator and presenter
An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.

Beginner. No background in the topic needed.

5.9M views7 years ago9 recommendations

Security Privacy and surveillance Networking and protocols

Tom Scott explains the misleading nature of typical VPN advertising claims and demonstrates what a more honest VPN commercial would look like.

I tried to write a more honest VPN commercial. The sponsor wasn't happy about it. • Get ██ days of ███ VPN free at ██████.com/honest The ASA ruling I referenced: asa.org.uk/rulings/tefincom-sa-a19-547668.html 🟥 MORE FROM TOM: tomscott.com/ (you can find contact details and social links there too) ❓ LATERAL, free weekly podcast: lateralcast.com/ youtube.com/lateralcast/ 👥 THE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES: youtube.com/techdif

Why it's here

9 people recommend this, 2 dispute it

What people say. Recommended as a clear and honest breakdown of why most consumer VPN marketing claims are misleading.

katbyteon Hacker News • 5 years agoRecommends

On “SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube”

I feel like if someone is hawking wares on their channel they should at least use it/have faith in it/do their research. Tom Scott has a great video about VPN sponsorship and how he turned down a sponsorship from a VPN company because of the copy they wanted him to say and debunks the ads: link to this video Mad respect for him, and if he ever suggest a paid product in the future i'd trust him. Conversely i really dislike when they clearly don't use the product, or are shilling a product that i KNOW is bad - looking at you raycons. I can't help but lose respect and definitely distrust every sponsorship they have. tl;dr integrity matters, raycons are really not that great, and i'm tired of hearing the s…

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jjiceon Hacker News • 3 years agoRecommends

On “We have successfully completed our migration to RAM-only VPN infrastructure”

> Some pour thousands of dollars into forcing influencers to say they care about security, Tangential to this, it always irks me how they talk about how they all act as if the majority of the websites their users are going to aren't HTTPS and they act like their main benefits are filling in the gaps that HTTPS actually fills in. HTTPS isn't a cure all by any means but most of the scare tactics that the big VPN companies that advertise via YouTube act like anyone will rip you credit card because you happened to be on Amazon while you were at the coffee shop. Tom Scott is the only person I've ever seen have a great video about this 0 0 link to this video

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throw0101aon Hacker News • 6 years agoRecommends

On “How Is NordVPN Unblocking Disney+?”

> * Seriously creepy stuff. I hate how VPNs are being shilled by e-celebs these days as a privacy improvement.* You may enjoy Tom Scott's video: > I tried to write a more honest VPN commercial. The sponsor wasn't happy about it. • Get ■■■ days of ■■■ VPN free at ■■■■.com/honest * link to this video

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jlgaddison Hacker News • 6 years agoRecommends

On “U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism”

Tom Scott recently made an video 0 you might be interested in. It's well worth the seven and a half minutes to watch it, IMO. > I tried to write a more honest VPN commercial. The sponsor wasn't happy about it. 0: link to this video

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Deathmaxon Hacker News • 5 years agoRecommends

On “Latest Mozilla VPN features”

…ing you need more than just a VPN, you need to be doing things like adblocking, tracker blocking, clearing all of your cookies, not signing in to anything because then the service gets to link your new VPN IP with you again. VPN ads that sell "privacy" is snake oil unless it is paired with a guide on the additional things you should be doing. 1: link to this video…

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SahAssaron Hacker News • 5 years agoRecommends

On “VPN – A Very Precarious Narrative”

I think that this tom scott video summarizes the same sentiment nicely, especially around the VPN ads on youtube: link to this video

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rchoweon Hacker News • 4 years agoRecommends

On “Why is every podcast sponsored by a VPN company?”

... and a lot of those VPN companies are probably VC-funded. Tom Scott made a good video on the uses and non-uses of VPNs 1. VPN advertising has changed since that video to downplay "security", but what I think is odd is that they've replaced that with advertisement that basically is "violate the terms of service of Netflix". 1 link to this video

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fellertson Hacker News • 2 years agoRecommends

On “Google to shut down Google One VPN on June 20”

Can you fault them when that's what NordVPN and others claim in their YouTube ads? Tom Scott said it better than I could: link to this video

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voidUpdateon Hacker News • 2 years agoRecommends

On “SponsorBlock – skip sponsor segments on YouTube”

The thing about nordVPN (and VPN services in general) is they always talk about how funneling all your traffic through them makes it more secure and it means that governments cant spy on you and whatever. But sending all your traffic through a single point of failure seems like a bad idea from a government protection view, and how is it any more secure than https? The only thing that I've seen it be good for is making it look like you're from somewhere else to watch different stuff on streaming services. I think Tom Scott put it well here link to this video

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mslaon Hacker News • 3 years agoDisputes

On “NordVPN library and client code open-sourced”

link to this video That's a video about NordVPN's dishonest advertising and how deeply it's infected YouTube. link > The UK's Advertising Standards Agency(Opens in a new window) has banned a NordVPN commercial for misleading viewers about the privacy risks of using a public Wi-Fi network without also having a VPN. In essence: HTTPS already does what NordVPN claims you need a VPN to do. More, in fact, because HTTPS validates that the domain you're communicating with is the domain that shows up in your browser's address bar, which a VPN can't do on its own.

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dijiton Hacker News • 3 months agoDisputes

On “I'm Done with Mullvad”

…his kind of unpersoning. It's enough to consider that there's something malicious going on. But I guess we should use one of the VPN providers that aren't pushing for systems transparency0 and are dubiously everywhere across all of youtube advertising despite that being provably the place where the scummiest of companies go.1. 0: link 1: link to this video & link Not wanting unfettered and uncontrolled migration (when it has proven to massively increase crime - which was the context) is not racism, that's stupid. If 15% of the population of Japan had moved from the UK in the last 10 years and committed a disproportionate amount of crime, it would cause racism, but talking about it as a prob…

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pen2lon Hacker News • 6 years agoMentions

On “Seven 'no log' VPN providers accused of leaking 2TB of user data”

> If you wanted to see what the most paranoid, security-conscious people are connecting to, and you wanted to install software on their systems that is designed to read all their network traffic and then redirect it through a single choke point, then setting up a VPN service with a huge advertising budget would be a great way to do it. link to this video

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SahAssaron Hacker News • 5 years agoMentions

On “Show HN: WireGuard vs. OpenVPN, a 2.5x Difference”

Half off-topic but I find NordVPN's marketing extremely distasteful and in the same vein as snake oil (same as many VPN providers). This video1 that describes some of the issues with VPN marketing in general is so widespread that it has created old-school SEO sites2 to game it where they hide the actual search term with white font on white background. 1: link to this video 2: link

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david_allisonon Hacker News • 4 years agoMentions

On “Investigating Influencer VPN Ads on YouTube [pdf]”

> I wrote a more honest advert for VPN services and I found a company that was willing to sponsor the video. Unfortunately they kept asking for changes, and we disagreed on those, so at the last minute, I have had to blank their name out. link to this video

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noirscapeon Hacker News • 3 years agoMentions

On “The FBI Identified a Tor User”

…sks since congrats, you've now become a target for law enforcement to bust your door down and ask why an IP you own a machine on is being used to upload CP to the clearnet - few people want to deal with this scenario for blatantly obvious reasons). This isn't really something you can fix, it's just kind of an inherent issue with the protocol. 0: link to this video…

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throw0101bon Hacker News • 3 years agoMentions

On “NordVPN library and client code open-sourced”

This reminds me of the 'original' 2019 video by Tom Scott called "This Video Is Sponsored By redacted VPN" where he explains most of the reasons listed to use VPN by ads is useless: * link to this video And then a few years later with "My robot double sells out (so I don't have to)" he did a follow-up listing useful reasons (geo-based content, better prices on vacation sites, etc) which was sponsored by NordVPN: * link

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