20 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
jjiceSep 2023Strongly recommends
> 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] ▶ this video
in “We have successfully completed our migration to RAM-only VPN infrastructure” · View on HN
katbyteApr 2021Strongly recommends
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: ▶ 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 same copy over and over: [link]
in “SponsorBlock – Skip over sponsorship segments on YouTube” · View on HN
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DeathmaxMar 2021Recommends
Unfortunately as GP has mentioned, advertising around these typical VPN companies (Nord, Proton, ExpressVPN, Surfshark and many more) tends to be very misleading. Tom Scott put out a good video[1] that tries to debunk various marketing claims. Sure there are use cases like getting around georestrictions, and like you mentioned you can use it to get around tracking. Except that for privacy and evading tracking 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]: ▶ this video
in “Latest Mozilla VPN features” · View on HN
jlgaddisJan 2020Recommends
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]: ▶ this video
in “U.S. surveillance laws have proven ineffective at countering terrorism” · View on HN
throw0101aNov 2019Recommends
> * 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 * ▶ this video
in “How Is NordVPN Unblocking Disney+?” · View on HN
JdeBPSep 2025Cites it
At this point I'm reminded of Tom Scott's honest VPN advertisement , contrasting how VPNs are advertised (on YouTube, at least) with the main features that they really provide. * ▶ this video
in “Who Owns, Operates, and Develops Your VPN Matters” · View on HN
throw0101aOct 2024Cites it
> Given the amount of advertising for vpns you might think they are a scam. Tom Scott did a video in 2019 entitled "This Video Is Sponsored By [redacted] VPN" where he explains why a lot of the ad copy at that time was often misleading, and why he didn't take money from them: * ▶ this video In 2022 he made video with an ad read from a VPN provider with more honest claims about their use cases: * [link]
in “Post World War II Food” · View on HN
simondotauJun 2023Cites it
> one major problem is VPNs are advertised or promoted as if they're synonymous with antivirus software. Famously described by Tom Scott — [How it started ▶ this video [How it's going] [link]
in “Swing VPN app is a DDoS botnet” · View on HN
throw0101bMar 2023Cites it
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: * ▶ 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]
in “NordVPN library and client code open-sourced” · View on HN
throw0101bMar 2023Cites it
> ▶ this video This is Tom Scott's 'original' 2019 video called "This Video Is Sponsored By [redacted] VPN" where he explains most of the reasons listed to use VPN by ads is useless. However 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) in which he was sponsored by NordVPN: * [link]
in “NordVPN library and client code open-sourced” · View on HN
noirscapeJan 2023Cites it
No offense but TOR is just too sluggish to be really useful unless you're well a gay pirate assassin (or one of those three components)[0]. It has basically all the drawbacks a VPN has (most sites will distrust you on recaptcha, speed bumps, sometimes a connection gets timed out or dropped) whilst having a shitton of latency on top of that because y'know, it's free. There's always been more people willing to use TOR than the server space needed to prevent overburdening the network (in no small part because running the server space needed usually incurs significant legal risks 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]: ▶ this video
in “The FBI Identified a Tor User” · View on HN
david_allisonMar 2022Cites it
> 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. ▶ this video
in “Investigating Influencer VPN Ads on YouTube [pdf]” · View on HN
SahAssarNov 2020Cites it
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 video[1] that describes some of the issues with VPN marketing in general is so widespread that it has created old-school SEO sites[2] to game it where they hide the actual search term with white font on white background. 1: ▶ this video 2: [link]
in “Show HN: WireGuard vs. OpenVPN, a 2.5x Difference” · View on HN
pen2lJul 2020Cites it
> 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. ▶ this video
in “Seven 'no log' VPN providers accused of leaking 2TB of user data” · View on HN
dijitJul 2026Critical
it's always funny how the hardline advocates of the free internet (especially outside of the US) are subject to this 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 transparency[0] 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]: ▶ 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 problem that needs to be solved is not itself racism.
in “I'm Done with Mullvad” · View on HN
mslaMar 2023Critical
▶ 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.
in “NordVPN library and client code open-sourced” · View on HN