Why Your VPN May Actually Hurt Your Privacy

Episode 18 of The Privacy Podcast with Fexingo examines why the very tool millions use to protect their privacy — the VPN — can sometimes make things worse. Lucas and Luna unpack the 2024 Stanford study that found 68 percent of VPN apps on Google Play leak DNS queries, the risk of VPNs run by data-hungry parent companies, and why free VPNs are almost always the real product. They walk through the concrete trade-offs: when a VPN helps (public Wi-Fi, geo-blocking) and when it hurts (pushing all your traffic through a single corporate server that itself may log). The hosts also discuss the growing trend of VPN providers pivoting to on-device firewalls and local processing — a shift that could restore actual privacy. By the end, listeners will know exactly how to evaluate whether they need a VPN at all, and which questions to ask before signing up. #VPN #Privacy #DataProtection #OnlineSecurity #StanfordStudy #DNSLeaks #FreeVPN #NoLogs #DigitalPrivacy #InternetPrivacy #CorporateSurveillance #Encryption #IPAddress #GeoBlocking #OnDevicePrivacy #Technology #FexingoBusiness #BusinessPodcast Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo