Came across this controversial link where someone says that a VPS would be more secure than a VPN provider. From my understanding:
-Wouldn’t the VPS provider just see everything instead of a VPN provider? -Wouldn’t fingerprinting be straightforward, even if you use a hardened browser, since you have a single IP traceable directly to only one user?
ytcombinator doesn’t seem to take it seriously but I’m curious to hear what you all think about it.
If you don’t add any CA certificates to your system, use HTTPS-only mode and connect from your own client, there’s no easy way for them to see what you do on websites. They can only see what websites you’re visiting, packets and the timestamp. Using VPS will be the literally the same, except you have only one server and only you are using it, so you’re more fingerprintable.
Depends on your use case, for maximum online privacy you should use Tor Browser on Linux or TailsOS. If you want just to pirate, VPN is usually enough.