PIA and their "advertising"

[SpaceGhostC2C]

11 hours ago, Mad153 said:

Secondly, the Gmail part of the "unencrypted" version. Unless the worry here is your school or work or ISP etc seeing that you are using Gmail, for some reason, this seems to also be misleading.

 

(And before you say what about places such as China, if they are watching from China, they first already have a VPN and secondly know that having a paid VPN is illegal there.)

 

 

This is because, since 2014, there has been no way to receive, view or send emails with Gmail over http. 

Source: https://gmail.googleblog.com/2014/03/staying-at-forefront-of-email-security.html?m=1

 

 

Dude, there is no "Gmail part", you're reading way too much into strings presented in an image as "stuff being sent as plain text". It just reads "--adult--cure f---gmail.---". The "." there makes me think it's supposed to be part of an email address ("xxxxx@gmail.com"). There's nothing abuot "encrypting gmail", just a generic statement about encrypted traffic...

 

11 hours ago, pythonmegapixel said:

to obfuscate your location, or to obfuscate from your ISP or local system administrators

Which is stated in OP's screenshot?

[SFFDesigns]

1 hour ago, Vitamanic said:

Most of their videos are sponsored, so you can't expect any form of objectivity or real criticism out of them, they won't risk the loss of revenue

This I disagree with it. 

 

As @LinusTech has said on Twitter in a reply, he and LMG take disclosing sponsors very seriously. It is listed in every description (as well as obviously stated in the video) and more often than not the videos are sponsored by companies who do not have anything to do with the products featured/reviewed. Reviews of products very rarely are sponsored by the companies creating them, and when they do, as I said, it is clearly stated in the video. So in terms of "real criticism", I do not feel the sponsors have any affect on LTT's opinion of products being reviewed.

[Donut417]

13 hours ago, Mad153 said:

Sorry if this has been posted before or if I'm in the wrong subsection.

 

Ltt has had a PIA sponsorship for years now, and they've been trying (imo) to mislead the public. The thing that really annoyed me, in today's techlinked, is this:

 

Two things annoyed me here: 

First, the visible search term. It's almost impossible to go to a modern day search engine and get a result via http. If you manually change the URL, it sends you back to the encrypted version. There is no way, unless you get out of your way to do so,  to send a search query using http.

 

Sure, if you are using IE 6 or something ridiculous, you may be able to. But VPNs are just a tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel, your data leaves to the rest of the internet, unencrypted. 

 

Secondly, the Gmail part of the "unencrypted" version. Unless the worry here is your school or work or ISP etc seeing that you are using Gmail, for some reason, this seems to also be misleading.

 

(And before you say what about places such as China, if they are watching from China, they first already have a VPN and secondly know that having a paid VPN is illegal there.)

 

 

This is because, since 2014, there has been no way to receive, view or send emails with Gmail over http. 

Source: https://gmail.googleblog.com/2014/03/staying-at-forefront-of-email-security.html?m=1

 

I don't think scaring people is a good way to go about business at all, especially as they run these ads towards less tech savvy people too on their website.

 

Oh, and wasn't pia bought by a massive advertising company a while back?

Yes VPN's are a tunnel. They are an encrypted tunnel the a holes at your ISP cant see the data so they cant throttle it, unless they throttle VPN traffic. Which they won't because many businesses and people use VPNs for legitimate purposes. People use VPNs for a few main reasons. 

 

A) Because their ISP decides it wants to throttle select traffic. For example Comcast back in the day throttling Bit torrent traffic. Hell they might still do. The reason why the FCC under Obama declared ISP's Title 2 was partly because of this issue with Comcast. 

 

B) Geo blocking. Many countries choose to block different sites and services, its a way for people to get around that. 

 

C) Pirates. Kinda hard to get in trouble for Piracy when the IP address leads back to the VPN provider. LOL 

 

[daveholland86]

12 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

A) Because their ISP decides it wants to throttle select traffic. For example Comcast back in the day throttling Bit torrent traffic. Hell they might still do. The reason why the FCC under Obama declared ISP's Title 2 was partly because of this issue with Comcast. 

 

B) Geo blocking. Many countries choose to block different sites and services, its a way for people to get around that. 

 

C) Pirates. Kinda hard to get in trouble for Piracy when the IP address leads back to the VPN provider. LOL 

 

I have been using PIA for about 6-8 years(?) now and it has worked perfectly for my unspecified reasons.  In my house it is referred to as “the internet condom.”

[Donut417]

2 minutes ago, daveholland86 said:

I have been using PIA for about 6-8 years(?) now and it has worked perfectly for my unspecified reasons.  In my house it is referred to as “the internet condom.”

If VPN's didn't cause higher data usage Id use one. That being said, we come near our cap nearly every month. 

[Dravinian]

13 hours ago, Mad153 said:

Yes, but imo that's purposefully vague... Your average person, which they are targeting, would probably think that means using an Incognito browsing tab. And it's completely without context or any of that advice on their website.

 

I don't know, it quite clearly says Gmail... And therefore their statement about it encrypting Gmail more is false.

Not sure they are just vague:

 

 

[SansVarnic]

14 hours ago, Mad153 said:

Sorry if this has been posted before or if I'm in the wrong subsection.

Ltt has had a PIA sponsorship for years now, and they've been trying (imo) to mislead the public. The thing that really annoyed me, in today's techlinked, is this:

<photo snip>

Two things annoyed me here: 

First, the visible search term. It's almost impossible to go to a modern day search engine and get a result via http. If you manually change the URL, it sends you back to the encrypted version. There is no way, unless you get out of your way to do so,  to send a search query using http.

Sure, if you are using IE 6 or something ridiculous, you may be able to. But VPNs are just a tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel, your data leaves to the rest of the internet, unencrypted. 

Secondly, the Gmail part of the "unencrypted" version. Unless the worry here is your school or work or ISP etc seeing that you are using Gmail, for some reason, this seems to also be misleading.

(And before you say what about places such as China, if they are watching from China, they first already have a VPN and secondly know that having a paid VPN is illegal there.)

 

This is because, since 2014, there has been no way to receive, view or send emails with Gmail over http. 

Source: https://gmail.googleblog.com/2014/03/staying-at-forefront-of-email-security.html?m=1

I don't think scaring people is a good way to go about business at all, especially as they run these ads towards less tech savvy people too on their website.

Oh, and wasn't pia bought by a massive advertising company a while back?

I feel like you have a particular "beef" with PIA. LTT has not been "misleading", you need to go back and watch a few videos where Linus covers his members concerns about PIA.

I have been using PIA  for much longer than LTT has been sponsored by and I can say that what you purport to is more opinion based than factual based. I have had no issues using PIA in any situation other than when a particular IP is under a VPN IP Ban Blacklist. If any of what you say is true I would have stopped using them a while ago, especially when they were bought up. Linus interview of the PIA executives satisficed my concerns and so far I have seen no dissent so far.

 

Let me do a break down answer for you ... 

14 hours ago, Mad153 said:

First, the visible search term. It's almost impossible to go to a modern day search engine and get a result via http. If you manually change the URL, it sends you back to the encrypted version. There is no way, unless you get out of your way to do so,  to send a search query using http.

I dont believe I have had this issue with either Chrome, Edge or IE. That I can recall. [I must be a rare one]

14 hours ago, Mad153 said:

Sure, if you are using IE 6 or something ridiculous, you may be able to. But VPNs are just a tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel, your data leaves to the rest of the internet, unencrypted.

This is pretty much what VPNs are designed to do, its why people use them. What are you complaining about?

14 hours ago, Mad153 said:

Secondly, the Gmail part of the "unencrypted" version. Unless the worry here is your school or work or ISP etc seeing that you are using Gmail, for some reason, this seems to also be misleading.

(And before you say what about places such as China, if they are watching from China, they first already have a VPN and secondly know that having a paid VPN is illegal there.)

 

This is because, since 2014, there has been no way to receive, view or send emails with Gmail over http. 

Source: https://gmail.googleblog.com/2014/03/staying-at-forefront-of-email-security.html?m=1

I have always received my emails through GMAIL while my PIA VPN was turned on. I dont recall at time I didn't.

14 hours ago, Mad153 said:

I don't think scaring people is a good way to go about business at all, especially as they run these ads towards less tech savvy people too on their website.

Oh, and wasn't pia bought by a massive advertising company a while back?

I dont believe I have seen any scaring of peoples in the advertisements ... I must be missing something. Advertising based on the already present ideals of those that use PIA they do, do.

14 hours ago, Mad153 said:

Oh, and wasn't pia bought by a massive advertising company a while back?

They were, and this issue has been addressed, PIA and its purchaser. Linus did a whole video on it and addressed this very thing otherwise LMG would have dropped them as an affiliate like they did with TunnelBear after they were bought up and things changed.

14 hours ago, Mad153 said:

Yes it does, but the average person does not need to. 

This is fairly obvious and you make no argument as to why this is an issue, what is your issue with what people do?

14 hours ago, Mad153 said:

My main issue is that ltt is using their position of typically well informed knowledge about computers and technology in general to sell this product that most people would be misled into buying when they didn't need it.

 

I don't think ltt or Pia will change, because there are many companies out there offering the same services with much scummier advertising saying things as far as *cough* Nord *cough* which had their ad banned here in the UK for being so outrageously misleading and suggesting you needed their services so your credit card data wasn't leaked. 

 

I very much doubt that. You have a bone to pick and have decided to target LMG without your own due diligence. [research much?]

14 hours ago, Eighjan said:

Do you skip through the sponsor slots or do you watch & listen to enough of them to be aware that they (LTT/LMG) advocate 'safe browsing practices' on top of using a VPN if you want to be critically safe...?

I'm sure I've even seen them say that a VPN alone is not a guarantee of 100% safety...

LMG and Linus has advocated safe browsing for longer than he has had a VPN supporting his channel. Advertising revenue helps his business [duh] and though he might not use one [or if he does, doesnt matter to me and has no bearing with this] he allows the product to be advertised for thoe that do want to use one, one he feels if was to use one he would use himself. Linus addresses these things constantly.

I get the distinct feeling you dont watch the channel much....  even though you presume to.

 

 

 

I believe I have expressed and addressed enough to make my point. Your opinion on this matter is just that, an opinion, and you are in your right to think as much. So far (and I did review the whole of the topic) your pov, or argument in this case, have not provided a strong enough picture to make me think differently other than it shows your ignorance of this subject. I suggest you go back watch what Linus has said on this, you may feel a bit more enlightened on this subject. Also, I do not take Linus as a know-all on this, as I mentioned I was using PIA for much longer than as LMG was using as an advertiser.

[piratemonkey]

I didn't go through this whole discussion, becuase there's a lot. While the picture is misleading, it's misleading to a point. Without a VPN to from your ISP is unencrypted. HTTPS only encrypts after the traffic routes through the ISP. For clarity, VPNs will encrypt between you, your ISP, until their servers (where your public IP address reflects that of the server), and then (provided you're using it) HTTPS and SSL will encrypt traffic from the VPN provider while in transit across the internet. 

 

I do agree that it's somewhat misleading. I wouldn't say the information is wrong, but it's designed to mislead. It's also funny that you mention using the VPN in China. Unless you take specific steps, After a few days it will probably stop working due to the dns being blacklisted I believe.

[Roswell]

2 hours ago, Hymenopus_Coronatus said:

This I disagree with it. 

 

As @LinusTech has said on Twitter in a reply, he and LMG take disclosing sponsors very seriously. It is listed in every description (as well as obviously stated in the video) and more often than not the videos are sponsored by companies who do not have anything to do with the products featured/reviewed. Reviews of products very rarely are sponsored by the companies creating them, and when they do, as I said, it is clearly stated in the video. So in terms of "real criticism", I do not feel the sponsors have any affect on LTT's opinion of products being reviewed.

The hardware they use in the videos is almost always given to them by the manufacturer.

[daveholland86]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

If VPN's didn't cause higher data usage Id use one. That being said, we come near our cap nearly every month. 

I used to get hit by the cap and now I am with an ISP that doesn't limit or throttle me.  So safe to say I am pulling somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-10 TB per month.  I probably appear as a bandwidth black hole in my neighborhood.  

[TheSourav]

56 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

The hardware they use in the videos is almost always given to them by the manufacturer.

Yeah, but inspite of that, they still do criticise and judge the product and mention the faults it has or the things which can be done to improve the product. Don't they?

[eeeee1]

will there be another honest answers or a quick mention on wanshow?

[Roswell]

1 hour ago, TheSourav said:

Yeah, but inspite of that, they still do criticise and judge the product and mention the faults it has or the things which can be done to improve the product. Don't they?

Typically only in reviews which conveniently never seem to crossover much with their sponsors. 

 

Don't get me wrong, it makes business sense not to review products from sponsors from a business perspective. It is what it is though, a lose/lose scenario. You either compromise your integrity to avoid making sponsors mad or keep your integrity and risk losing them.

 

There's a reason just about every major PC tech channel got out of the PC parts review game after adpocalypse. Way too much risk jeopardizing that sweet supplemental sponsor revenue stream.

[GDRRiley]

2 hours ago, Vitamanic said:

The hardware they use in the videos is almost always given to them by the manufacturer.

if you'd payed attention those who send hardware for a specific project will get mentioned but have no say in the content or any right to preview it early.

 

9 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

Don't get me wrong, it makes business sense not to review products from sponsors from a business perspective. It is what it is though, a lose/lose scenario. You either compromise your integrity to avoid making sponsors mad or keep your integrity and risk losing them.

 

There's a reason just about every major PC tech channel got out of the PC parts review game after adpocalypse. Way too much risk jeopardizing that sweet supplemental sponsor revenue stream.

they've been hard and canned sponsors before. they have no issues saying a product that was sent to them sucked or it had issues.

[piratemonkey]

1 minute ago, Vitamanic said:

Typically only in reviews which conveniently never seem to crossover much with their sponsors. 

 

Don't get me wrong, it makes business sense not to review products from sponsors from a business perspective. It is what it is though, a lose/lose scenario. You either compromise your integrity to avoid making sponsors mad or keep your integrity and risk losing them.

 

There's a reason just about every major PC tech channel got out of the PC parts review game after adpocalypse. Way too much risk jeopardizing that sweet supplemental sponsor revenue stream.

What you just described is a paid review. LTT, and all other youtuber's who have integrity/business sense, keep their opinions out of sponsor spots, and sponsored videos. 

Hardware companies do provide products/early samples for reviews (CPUs, GPUs, etc.) so that when the embargo lifts there are reviews. 

For greater clarity, reviews are LMG's unbiased opinions on the product that the company may or may not have provided, and sponsored projects/videos/spots will usually/always contain talking points provided by the sponsor (How freshbooks is for small businesses, or PIA encrypts all your internet traffic).

As far as I can tell, and everyone else who is informed can, LMG has never and will never make a paid review, but will make sponsored pieces which do not reflect the company's opinion necessarily.

[daveholland86]

I think you guys are overcomplicating it.  The traffic is encrypted from an anonymous server to your computer.  What it does is stop any tracking outside your actual location.  PIA has been a good product for me.  Someone can see data was accessed, they can even see what data it was, but they don't know who it was at the trace dead ends back to a PIA server.  For daily routine and privacy it works well.  Nothing is going to stop them if you are a surveillance target.  If you need that level of encryption and tunneling, you already wouldn't be buying PIA.  You guys are really trying to gut a company that sponsors LMG videos over a picture they posted and you feel it's too simplified.  The epitome of the internet age, no one can be satisfied.  

[Mad153]

I think this is an issue industry wide with VPNs, and I get why some people think I've gone too far with my thinking... 

 

Many companies do it much worse, but some of you guys must admit there are VPN companies (not  pia) that seem to go off the rails of truth crazily with their claims about security in ADs. If you haven't seen these, I'm left wondering why on earth you pay for yt premium.  

 

I'm not saying that the PIA advertising is the worst of it at all, just that for me, and I know people have other opinions, that screenshot is sitting on the fence between misleading and truthful and for some it might very well fall into the misleading part.

 

Tldr: I'm concerned non tech savvy people might turn up to watch some lmg content (and they haven't watched anything else) and feel like they must buy a vpn because it wasn't made obvious to them that their internet browsing is already safe and that only a few people would benefit from one of these services. Imo there just isn't enough disclosure of who this is for. I would be much happier if they disclosed this as the reasons for needing one, instead of vague claims of "added security":

16 hours ago, Donut417 said:

 

A) Because their ISP decides it wants to throttle select traffic. For example Comcast back in the day throttling Bit torrent traffic. Hell they might still do. The reason why the FCC under Obama declared ISP's Title 2 was partly because of this issue with Comcast. 

 

B) Geo blocking. Many countries choose to block different sites and services, its a way for people to get around that. 

 

C) Pirates. Kinda hard to get in trouble for Piracy when the IP address leads back to the VPN provider. LOL 

 

 

[Statik]

19 hours ago, Mad153 said:

I understand, however nearly every website where important details and sensitive data is stored has now gone HTTPS only or http default. Yahoo, outlook and even yandex mail all default to https, and enabling http is really difficult. 

 

I know that there are some websites out there that don't offer HTTPS at all, but most of them are for insensitive things, like idk cake recipes. And if they are concerning sensitive information, perhaps a VPN, where your traffic leaves the tunnel unencrypted to the wider internet where you can still get "spied" on, won't help at all.

 

My issue is that for the average person, who doesn't need to hide from their ISP (because most people don't) and for people who have left college or other forms of school or places that don't want you to use all of the internet(again, most people) would absolutely not benefit at all from buying a VPN, while ads such as these suggest they are mandatory for keeping your internet usage safe through images such as these, which infer that otherwise all of your internet browsing gets sent in plain text and this is simply false. 

 

Now sure, some will reply saying "but they don't actually mean Gmail",  or " they don't actually mean Google", but these companies are thriving off people who don't understand (because they have no reason to whatsoever)  by selling them lies and leaving their imagination to go off and think what other information they might be "leaking" . How on earth are they meant to know, from this ad, that actually their emails aren't affected, or their searching doesn't need more "protection"?

 

What these people really wanted to say is "buy our services or otherwise everything personal you know will be leaked", as some have done. But those companies had their ads banned etc. So instead they make these loose claims where advertising standards can't really ban them by using loose claims of risk and living  off those who aren't experts. This is what I refer to as "scummy" because it isn't necessarily illegal, but is horrible. 

 

And I know this is what happens as many of my friends have asked me (as one of the only people they know who knows a lot about tech) about their IP address being "exposed" and if they need a VPN to stay safe. In fact, I met one person who had already bought a VPN package because they thought that it would protect them, only for me to show them the Tom Scott video explaining they have been decieved. Ads such as these have no doubt created this fear and it's about time it stopped because it's basically false advertising wrapped up in a layer of legal protection.

Wake up.

 

You're overthinking everything. That add in no way conveys that without a VPN you're completely as risk and they're the end all be all savior. That photographic literally explains things, very quickly and simply, while making it seem easy and appealing (which is the general intent of an add). They convey without a VPN your real IP (and therefor location) is exposed, and it explains how your web traffic is unencrypted and it can be seen by certain people.

 

If you take the time to actually click on the "how it works" link on their website, it explains exactly what their VPN does, and how/when it can benefit you.

 

Your argument that most people "don't need" a VPN is somewhat true, but also somewhat false. Just because you use a VPN that doesn't mean you're doing nefarious things on the internet and are trying to stay hidden for some shady reason. VPNs are like the window blinds of the internet. You don't need them, but if you want the most baseline form of privacy, and don't want outside people looking at you, you should probably get one, but they're also not the end all be all of safety/privacy.

 

IPs can be very easily obtained and tracked by people who are trying to do so, and having someones IP can give you lots of power over them. Also, if you knew someone who just blindly bought a VPN because they did zero research into what they do, or how they work, that's a personal problem, maybe they should wake up and understand what they're throwing their money at, before they throw their money at it.

 

  

1 hour ago, Mad153 said:

it wasn't made obvious to them that their internet browsing is already safe

This is the biggest misinformation in this thread.

[JustWantTech]

On 7/7/2020 at 5:55 PM, Mad153 said:

Ltt has had a PIA sponsorship for years now, and they've been trying (imo) to mislead the public. The thing that really annoyed me, in today's techlinked, is this:

 

Two things annoyed me here: 

First, the visible search term. It's almost impossible to go to a modern day search engine and get a result via http. If you manually change the URL, it sends you back to the encrypted version. There is no way, unless you get out of your way to do so,  to send a search query using http.

 

Sure, if you are using IE 6 or something ridiculous, you may be able to. But VPNs are just a tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel, your data leaves to the rest of the internet, unencrypted. 

 

Secondly, the Gmail part of the "unencrypted" version. Unless the worry here is your school or work or ISP etc seeing that you are using Gmail, for some reason, this seems to also be misleading.

 

(And before you say what about places such as China, if they are watching from China, they first already have a VPN and secondly know that having a paid VPN is illegal there.)

 

 

This is because, since 2014, there has been no way to receive, view or send emails with Gmail over http. 

Source: https://gmail.googleblog.com/2014/03/staying-at-forefront-of-email-security.html?m=1

 

I don't think scaring people is a good way to go about business at all, especially as they run these ads towards less tech savvy people too on their website.

 

Oh, and wasn't pia bought by a massive advertising company a while back?

Correct me if I am wrong but you are mad about the words in that lens? They are just words. It just to show how data is encrypted. It doesn't specifically say "Use this VPN for gmails" or "Use this VPN when you use the search engines".

[piratemonkey]

4 hours ago, Mad153 said:

it wasn't made obvious to them that their internet browsing is already safe and that only a few people would benefit from one of these services

That is misleading and outright wrong. You seem to forget that VPN providers are businesses, as in they try to make money and try to get people to use their products. 

While I agree that (depending on what you're trying to achieve with privacy) you won't need a VPN, it's still good to use if your a lay person, or a 'normie'. Not everyone knows, or wants to know, what HTTPS is, or what SSL is, or the differences in encryption. They want something that works and makes them feel safe. Again, I feel like most providers do not represent their product the best in ads, but somewhere on their website, if you want an explanation, there will be one. I am a privacy and online security advocate (I've written a privacy guide on here for example), and I do not see a problem with LMG advertising PIA, nor do I see PIA as a problem. They are one of the better VPNs out there. 

Frankly I think you did this becuase you knew people would respond. IMO you have made yourself look like a fool over an element in a sponsor spot infographic in a 6 minute tech news show. 

[Dravinian]

5 minutes ago, piratemonkey said:

That is misleading and outright wrong. You seem to forget that VPN providers are businesses, as in they try to make money and try to get people to use their products. 

While I agree that (depending on what you're trying to achieve with privacy) you won't need a VPN, it's still good to use if your a lay person, or a 'normie'. Not everyone knows, or wants to know, what HTTPS is, or what SSL is, or the differences in encryption. They want something that works and makes them feel safe. Again, I feel like most providers do not represent their product the best in ads, but somewhere on their website, if you want an explanation, there will be one. I am a privacy and online security advocate (I've written a privacy guide on here for example), and I do not see a problem with LMG advertising PIA, nor do I see PIA as a problem. They are one of the better VPNs out there. 

Frankly I think you did this becuase you knew people would respond. IMO you have made yourself look like a fool over an element in a sponsor spot infographic in a 6 minute tech news show. 

Bit harsh calling him a fool, then almost entirely agreeing with everything he said.

 

Not everyone knows or wants to know and just wants to feel safe....yes, but the point raised is that a VPN doesn't do that any better than HTTPS and SSL, and it is misleading to say it does, which as far as I can see in this thread is universally agreed.

 

So you have agreed with his general point there.

 

They are a business trying to make money...yes but the point is that a company that is misleading people into making money is not a good business and partnering with that business is questionable.

 

Again, pretty much an agreement here.

 

They explain it on their site, but hold on, didn't you just say that most people don't know what HTTPS and SSL are? But they are supposed to follow along on what a VPN does on a website? Isn't that contradictory, and aren't you relying on the VPN to explain in very clear terms, you are already protected by HTTPS and SSL and you really don't need a VPN, but please do spent $90 on this VPN....seems unlikely.

 

So again, you are generally in agreement, that the VPNs splash point is misleading, it imparts an impression of protection that already exists and that kinda sucks.

 

I don't care that LTT advertises PIA, I didn't choose that VPN provider and I run a VPN for various other reasons beyond HTTPS and SSL.

 

Also, I am not going to bother quoting, but someone earlier said...you are upset about some words in a bubble...

 

No, he was making the point that the words could be seen as misleading as they gave the impression that encrypted data was not in fact encrypted which might make someone think they needed a VPN to enrypt that data.

Your argument is like saying...hold on, you are upset he moved his finger?....when the finger is on a trigger.  You see how when you break something down to its lowest part, anything can seem unreasonable to be upset about?

 

I want to be clear about something....I don't agree with the OP.  I think he is massively overreacting, and I posted a video earlier setting out that I think LTT has gone far futher explaining this material.  However, I like a good debate and some of the points raised in this thread were so bad they needed addressing.

[piratemonkey]

I'll clarify some of my points

13 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

Bit harsh calling him a fool, then almost entirely agreeing with everything he said.

I called him that as he raised this issue over an infographic. He could have used the talking points, or anything else in PIA's marketing and his points still could've been valid.

 

15 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

a VPN doesn't do that any better than HTTPS and SSL

I should've explained/stated that a VPN doesn't do anything to encrypt your traffic after it leaves their servers. It only handles encryption before it reaches the internet.

A VPN cannot force any encryption standard for a website, only the website can. 

17 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

aren't you relying on the VPN to explain in very clear terms, you are already protected by HTTPS and SSL and you really don't need a VPN

Again, I should've said that a VPN doesn't affect HTTPS, SSL, or any other encryption standard for websites or internet services. 

Depending on what you're trying to achieve, you may need a VPN. 

21 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

the point is that a company that is misleading people into making money is not a good business and partnering with that business is questionable.

I should've phrased it better. 

 

24 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

didn't you just say that most people don't know what HTTPS and SSL are?

Again (it's pattern I know) I should've explained it better. Most people don't care what HTTPS does. They only want it to work, and to be secure. 

 

25 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

So again, you are generally in agreement, that the VPNs splash point is misleading, it imparts an impression of protection that already exists and that kinda sucks.

Yes. VPNs create a safe feeling that you may get from knowing that (most of the time) your probably fine. Though with a VPN you can get by tracking from the network your on, or any tracking associated with your IP address. 

 

28 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

you are upset about some words in a bubble

I do agree with what you say afterwards, though I feel like they could've phrased it better, or used something else as an example. 

 

29 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

However, I like a good debate and some of the points raised in this thread were so bad they needed addressing.

I do like a good debate, especially when it's on privacy and security. Some points raised were valid, but others were outright false. I don't know if you are talking about me but I'll pretend you aren't lol. 

I could've constructed my arguments better, and could've delivered it better. Some points brought up by the OP were good, some were bad. 

[Dravinian]

8 minutes ago, piratemonkey said:

I do like a good debate, especially when it's on privacy and security. Some points raised were valid, but others were outright false. I don't know if you are talking about me but I'll pretend you aren't lol. 

I could've constructed my arguments better, and could've delivered it better. Some points brought up by the OP were good, some were bad. 

No i only quoted your points because they were the most recent, I think your clarifications assist your argument.

 

VPNs can be bullish and misleading, but they can also serve a purpose if you know why you want them.

 

I don't see PIA as an egregious breacher when it comes to advertising, I see the OPs point regarding the use of gmail within the graphic it is misleading in my view as it creates an inference that could be drawn that is not true, but it can also be defended on the basis that your ISP can see it.

 

I think it is very easy for VPNs to slip and difficult to keep within tight boundaries; of getting their point across but not misleading customers.

[Statik]

19 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

VPNs can be bullish and misleading, but they can also serve a purpose if you know why you want them.

I feel this is vaguely correct. If people don't have an understanding of them, they might misinterpretation information, but on the otherhand, if someone sees an info-graphic then spends $90 without a lick of thought, then imo they brought that upon yourself. You should educate yourself on anything you spend money on, or suffer any consequences.

 

But I also believe, and agree with you, that since VPNs are buisnesses, their marketing attempts, and attempts to compete with each other do bring up possibly problematic advertising schemes (i.e. Basically every VPN has some form of "WE'RE #1 VPN EVAR", or "BEST IN CLASS" plastered somewhere on their website)

19 minutes ago, Dravinian said:

 

I don't see PIA as an egregious breacher when it comes to advertising, I see the OPs point regarding the use of gmail within the graphic it is misleading in my view as it creates an inference that could be drawn that is not true, but it can also be defended on the basis that your ISP can see it.

 

I think it is very easy for VPNs to slip and difficult to keep within tight boundaries; of getting their point across but not misleading customers.

I agree with this. I believe PIA is trying to express that things like, you visiting your gmail, can be seen by ISPs, Network owners, or prying eyes on public networks (which they go into detail on their "how it works" tab). I think OP was worried about people taking it out of context and misinterpreting it, but I feel in doing that he also misinterpreted it.

[Teddy07]

You guys really like to beat a dead horse. Just forgett PIA if you don´t like them and move on