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This Video Is Sponsored By ███ VPN

Tom Scott · 5.9M views · 2019-10-28 · 7:26

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Overview

Tom Scott writes a more honest VPN ad, with the sponsor's name redacted, and explains why the typical claims in VPN advertising are misleading. He notes the sponsor was not happy about it.

On Hacker News

The standard link when VPN marketing comes up, as a clear debunking of the scare tactics behind VPN ads.

Recommended by 9 HN people across 9 months · HN mentions 2019–2026

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What people said

jjice · 2023-09 · Strong recommendation

> 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] [VIDEO]

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katbyte · 2021-04 · Strong recommendation

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: [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]

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voidUpdate · 2024-08 · Recommendation

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 [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Tom Scott, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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