[austerity]

First of all, there's no such thing as own server. The trust you are putting into the ISP your "own server" is connected to is exactly the same as the trust you are putting into a VPN provider.

Second, for a lot of people in this world it's a given that their ISP/government is monitoring their traffic. It's vastly better to be potentially spied on by someone abroad then to be certainly spied on by someone who has direct authority over you.

To answer your first question, the most popular use cases for VPN are:

1. Circumventing censorship

2. Circumventing regional content restrictions

3. Hiding your IP while torrenting (note that this is relevant only in the US)

4. Avoiding government surveillance (again, note that US is not the only country in the world, but likely the only one with any meaningful reach outside its borders)

5. Avoiding private surveillance (public wi-fi, etc.)

6. Hiding your IP while engaging in illegal online activities (#3 is a special case of this but it's a vastly larger group so I made it separate)

Note that "weird jurisdictions" can be a significant advantage for cases #3 and #6 (because they are harder to subpoena) as well as #3 (because they don't have retention laws).

[noinsight]

> 3. Hiding your IP while torrenting (note that this is relevant only in the US)

It's not, actually. The same BS is happening in at least Finland too these days.

Legal companies get the rights to some media (in the Nordics or whatever) and monitor some torrents and take screenshots(!) of the IP's in the torrent swarm and can then petition the market court for the subscriber details of the IP addresses in the swarm then send a threatening letter asking for a 500€ settlement. Some idiots are even caving in and paying. I don't think anyone has actually been sued yet for establishing some precedent (though the Finnish legal system isn't based on precedents).

[divbyzer0]

As an example:

I set up a VPN in the Netherlands, hosted on a VPS. I was connecting from another European country (where ISPs block torrent sites).

Within minutes of attempting download of recent movie release, a Cease and Desist was emailed by ip-echelon.com.

[austerity]

Welp, it was only a matter of time... Thanks for the info!

[thepangolino]

> 3. Hiding your IP while torrenting (note that this is relevant only in the US)

The entire German nation would like a word with you, kind sir.

[patrickk]

Further reading: https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/2hxy4j/help_me_ger...

Between this and GEMA, using the internet in Germany is quite restricted.

[yAnonymous]

>3. Hiding your IP while torrenting (note that this is relevant only in the US)

This is relevant in most of Europe and unlike in the U.S., a C/D letter can easily cost you somewhere between 300 and 1000€.

[appleflaxen]

why is there a cost associated with it?