Six years ago (sigh), I wrote but never published this blog post begging users to find an alternative to the PPTP VPN protocol. They were already years out of date at that time. Even today, however, well-known companies like ExpressVPN are still providing PPTP to clients despite the fundamentally insecure nature of these types of tunnels. Consider this an intervention. For years, the Virtual Private Network (VPN) has been a mainstay of those trying to keep snoopers away from their online activities. Its important to keep in mind that a VPN is one part of a secure and private online presence - without complementing the use of a VPN with additional tools and habits, the security offered is more narrow than many users believe. There are two main reasons to use a VPN. First and foremost, a VPN is a means of encapsulating your network traffic within an encrypted "tunnel". This makes it extremely difficult to see or manipulate that network traffic. This is typically the type of